I watch a lot of tv. My wife is consumed with politics so much of what I have on is politics. I really don't pay that much attention to it but, when I do, I have noticed some things,

For instance, the Republicans are at war with one another and are apparently unable to agree on anything so there is little legislation passing through congress. If the Republicans had something like this going in there would be ads, in every market, pointing out that the congressional problem is really a problem with the other party. In this case, however, the dems have no tv ads, no nuth'in. Their talking heads may mention this in passing but, when that actually happens, they also seem to be embarrassed about saying anything at all. There is a lot of stuff going on but and the dems are, in theory, fighting like hell. What they are actually doing is using their political capital in fights they know they are going to lose and come off as the whiners of our political system.

I noticed that there is, currently, an attempt by the left to do something about the student loans. There should be, on their part, a HUGE drive to fix that one. Gov is doing the lending and has tacked on an interest rate that is almost 3 times higher than a person could get at a bank. I talked to a new heart specialist the other day. She had 100,000.oo debt before she even got to medical school and last year she paid back 100,000.00 and that wasn't enough to even touch the capital of the loan. The worst part is that her husand, another heart specialist schooled in Canada. In Canada, if you are a citizen, you get to be a doctor for free if you promise to pracice where their gov needs you. In America we put students, studying for needed skills, into massive debt for the rest of their lives. Their only real option is to move out of America and move someplace where they no longer have to deal with a debt that should not have happened in the first place. I hae, however, full faith that any efforst to fix the problems will die away and the dems will remain as quiet as possible so as not to offend anybody who disagrees (they are very skilled at doing this, and then whine about the results).

Anyway, virtually all the rest of the industrialized nations determine what skills they need and support those studying such by paying for them so they agree to work where gov needs them to, for a few years (usually 3 to 5 years and they get paid whilst working too!). In America, however, gov has now managed to run up more than a trillion dollars of debt whilst at the same time making sure that those with the debts actually hate the government which has, to all practical purposes, screwed them over for the rest of their lives.

Just saying .......

There are ways to get the government to pay for medical training. There are still some nursing school loans that get forgiven if you go work where the government wants you. You can also get the military to pay by serving with them for some time, for undergrads, doctors, dentists, etc.

You don't make the big bucks while working for them, but they do give you a full ride.

I heard, this morning, that New York state is going to take this one on and I hope they suceeed.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/loca...b56a08_story.html?utm_term=.72916533a1ff

If a few blue states step up to the plate on education and single payer healthcare we may see an unstoppable wave of progressive policies being implemented at the state level.
The risk is probably that taxes will invariably rise at the state level which will piss off conservatives within those states and cause losses at the polls which would ultimately lead to tax and service slashing as more conservative state legislators are elected.

Slippery slopes everywhere you look.

Watch California

The states all seem to be in dire financial straights. It also seems that to fix the problem they have been cutting funds, to higher education, for a very long time. This, at least in theory, forced higher education to raise their rates to cover what was lost from the states. All of this kinda makes sense.

I think the problem is in services provided by the states, unpaid federal mandates to the states, and the dedication of the right to lower any tax they can. I wish gov, on both a state, and federal level (even local), would post the budget of every agency being funded by tax dollars and ask the public to rate their importance. This would, at the very least, provide the elected with some data that, right now, seems to come from the imagination of the elected with no basis in fact. The problem, of course, is that our elected, and our bureaucracies are not exactly in favor of the electorate knowing ANYTHING. I am basing this on the simple fact that such information is marginally available on the net but, when dealing with, literally, thousands of entities, its virtually impossible to vet them all and a simple list, agency - name; location, mission, budget, and a link to their site, would be of huge help in all of this. This would allow people to rate each agency on the list and that rating could also be accessed to see what is going on. The rating would be by name and only one vote per ip address would be allowed. (I know, that can be beat but not by everybody?)

Anyway - just a thought...........