President Donald Trump has released a video message commending the five living ex- presidents appearing together at a hurricane relief concert in Texas, putting aside past criticism of his predecessors to call them “some of America’s finest public servants.”
Ex Presidents Grace Hurricane Relief Concert
Democrats Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter and Republicans George H.W. and George W. Bush are appearing together for the first time since 2013 to raise money for parts of Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands devastated by hurricanes.
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The concert in College Station, Texas, home of Texas A&M University features the country music band Alabama, Rock & Roll Hall of Famer ‘Soul Man’ Sam Moore, gospel legend Yolanda Adams and Texas musicians Lyle Lovett and Robert Earl Keen. “This wonderful effort reminds us that we truly are one nation under God, all unified by our values and devotion to one another,” Trump said yesterday in the video message recorded for the concert. Texas A&M is home to the presidential library of the elder Bush. At 93, he has a form of Parkinson’s disease and uses a motorised scooter or a wheelchair for mobility, though he participated in the coin flip at February’s Super Bowl in his hometown of Houston. George W. Bush was Texas governor before leaving for the White House and now lives in Dallas. There is precedent for former presidents joining forces for post-disaster fundraising. George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton raised money together after the 2004 South Asia tsunami and Hurricane Katrina the next year. Clinton and George W. Bush combined to seek donations after Haiti’s 2011 earthquake.
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“It’s certainly a triple, if not a home run, every time,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston. “Presidents have the most powerful and prolific fundraising base of any politician in the world. When they send out a call for help, especially on something that’s not political, they can rake in big money.” Amid criticism that his administration was initially slow to aid storm-ravaged Puerto Rico, Trump accused island leaders of “poor leadership,” and later tweeted that, “Electric and all infrastructure was disaster before hurricanes” while saying that Federal Emergency Management Agency, first- responders and military personnel wouldn’t be able to stay there forever. But Rottinghaus said those attending Saturday’s concert were always going to be viewed more favourably since polling consistently shows that “any ex-president is seen as less polarising than the current president.” “They can’t get away from the politics of the moment,” he said of current White House occupants. “Ex-presidents are able to step back and be seen as the nation’s grandfather.” Hurricane Harvey slammed into Texas’ Gulf Coast as a Category 4 hurricane on Aug. 25, eventually unleashing historic flooding in Houston and killing more than 80 people. Shortly thereafter, all five ex-presidents appeared in a commercial for a fundraising effort known as “One America Appeal.” In it, George W. Bush says, “People are hurting down here.” His father, George H.W. Bush, then replies, “We love you, Texas.” A website accepting donations, OneAmericaAppeal.org, was created with 100 per cent of proceeds pledged to hurricane relief. Hurricane Irma subsequently hit Florida and Hurricane Maria battered Puerto Rico, while both affected the US Virgin Islands. Organisers expanded the fundraising campaign to help those storm victims, too. ::Also Read::
With the Trump administration readying to tackle tax reform, education policy experts are gearing up for what many predict will be the vehicle for the president making good on his campaign promise to steer $20 billion in federal funding to school choice: a scholarship tax credit. “A lot of people expect that the proposal you’ll hear from the administration directly will likely be for a tax credit for people who donate to organizations that give scholarships,” says Neal McCluskey, the director of Cato's Center for Educational Freedom. Republicans in the House and Senate have already penned a scholarship tax credit proposal that fits the bill. And by hitching a ride on a larger tax overhaul, a scholarship tax credit plan would avoid having to go it alone the way a private school voucher bill would, or a bill to make federal pots of money for poor students or students with disabilities portable – two other legislative proposals that lawmakers have floated. “A tax credit would get a lot less political pushback,” McCluskey says. “The interesting part of that is, I don’t know if the Department of Education itself would have to be all that involved in it because it’s working through the tax code. But I think what you’d see is Secretary [Betsy] DeVos being the public spokesperson for administration’s proposal to have a scholarship tax credit.” Scholarship tax credit programs allow individuals or corporations to write off a percentage of their owed state taxes by making donations to non-profit scholarship-granting organizations that issue the private school scholarships to students. Students can then use that voucher to cover tuition and fees at a private school that’s approved by the scholarship-granting organization. Currently 17 states offer residents some type scholarship tax credit, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Each differs slightly in the amount and types of taxes an individual or corporation can write-off, as well as eligibility requirements for students. It’s unclear exactly how a federal scholarship tax credit program would be structured. The White House has offered few details on its private school choice agenda, including the $250 million proposal included in the president’s fiscal 2018 spending plan. That being said, President Trump and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos have spent a lot of political capital touting Florida’s scholarship tax credit program: Trump called out Denisha Merriweather in his joint address to Congress last month, applauding the young woman who received a school voucher from the Sunshine State’s program to attend a private school and eventually became the first member of her family to graduate from high school and college. Days later, Trump and DeVos visited a Catholic school in Orlando, where hundreds of students attend the school using a voucher from the state's tax credit scholarship program. Florida’s program, which was first implemented in 2001 under former Gov. Jeb Bush, allows corporations to apply for a tax credit to be applied to income tax, sales tax, some excise taxes, insurance premium tax or severance tax. The most common credit, provided for income tax, can be worth up to 75 percent of a corporation’s total income liability. The scholarships are disbursed to low-income students who are entering kindergarten or first grade, or who attended a public school the previous school year. In other states, like Arizona, the program allows both individuals and corporations to claim a tax credit on income, with scholarship funds from individuals going to any student the scholarship-granting organization chooses and scholarship funds from corporations going specifically to low-income students. In Louisiana and Rhode Island, students’ household income must be no more than 250 percent of the federal poverty level, or $60,750 for a family of four, and in Iowa and Virginia it must be no more than 300 percent, or $72,900 for a family of four. Students in Pennsylvania qualify if their family income is $60,000 or less. Many states peg eligibility to whether a student qualifies for free or reduced-priced lunch. In New Hampshire, any student attending a public school qualifies for a voucher from the program, so long as 40 percent of the vouchers are targeted to students who qualify for free and reduced-priced lunch.
Most scholarship tax credit programs have a cap on the total amount of tax credits awarded so that policymakers know and can plan for state revenue that’s lost as a result. The legislative proposal floated by Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Rep. Todd Rokita, R-Ind., would allow for a maximum tax credit of $4,500 for students whose household incomes do not exceed 250 percent of the federal poverty level. It would allow corporations a tax credit up to $100,000 for contributions to scholarship granting organizations, which would be required to distribute 90 percent of their total donations. The administration’s private school choice agenda is a major part of making good on promises by Trump and DeVos to give students in chronically failing schools additional education options. But Democrats have been quick to criticize scholarship tax credit programs, as well as other private school choice proposals, and are likely to put up a fight over any private school choice proposal contained in a tax reform bill. Just last week Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and top Democrat on the Senate education committee, sent a memo to her caucus outlining a case against private school choice policies. “These programs rely on non-profits and are often used to skirt state constitutional requirements that prohibit funds from being used to subsidize religious entities,” she wrote of scholarship tax credit programs specifically. A proposal could under come under fire by Republicans who represents rural areas, as students there typically have no other educational options outside the public school system. That issue was at the heart of DeVos’ contentious confirmation process, as Republican senators from Maine and Alaska refused to support her nomination. While it’s unclear how quickly the administration and Congress will move on an admittedly ambitious overhaul, policy experts expect to have a better sense of the proposal in the coming weeks.
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos talks with Grover "Russ" Whitehurst, senior fellow in the Center on Children and Families in the Economic Studies program at the Brookings Institution on Wednesday in Washington. Welcome to another weekly roundup from the NPR Ed Team, where we lasso the latest news on student aid, school choice, and more. Trump University settlement finalized Thousands of students are set to get money back now that U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel has finalized the $25 million fraud settlement against Trump University. The nonaccredited series of seminars, which shut down in 2010, was advertised as a way to share Donald Trump's expertise in real estate. Several lawsuits argued that the focus instead was on participants' wallets. One playbook for staff members instructed them to target the financially vulnerable. "[f]or example: are they a single parent of three children that may need money for food?" Solution: encourage them to put the expensive course on a credit card or even multiple cards. A holdout member of the class covered in the lawsuit, Sherri Simpson of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., sought to sue Trump individually. The judge dismissed her objection on Friday. DeVos on choice: like taxis vs. Uber? At the Brookings Institution, a centrist, Washington D.C.-based think tank, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos criticized her predecessor, Arne Duncan, for spending $7 billion on school turnaround programs with no discernible result. She also compared charter and private schools to startups Uber and Lyft: "Just as the traditional taxi system revolted against ridesharing, so too does the education establishment feel threatened by the rise of school choice." Some on Twitter seized on the remark, pointing out that Uber has been in a whirlwind of scandal lately and that her analogy left out any public options, including the bus, train or bikeshare. During a Q-and-A with Grover "Russ" Whitehurst, a Brookings senior fellow, DeVos raised eyebrows again. Asked whether school choice could inadvertently harm public schools, she responded, "I'm not sure how they could get a lot worse on a nationwide basis." DeVos cited scores on the Nation's Report Card, or NAEP test, that she said were "stagnant" and on the international PISA test, which she said were "deteriorating." She was swiftly fact-checked by Whitehurst. In most subjects, he pointed out, U.S. performance on PISA is on par with international averages, although we're worse in math. On the NAEP, scores have actually been rising. Student aid data tool down for the count In a surprise announcement Thursday, the IRS warned students who need help paying for college that they're on their own filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA. This year, because of several key changes made by the Obama administration, most students should have been able to use the IRS' Data-Retrieval Tool to quickly answer some of the financial aid form's toughest tax questions. Emphasis on "should have been." Last month, the IRS suddenly announced it had suspended the tool "following concerns that information from the tool could potentially be misused by identity thieves." Thursday, the IRS made clear there will be no simple fix, saying in a statement that "students and families should plan for the tool to be offline until the start of the next FAFSA season." As in, October. Justin Draeger, president and CEO of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA), said his group was "disappointed" by the news. He worried that, in referring to the tool as a "convenience," the IRS Commissioner had betrayed "a disheartening lack of understanding about how vital this tool has become in streamlining the financial aid application process." Interestingly, in this week's statement, the IRS elaborated on its security concerns, suggesting that identity thieves may have already compromised the system to file fraudulent tax returns: "The IRS is working to identify the number of taxpayers affected by questionable use of the Data Retrieval Tool." Until the DRT is back online, students will need to manually fill out their tax information, which can be a challenge for many English language learners and first-generation college students. Trump administration defends accountability for for-profit colleges In a rare instance of upholding an Obama-era rule, Trump administration lawyers defended "gainful employment" in federal court this week. If too many former students struggle to pay back their student loans over time, the rule cuts the for-profit school off from federal student aid dollars. The American Association of Cosmetology Schools opposes the requirement and sued. The group argues that some of their graduates' income comes from cash tips that go unreported to the IRS, making a fair comparison of debt to earnings impossible. Debt collectors pass on big penalties Secretary DeVos recently changed Education Department guidance to allow student loan collectors to immediately charge fees on students in default. After an outcry from Democrats and consumer groups, Bloomberg reported, the debt collectors said they would keep the two-month grace period originally instituted in 2015. Loan forgiveness? Not so fast In other student loan news, back in 2007, the Department of Education created a program called Public Service Loan Forgiveness. Borrowers with certain federal loans were supposed to be eligible to have their loans forgiven after ten years of continuous employment at a nonprofit, or for the government or military, after meeting income qualifications. Soon that first group of loans is due to be erased. More than half a million people have already applied; up to 25 percent of the workforce is theoretically eligible. And according to the New York Times, the department suggested in a legal filing last week that thousands of would-be participants may have their approval revoked at any time, meaning they'll have to pay those loans back after all. Four borrowers, all attorneys, sued the department alongside the American Bar Association after they were retroactively denied eligibility. For-profit alternative school investigation Officials in Philadelphia, Houston and Columbus, Ga. are rethinking their relationship with Camelot Education, a for-profit provider of second-chance or alternative schools. That's after an investigation in Slate by the Teacher Project at Columbia University School of Journalism and ProPublica found multiple allegations of physical abuse and assault by staff members against students.
President-elect Donald Trump “doesn’t know much,” former President Bill Clinton told a local newspaper earlier this month, but “one thing he does know is how to get angry, white men to vote for him.”
Clinton spoke to a reporter from The Record-Review, a weekly newspaper serving the towns of Bedford and Pound Ridge, New York, not far from the Clintons’ home in Chappaqua, New York. The former president held court earlier this month in Ketonah, New York, where he took questions from the reporter and other customers inside a small bookstore.
On the question of Russian cyberattacks damaging the candidacy of his wife, Hillary Clinton, the former president said “you would need to have a single-digit IQ not to recognize what was going on.” But he blamed FBI Director James Comey for her loss, telling those gathered around him that he had “cost her the election” by announcing with less than two weeks to go before the election that the bureau was examining fresh evidence related to her use of a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state. Clinton’s comments were published in the newspaper’s print edition but have not been published online. The former president confirmed that he had, in fact, received a phone call from Trump on the day after the election and that the Manhattan billionaire was strangely cordial, “like it was 15 years ago” when he was friendly with the Clintons and would socialize with them. Clinton said Trump told him that Hillary Clinton “was tougher than I thought she’d be.” He also scoffed at the regular claim from Trump and his team that the president-elect’s Election Day win represented a “landslide” victory, despite the fact that he lost the popular vote. “Landslide? I got something like 370 electoral votes,” Clinton said, correctly recalling his 1992 total. “That was a landslide.”
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