Nashville DA Glenn Funk rejects $354,000 in state money for DUI prosecutions, refuses to say why
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Saturday, November 26, 2022
Student Loan Pause Could Cost $275 Billion. Major beneficiaries are the wealthier. New doctors receive almost ten times the benefit of the average borrower
Commitee for a Responsible Federal Budget, Nov. 22, 2022- The Department of Education announced it would extend the pause to the sooner of 60 days after resolution of the student debt cancellation litigation or 60 days after June 30, 2023 (which would be the end of August, based on our understanding). An extension to the end of August 2023 would cost $40 billion, bringing the total cost of the pause to $195 billion.
Recent reports suggest the Biden Administration plans to once again extend the federal student loan payment moratorium – currently set to expire on December 31, 2022 – in light of court rulings against the Administration’s unilateral student debt cancellation plan. As we’ve shown several times before, extending the pause is costly, inflationary, regressive, and economically unjustified.
The pause costs over $5 billion per month and extending it through the end of 2024 would cost at least $120 billion. This would bring the total cost since Spring of 2020 to $275 billion. This represents about 70 percent of the cost of the President’s announced debt cancellation plan and is higher than the ten-year cost of President Biden’s proposal to double the maximum Pell Grant by 2029.
Extending the pause would also worsen inflation. We previously estimated the pause could add up to 20 basis points to inflationary pressures, which could lead the Federal Reserve to further raise interest rates and increase the risk of a deeper recession.
As we’ve shown before, the benefit of the pause accrues disproportionately to those with advanced degrees. Should the President extend the policy through the end of 2024, the nearly five-year long pause would mean that a typical medical student who graduated in 2019 would effectively have $107,000 forgiven and a law school graduate would have $65,000 forgiven. That’s compared to the average borrower receiving $11,000 of forgiveness. Between 75 to 80 percent of the forgiveness would be from the pause itself and the rest from the effects of higher inflation on eroding debt. New doctors receive almost ten times the benefit of the average borrower and $107,000 more than someone who never attended college.
The pause disproportionately benefits borrowers in higher-paid professions because people in those professions tend to borrow more and pay higher interest rates. Indeed, roughly 40 percent of debt is held by the 7 percent of borrowers that have over $100,000 of debt and 17 percent is held by the 2 percent of borrowers with over $200,000 of debt. Most of these borrowers have advanced degrees that lead to very high lifetime earnings; 16 of the 18 highest paying occupations in America are types of medical doctors and the other two are types of dentists.
Overall, the student debt pause is far more regressive than the President’s announced cancellation of $10,000 to $20,000 of debt. While we’ve estimated 57 to 65 percent of the President’s debt cancellation plan would go to those in the top half, it’s likely that well over three-quarters of the benefit of the pause goes to the top half (73 percent of repayments come from the top two income quintiles).
It is also completely unjustified under current economic conditions. The pause began as an emergency when the economy was in free fall, the country was largely shut down because of the pandemic, and the unemployment rate was surging toward 15 percent. The unemployment rate is only 3.7 percent today and only 1.9 percent among college graduates. The emergency phase of the pandemic has long since passed, and most borrowers are actually financially better off than they were before the pandemic. The biggest threat to the economy is now inflation – which extending the pause would exacerbate.
Ultimately, continuing the pause would be expensive, regressive, inflationary, and unjustified. The pause has already been extended seven times – and the Administration has announced twice that it would come to an end. Reneging on this again will undermine the Administration’s credibility to cancel future debt, especially from the $250 billion of new federal student loans issued over the course of the pause.
Regardless of what the court decides on the legality of debt cancellation itself, it’s time to restart payments.
Emphasis was added by the editor. For more on this topic visit Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
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Tennessee's school voucher program wins court challenge
by Mariah Timms, The Tennessean, Nov. 23, 2022- Tennessee's contentious school voucher program in Nashville and Memphis can go ahead without court intervention, a three-judge panel ruled Wednesday.
The program, which allows families in Nashville and Shelby County schools to use public funds for private school costs and tuition, has been in legal limbo since it squeaked past the legislature in 2019.
... "This controversy is merely a disagreement of public policy and inappropriate for judicial decision," the majority wrote on Wednesday. ... "The Court's decision secures access to additional educational opportunities for thousands of children in Shelby and Davidson counties," Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti's office wrote.
The Institute for Justice says it is the nation’s leading advocate for school choice and was joined by the Beacon Center of Tennessee in intervening in the case. (link)
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Thursday, November 24, 2022
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Wednesday, November 23, 2022
AIER’s Bastiat Society program in Nashville will host an in-person event with William J. Luther, Nov 29. "Why Are Prices So High?"
AIER’s Bastiat Society program in Nashville will host an in-person event with William J. Luther, associate professor of economics at Florida Atlantic University and director of the American Institute for Economic Research’s Sound Money Project.
Prices have risen rapidly over the last two years. Some claim prices are higher due to supply constraints. Others blame the Federal Reserve. Dr. William Luther assesses these two views and considers the likelihood that inflation will remain high well into the future.
Eventbrite Ticket Required. Register Here.
More about the speaker: William J. Luther is an associate professor of economics at Florida Atlantic University and director of the American Institute for Economic Research’s Sound Money Project. The Social Science Research Network currently ranks him in the top five percent of business authors. Luther has published articles in leading scholarly journals. His work has been featured by major media outlets, including NPR, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, TIME Magazine, U.S. News & World Report, Barron’s, Forbes, Fortune, National Review, The Guardian, POLITICO, and VICE News. He earned his MA and PhD in Economics at George Mason University.
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Monday, November 21, 2022
The proposed new Titans stadium would have 60,000 seats. Is that enough for a Super Bowl?
The Tennessean, ... The 1.7 million-square-foot stadium design on the table would feature around 60,000 seats, about 9,000 less than Nissan Stadium and the smallest seating capacity in a National Football League stadium overall. The new stadium would also have around 5,000 fewer parking spaces. (link)
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National Review’s editors declare Trump “unworthy of the Republican nomination."
By THE EDITORS, National Review, November 15, 2022 -...A bruised Donald Trump announced a new presidential bid on Tuesday night, an invitation to double down on the outrages and failures of the last several years that Republicans should reject without hesitation or doubt. ...
... the Trump administration was chaotic even on its best days because of his erratic nature and lack of seriousness. He often acted as if he were a commentator on his own presidency, and issued orders on Twitter and in other off-the-cuff statements that were ignored. He repeatedly had to be talked out of disastrous ideas by his advisers and Republican elected officials. He turned on cabinet officials and aides on a dime. Trump had a limited understanding of our constitutional system, and at the end of the day, little respect for it. His inability to approximate the conduct that the public expects of a president undermined him from beginning to end.
... he threw away two Georgia Senate seats in a fit of pique over Governor Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger refusing to bend to his will. The resulting loss of Senate control allowed Biden to get trillions of dollars in spending that he wouldn’t have gotten otherwise and confirm large numbers of progressive judges.
... The answer to Trump’s invitation to remain personally and politically beholden to him and his cracked obsessions for at least another two years, with all the chaos that entails and the very real possibility of another highly consequential defeat, should be a firm, unmistakable, No. (read it all)
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Trump Blasts National Review
By JACK CROWE, National Review, November 18, 2022 - Former president Donald Trump ripped into National Review on Friday, arguing that it is a magazine without any remaining influence in an official statement issued ....
“Why does anyone read the National Review. They are so negative to Conservatives and me, and are seen as being led by lightweights that couldn’t shine the shoes of Bill Buckley. They have absolutely nothing going, it is failing fast, and my only question is, who is paying for the losses — when it loses plenty of money and serves no purpose at all. People are tired of haters — let the National Review die peacefully!” the statement reads. (link)
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Saturday, November 19, 2022
Republicans need to embrace early voting, learn to "cure" and "harvest" mail-in ballots, and meddle in Democrat primaries.
by Rod Williams, Nov. 18, 2022 - Now that the dust has settled from the mid-term election, it is safe to say that Republicans "underperformed." There was no Tsunami, no red wave; there was barely a pink trickle.
I am not disappointed. I did not want to see Republicans loyal to Donald Trump constitute a supermajority. I put loyalty to our nation above loyalty to Donald Trump. I did not want to see people holding office who would only certify election results if their party won. I am pleased that the worst of the election deniers lost. I did my part to help achieve this outcome. For the first time in my life, I contributed money to Democrats. In several races, I sent money to the Democrat opponents of the worst of the Trumpinistas.
While I did not want to see election-denying Trump loyalists take control of the legislative branch, at the same time, I did not want to see a clear Democrat majority that could advance the Biden agenda. What we got was gridlock. While the Dems control the Senate, not much legislation will make it past the Republican-controlled House to make it to the Senate. Given the circumstances, we got the best outcome possible.
Under normal circumstances, Republicans should have won big. With an unpopular president, high inflation, a crime wave, a southern border out of control, an energy crisis, a pandemic response based on pandering to teachers' unions rather than public health concerns, public schools that dumb-down kids and indoctrinate them, and the still recent Afghanistan debacle, the Republicans should have easily taken back both chambers of Congress. Instead, Republicans had the worst midterm performance of a party out of power in two decades, Where did Republicans go wrong?
I think the number one thing leading to this debacle is that the leader of the Republican Party is Donald Trump. Not enough people wanted to vote for a party, whose leader tried to overthrow the government and prevent the peaceful transfer of power. Also, Republicans had some loser candidates. Too many of our Republican candidates were conspiracy mongers and election deniers. Some were downright nut jobs. Trump's handpicked election-denying candidates underperformed horribly. I hope this Republican underperformance results in a diminishing of Donald Trump and the nomination of fewer nutjobs candidates.
I think it was not only trump and Trumpinista candidates that are the reason for a poor Republican performance, however. There are other things that I think contributed to a Republican loss and these are things that need to be fixed. Below are three campaign strategy changes I would recommend to the Republican Party.
Embrace Early voting.
Democrats are more likely to vote early than Republicans. This is generally true but not universal. In Florida, more Republicans vote early than do Democrats. Forbes reports that among the states that report early voters’ party affiliations, 43% of ballots were cast by Democrats and 34% were cast by Republicans (1). I am unsure why Republicans tend to shun early voting but we should embrace it and get out the early vote. Instead of the twentieth email or text or US mail solicitation to vote for candidate X, some of those solicitations should be to vote for candidate X and vote early.
A vote cast early means that a voter cannot change his mind due to a last-minute political development, or cannot fail to vote because of work obligations, family obligations, accident, illness, or death. An early vote is a vote in the bank. Republicans need an early voting strategy.
Learn to live with mail-in ballots and engage in ballot harvesting and promote ballot curing.
I would like to see mail-in voting curtailed. While there has been no evidence of widespread voter fraud tied to mail-in voting, the potential is there. In 2020 due to the Covid pandemic, many states liberalized their requirements for early voting, some without legislative action but in response to court orders. I support legislative action to roll back mail-in ballot voting and efforts to regulate who can pick up and deliver mail-in ballots. While trying to do that, however, Republicans need to learn to compete with Democrats for the mail-in vote.
There are three strategies for winning the mail-in vote. Republicans should encourage mail-in voting among eligible Republicans, should make sure Republicans take advantage of available ballot curing and Republicans should engage in legal ballot harvesting.
Republicans should target the Republican elderly and other Republican voters who may be eligible to vote by mail with advertisements informing them of the process and urging them to take advantage of it.
Ballot curing is the process of fixing a defective ballot after it is mailed in. A lot of mail-in ballots are initially rejected because of failure to follow procedures. Rejected ballots could make a big difference in the outcome of a close election. Rejected ballots may be rejected because something like the signature on the outside of the envelope does not match the signature on file. This may be "cured." It may be as simple as filing an affidavit with the election officials that says something like, "Mrs. John Doe is the same person as Ms. Jane Doe." Democrats are much better than Republicans about checking to make sure mail-in ballots are counted and if not, contacting Democrat voters and telling them how to "fix" or "cure" a defective ballot. Republicans need to be as good as Democrats at this.
Ballot harvesting is the process of someone going out and calling on voters to collect from them the mail-in ballot they were mailed. I think this process should be banned or greatly curtailed. In my view, all mail-in ballots should be returned by US mail. Even if that is the case, there is still room for someone to knock on a door, help the voter fill out the ballot, collect it from them, and put it in the mailbox for them.
The campaign worker doing this only calls on the people who are of his party. This kind of ballot harvesting works well in assisted living facilities and nursing homes. Democrats are much better at doing this than Republicans. Republicans need to get as good as Democrats at this form of campaigning. When you think about it, this is not much different than giving elderly nursing home voters a ride to the polls on election day. You only give people of your party the ride. While Republicans may be squeamish about ballot harvesting, as long as it is legal, we need to be as good as the Democrats about doing it.
Meddle in Democrat primaries.
Perhaps the most important thing Republicans could do to improve their chances in the next election is to meddle in Democrat primaries.
In the Republican primaries prior to the 2022 midterm election, Democrats threw a lot of money into the campaign of the most Trumpinista of Republicans. They spent more than $40 million boosting the candidacy of six GOP candidates. These radical Trumpinista Republicans beat their more mainstream primary challengers and the Trumpinista Republicans won their primary. The strategy was to nominate the most easily beatable Republicans. It worked. The Trumpinistas won the primary and all six lost to their Democratic challenger in the General Election.
While this practice may appear distasteful, Republicans need to fight fire with fire and play the game. Republicans should help the most extreme Democrats in Democratic primaries. We should help nominate the most beatable Democrats.
Now, this would not work everywhere. There are Democrat strongholds where a candidate could not be too woke or too leftist to be elected. No doubt there are some urban congressional districts in college towns where a committed Maoist would not be too extreme for the electorate. There are districts, however, where the Democrat voters are not totally committed leftists and where a moderate Republican could beat a super woke, super leftist Democrat. In those districts, we need to nominate the worst Democrat we can find.
What would these candidates look like? It would be a candidate who advocates or has advocated defunding the police. It would be someone who favors open borders, and pro-illegal immigration policies. Such policies as welfare benefits for illegals and giving illegals the right to vote, defunding ICE and Border Patrol, or tearing down the Trump border wall. It would be someone who advocates a national law to permit unrestricted abortion up until birth and the government pay for the abortion. It would be someone who wants to forgive all student loans and make college free. It would be someone who supports what is called "gender-affirming" policies. It would be Democrats who do not shy away from advocating support for "democratic socialism."
In addition to the candidate taking these radical positions, the candidate needs to be on the record taking these positions so that in the general election, a graphic presentation of out-of-control crime can be shown along with a film clip of the candidate saying we need to defund the police, preferably before a cheering crowd. Or, the out-of-control border can be shown with the candidate advocating tearing down the Trump wall. There might only be half a dozen districts where this can work, but that can make a difference in which party has control of Congress.
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Friday, November 18, 2022
Metro Nashville paid $120K for consulting services on Tennessee Titans' $2.1B stadium deal
The report was released on Friday in a records request from Justin Hayes, an interested Nashville resident.
Inner Circle Sports is a subcontractor of Hilltop Securities, who holds a $750,000 contract with Metro Nashville. Inner Circle Sports’ David Abrams and William DiBlasi were paid the $120,000 for six months of work on the negotiations between last Dec. 27 and June 30. A contract or invoices for work beyond June 30 was not included in the request.
Both appeared before Nashville’s East Bank Stadium Committee to present the proposed deal, which includes at least $1.26 billion of public funding.
The contract stated that Inner Circle’s work was to "prepare a set of objectives for determining the appropriate level of investment and terms around the improvement of the existing NFL stadium to current NFL standards. ICS will assist Metro in developing parameters around which Metro may agree to tender, lease or sell property surrounding the NFL Stadium to the Team to further develop in accordance with an agreed upon set of project standards, risk allocation and expectations related to return on contributions."
Invoices said that Inner Circle held weekly video and telephone calls along with three trips to Nashville.
Hilltop, meanwhile, is under contract for independent financial analysis of bond sales and refunding, a commercial paper program and financial transactions and general financial advising related to bonds. (To view documents relevant to this story, follow this link.)
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The Federalist Society host "School Choice Post Carson: in Tennessee and beyond," Nov. 21st.
Braden H. Boucek serves as Director of Litigation at the Southeastern Legal Foundation (SLF). His cases at SLF focus on restoring constitutional balance, equal protection, the First Amendment, and property rights. He is an avid defender of America's Founding and a constitutional law professor. He has also actively litigated school choice cases. Prior to joining SLF, he served as Vice President of Legal Affairs at the Beacon Center of Tennessee, where he worked on economic liberty, dedicated himself to Tennessee's unique constitutional rights, and protecting the free speech rights of professionals.
Shaka Mitchell is the Tennessee Director for the American Federation for Children where he leads AFC’s campaign to increase educational choice across the state. Most recently as Rocketship Education’s Regional Director for the state of Tennessee Shaka was responsible for the planning, growth, and success of Rocketship’s network of high-quality, elementary charter schools in Nashville and Memphis. Rocketship now currently serves roughly 1,200 students across Nashville. Shaka began his career in education as the Associate Director of Policy and Planning at the D.C.-based Center for Education Reform. He then led outreach efforts at the Institute for Justice, a constitutional law firm based in Arlington, VA. Prior to joining Rocketship, Shaka was the Director of External Affairs for LEAD Public Schools, a network of public charter schools founded in Nashville, TN.
Event Details
- Date: Monday, November 21st, 2022.
- Time: 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM CT
- Location: Womble Bond Dickinson, 1222 Demonbreun St., 9th Floor, Nashville, TN, 37203
- To RSVP: Click Here
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