Congressman Chaka Fattah Praises Obama’s College Initiatives

Posted on December 5, 2011 by Eric Lagatta

Rep. Fattah

President Obama met with university presidents Monday to promote new initiatives to make college more accessible.

According to a press release from the Office of Congressman Chaka Fattah, Rep. Fattah, the initiator of many college access and affordability programs, praised recent initiates by Obama to increase college graduation rates and to make it more affordable.

“The Obama Administration has made historic investments in Pell Grants and in the American Opportunity Tax Credit (AOTC), which Congressman Fattah introduced and guided to passage in 2009,” said the release.

On Monday, Obama promoted a program to cap some student loan payments at 10 percent of discretionary income.  There was also a “pay as you earn” provision for those in public service careers.

According to the release, Fattah supports Obama in his goal to make the US number one in the world for college graduates by 2020.

Fattah’s AOTC has provided $14 billion in tax credits to help send students from low to middle income families to college, said the press release. He is also responsible for GEAR UP (Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs) and CORE, a scholarship program that provides grants to Philadelphia high school graduates so they have financial assistance to begin college.

Fattah began a four day conference at Drexel University Monday, where he will explain Philadelphia’s college financial aid and access campaign, which the press release said will launch in January.

No matter what the cost of higher education, “ignorance costs more,” said Fattah, according to the press release.

Posted in Policies | 1 Comment

Students From BGSU Give Opinions About 2012 Election

Posted on November 15, 2011 by Eric Lagatta

With the 2012 Presidential election approaching, students from Bowling Green State University weighed in on everything from the issues, to the GOP field, to Obama himself.

Some of the students agreed on what the most important issue is.

The most important issue is “having a plan to help solve our national debt crisis,” said Anthony Vardon, 19, a business major from Akron, Ohio.

Will Forrester, 20, also a business major from Sylvania, Ohio, agreed with Vardon but added a second issue.

“I also think the war in Iraq is big,” he said.

GOP contenders from left to right: Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, Ron Paul, Herman Cain, Jon Huntsman

The students had many ideas about who would win the nomination.

“I think Mitt Romney will win the Republican nomination,” Vardon said.

Forrester thought Herman Cain was coming on strong and may get the nomination.

According to a USA Today Gallup Poll, Romney is now tied with Cain for the lead in the Republican field.

Romney has raised $1.03 million from Michigan donors while President Obama came in second in fundraising in the state, with $718,519, according to an article for CNN.

According to the CNN article, Obama and his re-election team have been criticizing Romney for proposing tax breaks to the rich and spending cuts against the middle class.  The article said that this criticism was due to Romney being the frontrunner.

The students noticed challenges Obama will need to overcome as the incumbent.

Obama campaigning for re-election

“Obama’s biggest weakness was promising too many things and not delivering,” Forrester said.

Vardon thinks that one of these things relates to the economy.

“He has been contributing an enormous amount of money to our national debt,” Vardon said.

According to an article for the New York Times, a report released by Obama’s economic team ten days before he took the oath of office in 2009 projected the benefits of the stimulus plan he was seeking. Now, looking back at the report, the stimulus did not do what was projected, which has rallied Republicans to call for less spending, the article said.

Alex Howard, 19, a business management major from Upper Sandusky, Ohio, thinks that high taxes will hurt Obama in his bid for re-election.

“Taxes have increased under Obama, and this may be due to his spending,” Howard said.  “People don’t like their taxes to be raised, so they may turn to a Republican candidate.”

Students also noted some of Obama’s strengths.

His biggest strength, as Howard sees it, is his healthcare reform.

“I think it has come to define his first term and even though it got a lot of criticism, it helped a lot of people,” he said.  “I think these people will vote for him again.”

Vardon said that Obama’s biggest strength in the election is that he will have the black vote.

Vardon and Howard both agreed that Obama will most likely be re-elected.

“Although it is not who I would vote for, I think Obama will win the election,” Vardon said.

Forrester, however, thinks Cain will win the election.

“I think Cain has the best chance because he will take more of the black votes from Obama,” he said.

 

Posted in Presidential Campaign | 3 Comments

Obama Signs an Executive Order to Address Prescription Drug Shortages

Posted on October 31, 2011 by Eric Lagatta

Charles Dharapak/AP. President Obama signed the executive order on Monday

President Obama issued an executive order Monday directing the FDA to take measures to reduce drug shortages and drug prices.

The president is taking these actions to respond to a growing drug shortage that has caused prices to rise, said Alan Silverleib in an article for CNN

According to an article by Gardiner Harris for the New York Times, these measures include three things: Increase reporting of potential shortages of drugs; speed reviews of applications to begin or alter production of these drugs; and provide more information to the Justice Department about possible instances of stockpiling of drugs to intentionally raise prices.

The FDA will also be required to increase the total number of staffers dealing with drug shortage issues, said Silverleib.

At least 180 drugs have been declared in short supply, Harris said.

Along with Obama’s order, the administration also released two reports that blame a dysfunctional marketplace for the shortages.

The analyses found that  just five large hospital buying groups buy almost 90 percent of the needed medicines, and only seven companies manufacture the majority of supply. It found that “the economic and technical hurdles to participating in this market have made it exceedingly inflexible,” Harris said.

The analyses also found that nearly half of the shortages followed inspections that found safety and quality problems. This included injectibles with glass shards, metal filings and bacterial contamination, the reports found.

“President Obama, faced with what he described as an ‘increasingly dysfunctional’ Congress, has turned repeatedly in recent weeks to the time-honored, but often controversial executive order to unilaterally make policy,” said Scott Neuman in an article for NPR.

This has included issues such as mortgage relief, jobs for veterans , and student loan payments.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told the press that the administration will continue to use its executive branch authority to pass legislation without congressional assistance. This is in response to the growing frustration the administration has felt with GOP opposition to the president’s $447 billion jobs plan, as well as other policy initiatives, Silverleib said.

“The shortage of prescription drugs drives up costs, leaves consumers vulnerable to price gouging and threatens our health and safety,” Obama said in a written statement. “This is a problem we can’t wait to fix.”

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Ron Paul Still a Strong GOP Candidate

Posted on October 24, 2011 by Eric Lagatta

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press last Sunday to discuss the current campaign and policy issues.

During the interview, Paul criticized GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney.  When it comes to the most important issues, Paul doesn’t see a difference between Romney and President Barack Obama, said Wolf Blitzer in a blog post for CNN.

Paul thinks that Romney and Obama hold the same stance on entitlement spending, auditing the Federal Reserve and cutting the nation’s debt.

“There would not be a significant difference between the two – although on the edges, maybe,” Paul said. “So, no, the regulatory system, the spending, the deficits, the printing of money, they stay the same.”

One of Paul’s policies is a return to the gold standard and according to an article for Ology by Noah Rothman, Paul’s economic reforms include $1 trillion in budget cuts.

Rep. Paul on Meet the Press

One of the main areas Paul would make spending cuts to is the military.

During Sunday’s interview, Paul was critical of the U.S foreign policy. He said he was doubtful the president would really end the engagement in Iraq, despite Obama’s Friday announcement that troops would leave by year’s end, said Elizabeth Williamson in a blog for the Wall Street Journal.

“Throughout the campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, the Texas congressman has called for a deficit-saddled nation to withdraw not only from Iraq, but from Afghanistan and other parts of the world,” Williamson said. Paul’s “views on foreign intervention, more than any other factor, explains his uneasy fit within the Republican Party.”

Despite his diverging views with the Republican party, Paul has support in national polls of no lower than 4 percent, Rothman said.

Paul has also been able to raise a lot of money. He raised more than $2.75 million in his latest ‘”money bomb,” a fundraiser that only lasts a few days, which began last Wednesday and ended this Monday.  These were mostly in small contributions from thousands of donors, said Catalina Camia in an article for USA Today.

Paul “raised about $8.3 million from July through September and had about $3.7 million in the bank to spend going into the last quarter of the year,” Camia said.


 

Posted in Presidential Campaign | 2 Comments

President Obama Promotes Jobs Bill

Posted on October 17, 2011 by Eric Lagatta

President Obama Signs Bill

President Obama arrived in North Carolina on Monday and delivered a speech that criticized the recent vote by Senate Republicans that blocked his $447 billion jobs bill.

In his speech, Obama emphasized that his bill will create jobs and and boost the economy.

According to a CNN article, Obama’s main goals with the bill are to extend and expand the payroll tax cut, extend jobless benefits, provide tax cuts to businesses that hire unemployed people and add additional money to help “save and create” jobs for teachers and first-responders.

The GOP in the Senate unanimously opposed the bill. Republicans filibustered the jobs bill last week and even some Democrats said they would have opposed it if it had made it to the Chamber’s floor.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Virginia, expressed a willingness to compromise but stated that Republicans will not agree to tax increases. Republicans have accused Obama of class warfare while Democrats say the wealthy need to share in the fiscal responsibility as well.

Obama and his administration are currently working to break “up the jobs bill into individual measures on spending and tax cuts,” said Mark Landler in an article for the New York Times.  Once completed, Obama said, Congress will be asked to vote on each measure separately.

The first part of the job bill to come up for a vote will be a component granting $35 billion in aid to states and local jurisdictions.  This vote has yet to be scheduled by Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid.

If Congress doesn’t pass this, Obama said to the crowd, “then they’re not going to have to answer to me. They’re going to have to answer to you.”

 

Posted in Policies | 4 Comments

About Myself

Posted on October 12, 2011 by Eric Lagatta

My name is Eric Lagatta and I’m a sophomore at Bowling Green State University.  My major is journalism and my minor is philosophy.  I chose journalism as my major because I love the news and want to be a reporter one day.  My main interest is politics, which is what this blog will cover.  I hope to work for a newspaper one day, and hopefully work as a freelance writer for a national magazine. This year, I am a reporter for the BG News, the student run newspaper.

Posted in About | 1 Comment