Editorial Roundup: United States
Excerpts from recent editorials in the United States and abroad:
___
Aug. 18
The Washington Post says the new FAFSA is still a problem
It’s a depressingly familiar Washington story: A well-meaning update of a single Education Department college form turned into a massive policy blunder, harming the very students and universities it was meant to help. Worse, the department now appears to have failed to fix the problem in time for another application cycle. The department, and perhaps even Congress, needs to end the saga of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), now.
FAFSA is a form would-be college students fill out as they apply and consider whether and where to enroll. Students provide financial information to the Education Department, which then determines their eligibility for Pell Grants and federally subsidized student loans. It also transmits that information to colleges and universities, which use it to distribute private aid. In other words, FAFSA is crucial to financing Americans’ higher educations. It also has a well-deserved reputation for being grueling to fill out.
So, in the 2020 FAFSA Simplification Act, Congress instructed the Education Department to pare down the 108-question application to just 36 questions, giving federal authorities an October 2022 deadline. When it became clear the department could not meet that deadline, Congress extended it to this past January. But the department still struggled.
After months of delays, the department released its simpler form in December, shortly before the extended deadline. That release date meant it came out months later than students would usually be allowed to begin completing the form; the FAFSA season typically begins on Oct. 1, giving students time to gather financial information, turn in paperwork and weigh financial aid offers. Despite the extra time the department got, the new FAFSA was riddled with technical glitches. Data or processing errors marred some 30 percent of the 7 million FAFSA records the department sent to colleges.
Nearly 10 percent fewer high school seniors — about 225,000 students — filled out the 2023-2024 FAFSA compared to in the prior academic year, according to the National College Attainment Network. The department claims the dip was lower — some 4 percent. Either way, it suggests students were deterred from applying for college aid they were due. Black and Latino students and low-income communities were hit the hardest, with school districts lacking resources to help them navigate the process.
Those who completed their forms did so 75 days later than in prior years, on average. Once they submitted their forms, the department took months to send colleges the profiles of students’ financial status necessary to dispense aid offers. All this delay meant some students likely had to make decisions about where to attend college — or whether to attend at all — without full information about their financial options. One possible result is that some will incur more debt. Colleges could get hurt, too. An enrollment dip in one year means they lose four years of revenue per student who does not enroll.
One obvious imperative is to return to the regular Oct. 1 release date. But the department announced last week that it would begin only phased testing in October and conduct a full release on Dec. 1. If that is the case, federal officials should at least invest in old-fashioned customer service, communicating with students and their families about when and how they can fill out their forms and deal with technological glitches. Call centers should be open on the weekends, for example. Colleges should have an easier time fixing FAFSA errors, too, yet the department earlier this year rescinded one initiative that would have helped with that.
Congress should not escape responsibility, either. Easing the FAFSA process is a worthy cause. If the Education Department needs more money to fix the system, lawmakers should find it.
ONLINE: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/08/18/fafsa-college-financial-aid/
___
Aug. 16
The Wall Street Journal says Kamala Harris embraces “Nixonomics”
We wrote Friday that Kamala Harris was likely to continue President Biden’s unfinished Build Back Better agenda, but it turns out we were far too optimistic. The policy priorities the Vice President laid out Friday are much worse, including a plan to impose national price controls on food and groceries.
Ms. Harris’s political problem is that the Biden-Harris economic policies have delivered inflation and declining real incomes. The high price of food is a particular sore point, and the Vice President’s response is to make it worse by resorting to Venezuelan-style left-wing populism. That’s no exaggeration.
On Friday she floated a “first-ever federal ban on price gouging on food and groceries,” including “new authority” for the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general to punish companies for charging too much.
This sounds like legislation introduced by Sen. Elizabeth Warren that would ban “grossly excessive prices” as determined by the Federal Trade Commission. Business violations would carry a penalty of up to 5% of annual revenue. This would effectively let the FTC set prices. But what is an excessive price? Is $4 too much for a gallon of milk in Omaha? Is it a different price in Miami? FTC Chair Lina Khan and her army of bureaucrats would presumably decide.
There is also no evidence that supermarkets or other food retailers are gouging anyone. Food prices are higher than they were before the Biden Presidency, but that is because of inflation. Retail grocery prices have risen roughly in tandem with wholesale prices. Supermarkets also have narrow margins on sales—roughly 2%, compared to 8% on average for other businesses.
Fixing prices is a recipe for shortages, as controls would discourage grocery suppliers. Voilà, empty store shelves. Price controls have led to shortages everywhere they’ve been tried, from Moscow to Caracas.
The last American President to impose wage and price controls was Richard Nixon in the early 1970s. He had to stage a humiliating retreat amid shortages and market dislocations, and prices immediately soared when controls were lifted. If Ms. Harris really believes in this price-fixing, she lacks the most basic understanding of economics. If she is merely floating it to be able to get “price gouging” into a speech, her cynicism is also telling.
Ms. Harris’s other ideas aren’t much better. She wants an expanded $3,600 child tax credit, with a bonus to $6,000 for newborns, which together would cost more than $1.2 trillion over a decade. These would be essentially a guaranteed income since Ms. Harris wants to make the credits fully refundable—i.e., available for people who don’t work.
She also wants to revive the American Rescue Plan’s earned-income tax credit boost for childless households, roughly tripling it to $1,500 from $600. Democrats claim the credit promotes work, but studies show otherwise. It’s also rife with fraud. The Internal Revenue Service estimates the “improper payment rate” is about 25%.
The Biden-Harris inflation has made homes unaffordable for most young families, and her brainstorm for that is … more subsidies. Ms. Harris wants $25,000 in down-payment assistance for “first-time” home buyers. But this would merely drive home prices higher. States and localities mainly regulate housing, but Ms. Harris wants to federalize it with a bonanza of Washington programs to encourage “affordable” home construction.
Ms. Harris has endorsed the Biden plan to condition tax breaks for developers on rent caps, which will discourage new housing investment. No state has spent more on housing than her native California, yet it has the nation’s highest home prices. As a result of sundry regulations, it costs more than $1 million to build an “affordable” housing unit in the Golden State.
We could go on about her other ideas, such as her embrace of Mr. Biden’s $5 trillion in tax increases. But the ideas she claimed as her own Friday reveal a candidate whose economic judgment is deeply flawed.
___
Aug. 20
The Los Angeles Times says Kamala Harris’ nomination is a big moment in American history
Barely a month ago, it was hard to imagine anything but a fraught and woebegone Democratic National Convention presided over by a post-debate President Biden sinking in the polls to Donald Trump. Instead, Vice President Kamala Harris arrives in Chicago this week on an astonishing and unexpected groundswell of support and enthusiasm as the presidential candidate who wasn’t supposed to be.
When Harris gets the official nod later this week, it won’t be a surprise. She has already secured the necessary delegate support. Nevertheless, it will be a singular moment in American history.
The California politician is neither the first woman to be nominated as the Democratic candidate for president, nor the first Black person to be nominated as the Democratic candidate for president. But she will be the first nominee who is both a woman and Black — and South Asian. Those things alone make her a historic figure.
Of course there was a path trod before her. In 1972, the late Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm was the first Black person and first woman to seek a presidential nomination from one of the two major political parties. In 1976, the late Congresswoman Barbara Jordan was the first Black person and the first woman to deliver a keynote address at the Democratic convention.
The Harris who wraps up the convention is a different Harris from the short-lived candidate in the 2020 presidential primary, who morphed into Biden’s running mate and then the vice president, with the requisite stumbles and cringeworthy interviews along the way.
This summer, she never sounded more eloquent and commanding than when she was defending Biden after his catastrophic performance in the June presidential debate.
Hers has, so far, been one of the most successful turns by an understudy who stepped into a lead role. This week, she must give her best performance yet.
But even before she makes her acceptance speech on Thursday, she heads into a convention already made extraordinary by Biden’s last-minute decision to exit the race and her electrifying ascendance to the presumptive Democratic nominee for president.
It’s not just that she arrives on a wave of energy, having nudged the polls from trailing Trump to slightly leading him. She has won support among Black, white, Gen Z and millennial voters, and been anointed by singer Charli XCX as “brat.” Charli XCX’s term for an edgy party girl has now expanded to include a presidential candidate with a suit, pearls, a big laugh and a bigger resume.
Part of her appeal is how clear-eyed and upbeat she is about the election and the future. Her message is not about glorifying herself, but about making the country a better place for everyone (not just loyalists) by keeping the presidency out of the hands of Trump. As she soberly reminded a group at a campaign stop in western Pennsylvania on Sunday: “ We have a lot of work to do to earn the vote of the American people.”
Consider where Harris and the country stand at this moment in time. We are a century past the ratification of a woman’s right to vote and 150 years past the 15th Amendment, which guaranteed that no one could be denied the right to vote based on race. (Although it would take the Voting Rights Act in 1965 to get that enforced.) Yet, a mere two years ago, women lost the constitutional right to control their own bodies and now face an onslaught of regressive laws that treat them as incubators. Soon, this particular woman might be in control of the entire nation. How righteous would that be?
___
Aug. 19
The Guardian says Kamala Harris must be candidate of change and of continuity
A month ago, Joe Biden and his aides were beginning to draft a closing speech with which, on Thursday, he would top off this week’s Democratic convention in Chicago. The speech would seal Mr Biden’s bid for a second White House term and send his party out to do battle with Donald Trump in November. Instead, on Monday, Mr Biden did not deliver the convention’s closing address. He delivered his own.
Mr Biden’s convention speech is one of his last big moments in the political spotlight, and the start of his withdrawal from the US political field after half a century. From today, the Democratic party belongs to Kamala Harris. It is she who matters now. For the next few days, Mr Biden will not be in Chicago or on the campaign trail, but on holiday.
If Mr Biden had not withdrawn from the race, as he did last month, Democrats would undoubtedly have greeted him in Chicago with enthusiasm. But the misgivings about his age, his grasp and his ability to serve four years would never have been far away, not least in the media coverage. Nor would the growing and gut-wrenching expectation of defeat in November’s general election, a defeat that could change the United States – and the world – for ever, in irreparable ways.
By stepping down, Mr Biden has turned that situation around, at least for now. Ms Harris has moved smoothly into the campaign driving seat. The party has quickly united behind her and Governor Tim Walz. They have been rewarded with a huge influx of cash and a Democratic poll uptick, both nationally and in swing states. Down-ballot Democrats are relieved too. Mr Trump still seems nonplussed. Expectations of a Democratic defeat have been replaced by expectations of a competitive contest that is winnable once again.
All of this will have assured Mr Biden of a hero’s welcome in the appropriately named United Center on Monday night. The cheering comes from the party’s heart, and it is overwhelmingly deserved, the more so because it involved Mr Biden doing something he manifestly did not want to do. But he did the right thing. He deserves the plaudits.
It will, however, be Ms Harris, more than Mr Biden, who defines the convention. Both have rightly made Mr Trump’s unquestionable threat to democracy and liberty the centre of their pitches. But the other key question for the week is how well Ms Harris positions herself as the candidate of change as well as continuity.
Mr Biden, showcasing his achievements as he passes the baton to Ms Harris, implicitly casts her as the latter. Her own task, while embracing the Biden administration’s record, is to turn the page and become the former. The argument about Gaza, which is dominating Chicago streets as the convention starts, is the most emotive issue where this matters, but it is not the only one. A truncated campaign means Ms Harris arrived in Chicago with enthusiastic backing, but still without a domestic policy manifesto on her campaign website.
Mr Biden has been a pivotal figure in the divisive 21st-century politics that emerged out of the Reagan era, 9/11, the banking crash, the rise of China and Black Lives Matter. He is also the man who saved his country once, by standing against Mr Trump in 2020, and may perhaps have done it again, by not standing against him four years later. As he leaves the stage, the US – and the world – should salute him. Ms Harris, however, must use this week to speak to America’s future too.
___
Aug. 20
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch says America is tired of being angry; Dems should aim for inspiration
America’s national political conventions long ago stopped being about any actual decision-making by the major parties and its leaders. The Democratic National Convention that opened Monday in Chicago will be no different.
The national ticket is set. The party’s platform and policy positions are clear (if not embraced by every faction of the Democratic coalition, particularly regarding the ongoing war in Gaza). If the week’s events and speeches produce a single substantive surprise, that would be surprising indeed.
But conventions still do play an important role in setting the tone for a campaign, for a party and, potentially, for the nation. And given the angry, often dystopian tone that the Republican National Convention set from nearby Milwaukee last month, Vice President Kamala Harris has an opportunity to present a contrasting vision.
Along those lines, Harris and the other speakers leading up to her Thursday night acceptance speech would do well to make this convention about more than the threats of a second Donald Trump presidency.
Those threats are real to anyone who cares about the stability of political norms and democracy itself, as Trump demonstrated during his first term and continues to demonstrate in pretty much every rally speech.
But especially in this dark political era that Trump has done so much to usher in, Americans need something to vote for rather than just against. The Republican convention didn’t offer that. The Democrats can.
With optimism firmly in place, Harris should use the convention to clarify her policy stances on issues where they remain somewhat vague. Such an introduction is especially important for a candidate who, due to circumstances beyond her control, will accept the party’s nomination without having earned it at the top of a primary election ballot.
Republican talk of a “coup” among Democrats is nonsense. Harris’ previous role as President Joe Biden’s running mate makes her the most legitimate replacement on the ballot for a president who decided, wisely if belatedly, not to seek reelection.
But the fact remains that to most voters, Harris is something of a blank slate. The convention is an opportunity for her to define herself rather than waiting for Trump and other Republicans to do it.
How should she do that? First, rather than observing politically expedient silence regarding the anti-Israel protests that will be raging outside the convention hall, Harris should use the opportunity to clarify where she stands on this difficult issue.
Her public position has generally been in line with that of the Biden administration: supportive of Israel’s determination to defeat Hamas’ terrorism but with reservations about tactics that have resulted in tens of thousands of innocent Palestinian deaths. But Harris was also the first and most prominent Biden insider to bluntly call for a cease-fire in Gaza, saying, “As Israel defends itself, it matters how.”
How does that translate into specific U.S. policy toward Israel? That’s still an open question — and a complicated enough one that the balloon-laden info-tainment setting of a televised convention isn’t necessarily the right forum to hash it all out.
However, voicing a position that recognizes Israel’s right to root out Hamas but not to kill civilians — while, urgently, condemning the elements of antisemitism that have come to define too much of the American pro-Palestinian protest movement — would be appreciated by a U.S. public unaccustomed to politicians talking to them like adults about complex topics.
Speaking of talking to us like adults, Harris and other Democrats should drop, like a hot iron, her proposal (unveiled last week to widespread derision) of instituting a federal price-gouging ban to battle inflation. No one thinks such a gimmick is wise or workable. Better to lean into her far more constructive proposal to increase the federal child tax credit.
Harris and other Democrats will be on surer footing on issues like abortion and gun safety. More Americans agree with Democrats’ reasonable stances on both topics than the GOP’s draconian and dangerous ones. Democrats should hammer at both this week — not just by way of talking about how Republicans have hurt America in those areas but how much better Americans’ lives will be under Democratic policies regarding them.
It’s a subtle distinction, but an important one, to confidently and optimistically talk up their own policies rather than just savaging those of the other side. How those policies are presented will, for this week at least, be as important as their nuts-and-bolts details.
America is tired of being angry. Democrats this week should offer inspiration instead. Let Trump scowl as he makes fun of Harris’ laugh. The campaign strategy she embodies with her reintroduction to the nation this week should be to laugh all the way to victory on Nov. 5.