Five ways a federal debt default could hurt Americans

Americans are getting a crash course on the country’s borrowing limit, as a high-stakes standoff on Capitol Hill dominates national attention. 

Last month, the Treasury Department announced it’s implementing “extraordinary measures” to keep the nation from defaulting on its debt, after it hit the roughly $31.4 trillion limit set by Congress more than a year ago. 

The Treasury said the measures are expected to give Congress until at least June to reach a deal to raise the limit, which caps how much debt the government can take on fulfill its spending, and prevent what would be a first-ever default – an outcome Republicans and Democrats are hoping to avoid. 

Below are just five reasons why the US can’t afford to default.

Recession is almost certain 

Job seekers line up outside the New Hampshire Works employment security job center, Monday, May 10, 2021, in Manchester, N.H. (AP Photo/Mary Schwalm, File)

Recession fears have already been on the rise for months, as economists and lawmakers have paid close eye to the Federal Reserve’s ongoing interest rate hikes in response to high inflation. 

But the threat of a drastic slowdown would rise exponentially if the nation were to default later this year, experts say.

“It would affect lending and borrowing and financial markets,” New York University economics professor Mark Gertler explained, adding that combination of less borrowing and less spending, would trigger recession. 

The U.S. economy would also crater as it loses billions of dollars in federal spending that the government can no longer follow through on, including crucial social safety net programs for millions of Americans.

Federal benefits in danger

In this photo illustration, a Social Security card sits alongside checks from the U.S. Treasury on October 14, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Photo illustration by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

No one is sure which obligations could fall to the wayside if the Treasury is unable to fulfill all of its financial duties.

Republicans have proposed legislation seeking to prioritize certain duties as a backup plan. Proposals floated by some would put handling Social Security benefits and Treasury bonds at the top of the list, along with military salaries and veterans benefits, according to Semafor.

But that doesn’t mean everyone would get paid—including thousands of federal employees.

“If the government could legally and technologically do that, it means that more people wouldn’t get whatever is not on that list,” Wessel said, pointing to IRS refunds that could also be impacted by a default, or even “paying the FBI.” 

“Some obligation of the federal government is not going to be met,” he added. “And that would be a landmark and it would always raise the question in the future, ‘Are these guys going to do this again?’”

Interest rates spike

A For Sale sign is posted in front of a home in Sacramento, Calif., Thursday, March 3, 2022. On Thursday Freddie Mac reports on this week’s average U.S. mortgage rates. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File)

Multiple experts warn the nation could see higher interest rates on its debt as a result of default.

U.S. Treasury bonds are currently regarded as among the world’s safest assets, affording the government a reputation as a reliable borrower on the global stage. And that standing allows the government to borrow more money to fulfill its financial obligations.

“We benefit as Americans from the fact that our government can spend more than it takes in revenues to do all the things we want the government to do,” David Wessel, director of the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy at the Brookings Institution, explained.

“We benefit from the fact that, as a society, we don’t save as much as other societies and they lend us their savings by buying Treasury bonds.”

But if the nation defaults, Wessel and other experts warn the U.S. would be seen as less trustworthy borrower, and have to pay more on its interest.

The headaches wouldn’t stop there and depend on how long a default lasts. Wessel warned that the effects would rush across the economy and even into consumers’ pockets.

“If you look at the bond market, when yields in the bond market go up, mortgage rates go up,” Wessel said. “So, everybody might have to pay a little more to borrow.”

Inflation could lower – but at a steep price

Specially equipped cars sit in a parking lot Thursday, Nov. 17, 2022, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)

Experts say inflation could also lower, but not in the way most would hope.

Some say prices would fall as a result of a slower economy in such circumstances as demand weakens, but not if they were already hindered by shortages.

“It’s like saying, ‘Well, the good news is your arm doesn’t hurt anymore because we amputated it,’” Wessel said. 

“It wouldn’t do anything to speed the semiconductors going to the auto industry or deal with the fact that hotels are raising prices because their electric bills are going up and they can’t hire workers,” he added.

Stock market takes a tumble

A board on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) shows a steep decline on December 15, 2022 in New York City. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Stock portfolios would take a serious hit if the nation defaulted on its debt, sapping retirement accounts and draining crucial sources of revenue for major companies.

“The stock market would fall hard, credit markets would tighten up then that restricts the flow of credit,” said Greg McBride, analyst at Bankrate.com. “And that’s where the economic damage really comes into play.”

That flow of credit, McBride explained, would be restricted for other borrowers, including state and local governments, corporations and consumers, who “would be increasingly locked out in a tighter credit environment.”

Likelihood of a default?

Joe Biden, Kevin McCarthy, Chuck Schumer
President Joe Biden, right, at the top of a meeting with congressional leaders to discuss legislative priorities for the rest of the year, Nov. 29, 2022, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington. From left are House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Calif., Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, of N.Y., and Biden.(AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

Republicans and Democrats alike want to avoid a default, but are deeply divided over how to do it. .

GOP lawmakers have vowed not to vote to raise the debt ceiling without major spending cuts despite promising they would not let the U.S. default. Even so, Republicans have yet to unify behind any proposal to cut down the federal debt and are sparring over how much to cut defense spending, if at all.

At the same time, Democrats have instead pressed for a clean bill to raise the debt limit without conditions, accusing Republicans of holding the economy hostage for their partisan goals.

The battle is one of the most significant tests the newly-divided Congress faces this year. 

Source: TEST FEED1

GOP critic dials up pressure on McConnell: ‘Tired of caving’

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) says he is “tired of caving” on the debt limit and is dialing up the pressure on Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) not to swoop in to strike a last-minute deal with President Biden.

Scott’s full-court press on McConnell is an extension of their battle last year over the leadership of the Senate GOP conference, which McConnell won in a closed-door leadership election in November.  

Scott tried to oust McConnell from the top Senate Republican leader’s spot after Republicans failed to win the Senate majority in November and helped lead the fight against passing the $1.7 trillion year-end omnibus spending package.  

Scott said he’s not giving up his effort to cut federal spending and that he’s willing to clash with McConnell again over the debt limit, which has already expired, forcing the Treasury Department to use “extraordinary measures” to make payments. 

“I’m not going to back down,” Scott told The Hill during an interview in his Capitol office after McConnell decided to remove the Florida senator from the powerful Commerce Committee, a move that conservatives viewed as fallout from the November leadership race, which Scott lost 37-10. 

McConnell also removed Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who nominated Scott for Senate Republican leader in November and helped lead the fight against passing last year’s omnibus spending bill, from the Commerce panel.  

Scott has been gearing up to battle McConnell over the debt limit since April of 2021, when he pushed to amend the Senate GOP conference rules to require that “any increase in the debt ceiling must be accompanied by cuts in federal spending of an equal or greater amount as the debt ceiling increase, or meaningful structural reform.”  

Scott said McConnell then “caved” in the fall of 2021 when he worked out a deal with Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) to create a one-time procedural exception to allow debt-limit legislation to advance on the Senate floor without having to face a filibuster.  

The Florida senator launched a nationwide television ad last month calling for change within the Republican Party and urging GOP lawmakers to “stop caving” to Democratic demands.   

McConnell said in 2021 that he struck a deal with Schumer to let Democrats raise the debt ceiling with votes from their conference because he wanted them to take full responsibility for expanding borrowing authority — although 10 Republican votes were needed to create the procedural loophole.  

“I took an amendment vote [in] April to the conference, we adopted it and then … the leader caved,” Scott told The Hill, noting that the Senate GOP conference had agreed unanimously that “we were going to cut cost or we were going to have structural change” in exchange for raising the debt limit.  

Scott said he and other conservatives who signed a recent letter to President Biden stating “outright opposition to a debt-ceiling hike without real structural spending reform that reduces deficit spending” want to send a message to McConnell that they don’t want him to negotiate any deal that paves the way for Democrats to pass a clean debt-limit increase.  

“You saw [in 2021] he came out and said in July that we would not participate in raising the debt ceiling and then … he organized 11 people to say we’ll allow the Democrats to do it on our own. We didn’t follow conference rules. I’m tired of caving,” Scott said.  

Twenty-four Republican senators signed the letter to Biden declaring they will not vote for a debt-ceiling increase that doesn’t include structural reforms. McConnell did not sign the letter, nor did two other key members of his leadership team, Senate GOP Whip John Thune (S.D.) and Sen. John Cornyn (Texas).  

McConnell later downplayed his lack of a signature. “I wouldn’t read too much into it. There are letters floating around in our conference all the time. Most of the time, I don’t sign them,” he said.  

McConnell said he can’t imagine any debt-limit deal negotiated in the Senate could pass the House so he will leave it to Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to work out an agreement.  

“We’re all behind Kevin and wishing him well in the negotiation,” he told reporters last week. 

He also called for Democrats to agree to spending cuts, noting that Schumer used the debt-ceiling as “leverage” to negotiate a $320 billion discretionary spending increase under former President Trump.  

McConnell’s allies say Scott’s leadership of the National Republican Senatorial Committee in the last election cycle raised questions about his strategic decisionmaking. They argue that he burned up too much money prospecting for online donors and that his 12-point plan calling for bold reforms put GOP candidates on the defensive.  

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who voted for Scott’s leadership bid, is predicting that Biden and McCarthy will hit an impasse and the debt-limit negotiation will shift to the Senate, just like it did in 2011.  

“I think [McConnell’s] position is, ‘Let’s see what the House can do that makes sense.’ But here’s the reality, the likelihood of the House being able to propose something seems to be questionable,” Graham said.

“Eventually Schumer’s going to bring up a bill to increase the debt ceiling, a clean debt-ceiling increase, and we’re going to have to vote on it” in the Senate, he added.

Graham said he wants McConnell and Schumer to be aware that there’s going to be strong pushback to passing a clean debt-ceiling increase if Biden fails to reach a deal with McCarthy. 

“I’m hoping that our folks will start thinking about how to deal with what I think is the most likely scenario which is the House can’t get there with the president,” he said. “I’m not going to vote for a clean debt-ceiling increase. I want Mitch to know that. I want Schumer to know that. I think it would be impossible to get 60 [Senate] votes for a clean debt-ceiling increase.” 

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who drafted the final language of the conference rule requiring spending reforms to be linked to debt-limit legislation, said his Senate colleagues need to stand firm against a clean debt-ceiling increase.  

“I can tell you that is the position of the Republican conference as written in the rules of the Republican conference,” he said. “Unless someone affirmatively stakes out a different position, my assumption is that will be the position of Republicans. It certainly should be,” he said.  

He pointed out that the debt limit was used as “leverage” in the past to enact two of the biggest fiscal reforms in decades: the 2011 Budget Control Act, which McConnell negotiated with then-Vice President Biden, and the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act, which first enacted budget sequestration.  

Cruz voted for Scott to replace McConnell as leader in the fall.  

Source: TEST FEED1

What we know about Chinese balloon sightings during Trump presidency

The U.S. military shot down a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon on Saturday off the coast of South Carolina after it floated for days through U.S. airspace.

Republicans have blasted Biden for the delay in taking down the balloon, however reports have emerged that at least three similar “spy” aircraft were spotted over the U.S. during former President Trump’s time in office.

Fox News also reported Sunday that another balloon crashed off the coast of Hawaii late last year.

Here’s what we know about the past sightings:

Three sightings during Trump administration

Senior U.S. defense and military officials said Sunday that Chinese balloons similar to the one shot down by the Biden administration flew over the U.S. at least three times while Trump was in the White House.

“PRC government surveillance balloons transited the continental United States briefly at least three times during the prior administration and once that we know of at the beginning of this administration, but never for this duration of time,” a Pentagon official said. 

President Trump on Sunday denied the claims that the balloons had entered U.S. airspace during his presidency, saying on Truth Social that “China had too much respect for ‘TRUMP’ for this to have happened.”

Trump-era national security adviser John Bolton didn’t categorically say the balloons hadn’t crossed the U.S., but told Fox News on Sunday that he not aware of any such incidents during his tenure. 

Bloomberg reported Sunday, citing a senior administration official, that the U.S. didn’t learn about the prior balloon flights until after Trump had left the White House.

It remains unclear exactly when or how Biden administration intelligence officials learned about the past incidents — but they’re open to briefing Trump-era officials on the surveillance, according to the report.

Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) said Sunday that Pentagon officials informed him that “several Chinese balloon incidents have happened in the last few years,” including a sighting over Florida.

Balloon sightings were also reportedly noted in the airspace over Texas, Hawaii and the U.S. territory of Guam, according to multiple reports

CBS News reported that previous balloons were recovered by China after being pushed along by the jet stream.

However, Fox News reported Sunday, citing U.S. officials, that a balloon crashed off the coast of Hawaii four months ago, though it did not say whether it was recovered.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) on Sunday acknowledged that aircraft have been spotted before, but said the length of the latest flight means there’s “no comparison” to prior sightings.

“That it flew briefly over some part of the continental U.S., that’s one thing, but what we saw this week, it’s unprecedented and that’s why everyone’s reacting the way they’re reacting,” Rubio said.

Balloon downed by Biden has ‘intelligence value’ for U.S.

The balloon shot down off South Carolina’s coast could help the U.S. understand what China is trying to do with the balloons.

China has claimed the balloon downed over the weekend is a weather balloon that was blown unwillingly into American airspace — a claim the U.S. says is refuted by the recovered aircraft wreckage.

“This was a PRC surveillance balloon. This surveillance balloon purposefully traversed the United States and Canada.  And we are confident it was seeking to monitor sensitive military sites,” a top defense official said Sunday.

“We have learned technical things about this balloon and its surveillance capabilities.  And I suspect if we are successful in recovering aspects of the debris, we will learn even more,” the official added.

Senators are set to be briefed on the downed balloon next week.

Additional balloons spotted in Central and South America

The balloon shot down in South Carolina this weekend isn’t the only such aircraft operating in the Western Hemisphere, Pentagon officials said Sunday. 

Officials have seen at least one other Chinese surveillance balloon floating over Central and South America — and additional balloons have been spotted over several countries in the past few years, in Europe and Asia. 

“These balloons are all part of a PRC fleet of balloons developed to conduct surveillance operations, which have also violated the sovereignty of other countries,” officials said.  

Updated: 10:02 p.m.

Source: TEST FEED1

DeSantis wants a 'core curriculum.' That idea is college kryptonite.

Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor and a potential Republican presidential prospect, says he wants to mandate a “core curriculum” in public universities as a way to ensure young Floridians are grounded in Western civilization. 

To the nation’s higher education leaders, that idea is political kryptonite. 

Proponents of the core curriculum say every student should emerge from college with a core of human knowledge: not necessarily Shakespeare and Dante per se, but some sense of civilization’s greatest books and finest ideas.   

But college faculties have struggled to decide what a core curriculum should include. Rather than require any specific course, most universities fall back on broad “distribution requirements,” mandating that students take a STEM course here, an arts course there, to explore the academic world beyond their major. 

At schools with comparatively lax distribution rules, no one must study any one discipline, let alone take a prescribed course. As a result, students can graduate from Amherst, Brown, Johns Hopkins or UCLA without ever taking a class in science or history or foreign language.  

Supporters of core learning say those schools — indeed, most American universities — abdicate their responsibility to make specific choices about what students should learn.

“I think that there are some things that everybody ought to know,” said Roosevelt Montás, senior lecturer in American studies and English at Columbia University. “It’s an idea that academia has largely walked away from, but without, I think, a very good reason.” 

From 2008 to 2018, Montás directed the core curriculum at Columbia, founded in 1919, one of a few surviving programs that require all undergraduates to complete a sequence of interdisciplinary courses.  

A few other institutions also maintain ancient core curricula, programs formed in the pre-digital age. The University of Chicago requires undergraduates to complete an expansive core curriculum, choosing from a menu of customized courses. St. John’s College, the famed “great books” school, teaches a four-year sequence of foundational texts at campuses in Annapolis, Md., and Santa Fe, N.M.  

All of those institutions regularly review and revise their core programs to add diversity and depth.  

“We’ve added Simone de Beauvoir. We’ve added Baldwin. We’ve added Toni Morrison. These are all lengthy debates,” said Mark Roosevelt, president of St. John’s in Santa Fe. “It’s sort of like amending the U.S. Constitution. It should be hard.” 

But to create a new core curriculum from scratch?  

“It would be incredibly difficult to craft a core curriculum today, and I don’t know anybody who’s trying to do it,” Roosevelt said. 

Generations ago, professors taught from a static list of Western scholars, most of them dead, white and male. Late in the 1800s, the advent of the modern research university inspired a movement away from general education to academic specialization and majors. After 1900, an influx of immigrants sparked a decades-long resurgence of “core” programs that stressed Western intellectual thought.   

 In the civil rights years, critics assailed core courses for ignoring women, Black Americans and pretty much anything outside the white, European American tradition. Colleges abandoned core curricula en masse.  

In the modern era, students typically pass from a high school where most courses are prescribed to a college where they are free to study pretty much what they want.  

Leaders of academia argue that their job is to teach students how to think, problem-solve and interact with the world, not to assign a list of essential books. 

The great books that long populated core curricula have become so bound up with white, male, Euro-centric culture that the terms “great books” and “core curriculum” themselves are falling from favor.  

“I try not to use the words ‘great books,’” said Kyna Hamill, director of the core curriculum at Boston University. 

BU’s core is optional, and the readings go well beyond Euro-American culture. Courses include The Way, a survey of Aristotle, Confucius, Laozi, Virgil, and texts from ancient India and Persia. The common theme: “thinking about the best way to live,” Hamill said. 

The Columbia scholar Montás, who grew up in the Dominican Republic and Queens, argues against the idea that a “great books” course amounts to an indoctrination in Western values.  

“There is nothing wrong, per se, with being a dead, white male,” he said. “That is not a criterion for either inclusion or exclusion. And if we are going to have an education that takes the past seriously, that means that we are going to be studying a group of producers of intellectual content who are not representative of our current intellectual diversity.” 

At the University of Chicago, students in one core-curriculum sequence transition from Homer’s Odyssey to Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Another group reads The Pillow Book, a work of Japanese antiquity, alongside Saint Augustine’s Confessions. 

“There’s a pretty big geographic range,” said Eric Slauter, deputy dean of the university’s humanities division. “There’s a pretty big chronological range.” 

Champions of the core curriculum include the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, a nonprofit that advocates for colleges to take a more active role in deciding what courses students take. 

The group grades colleges on whether they specifically require students to study science, math, economics, U.S. government or history, foreign language, literature and composition.  

The University of Chicago and Columbia both earn Bs. St. John’s gets an A. Amherst, Brown, Harvard, Hopkins and UCLA all receive Fs. 

“A core curriculum is the most reasonable safety net that we have to ensure that students get a strong foundational education,” said Michael Poliakoff, president of the trustees and alumni group. “There’s something really wonderful, really magical, when faculty ask that question, What is really essential?, and act on it.” 

Poliakoff’s group leans conservative, rare in higher education, and was founded in part to balance academic liberalism. The schools awarded As in its grading scale amount to fewer than two dozen in all, include the U.S. Air Force and Military academies, the University of Georgia, a smattering of Christian colleges and the aforementioned St. John’s.  

The new push for a core curriculum in Florida is part of a larger campaign by a conservative governor to root out perceived liberal bias in the state’s education systems.  

“In Florida, we will build off of our higher education reforms by aligning core curriculum to the values of liberty and the Western tradition,” DeSantis said during a press conference Tuesday.  

Handouts from the governor’s office gave sketchy details, but both The New York Times and the Chronicle of Higher Education reported that DeSantis intends to require courses in Western civilization in Florida’s public universities. 

Academic leaders counter that no state government should impose lesson plans on a university.  

“I don’t think that the site of curricular decision is the state legislature,” Montás said. “I think the site is the faculty of the school.” 

Whatever comes of the Florida governor’s initiative, the core curriculum may be seeing a modest resurgence.  

Large-scale, mandatory core programs such as the ones at Columbia and the University of Chicago remain rare. But Montás says he has witnessed a “mini-Renaissance” in recent years around “introducing core texts, foundational texts, into the curriculum. It’s not an explosion of that, but significant, steady growth.” 

A nonprofit Association for Core Texts and Courses maintains a list of several dozen colleges with “great books” programs. Most are optional. A few require all students to crack a “core text” at some point in their studies.  

Stanford University recently launched a new program in Civic, Liberal and Global Education for all first-year students: a core curriculum in all but name.  

In a recent op-ed, headlined “Enough With the Culture Wars,” the program’s director described the effort as nothing short of “an attempt to revive liberal education for the 21st century.” 

Source: TEST FEED1

Trump, Christie exchange fire after gloomy 2024 prediction

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Former President Trump and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) sparred online Sunday after Christie predicted that Trump couldn’t beat President Biden if they run against each other in the 2024 presidential election. 

Christie, who endorsed Trump in 2016 after dropping his own campaign for the presidency but has since become a vocal Trump critic, made the 2024 forecast Sunday on ABC News, where he is now a contributor. 

Trump fired back on Truth Social. “‘Sloppy’ Chris Christie, the failed former Governor of New Jersey, spent almost his entire last year in office campaigning in New Hampshire for the Republican Nomination for President. Much like his term in office, where he left with an Approval Rating of just 9%, his Presidential campaign was a complete disaster,” Trump wrote.

“He endorsed me the following day, later recommended Chris Wray for the FBI (how did that work out?), went down in flames, and then was SALVAGED by ABC FAKE NEWS. I never wanted him!” the former president said of his former transition team chief. 

Christie responded later Sunday afternoon on Twitter, calling Trump’s Truth Social post a “new tantrum” and dismissing the attacks. 

“I’m the target of Donald Trump’s new tantrum. None of his lies about me today bothered him when he asked me to prep him for every general election debate or offered me 3 different cabinet posts,” Christie wrote on Twitter.

The former governor noted that Trump is “the only man to lose to Biden outside Delaware” and added that the “loss to Joe still stings,” referring to the 2020 presidential race.

Christie on ABC News’s “This Week” on Sunday said, “I don’t think so” when asked by the network’s Jonathan Karl whether Trump could defeat Biden in the upcoming election.

Moderate Republican Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire agreed, arguing that Trump could secure the GOP’s nomination but likely couldn’t beat Biden — because the American people are “going to push back” against “a very extreme candidate.”

Trump is the only major GOP candidate to announce a 2024 run so far, but a number of other prominent Republicans are expected to join the race, with Trump seen as a weakened candidate after his 2020 loss and backing of a number of failed candidates in 2022.

Source: TEST FEED1

What to know about education savings accounts, the school choice measure making waves in states

Amid the national debate over school choice, advocates are seeing growing success with arrangements known as education savings accounts (ESAs), with legislation already introduced or passed in multiple states this year.

ESAs, derided as vouchers by their opponents, are state-funded accounts for parents who are looking for alternative education options for children besides their local public school. The government will put a certain amount of money in the account each year to help students pay for educational expenses such as private school tuition, homeschooling and private tutors.

Amounts for the taxpayer-funded accounts are different in each state. For Arizona, which passed the first universal ESA legislation last year, students get up to $7,000 in their ESAs.

“This is a monumental moment for all of Arizona’s students. Our kids will no longer be locked in under-performing schools. Today, we’re unlocking a whole new world of opportunity for them and their parents,” then-Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) said when he signed the ESA legislation into law last year.

More than 15 states this year have proposed ESA bills, according to a tracker by school-choice advocacy group EFI Institute. Among those, Iowa and Utah are the first to get their legislation signed into law.

Here’s what you need to know:

Different states, different rules

ESAs all have the same basic framework: The government puts money into an account for a student that parents are then able to use for education outside the public school system.

However, even among the relatively few states so far that have ESAs, there are different qualifications and standards. 

Mississippi, for example, offers ESA accounts of around $6,800 only for special needs students through its Equal Opportunity for Students with Special Needs Program.

In New Hampshire, an ESA setup called the Education Freedom Account Program allows those in low- and middle-income households to open accounts. 

The ESA movement picked up a lot of steam last year with Arizona becoming the first state to offer universal accounts with no restrictions. Parents can sign up and receive a certain amount of money to take their children out of public school and invest in homeschooling, online education and private school tuition. 

That program has become the standard that school choice advocates argue other states need to emulate. 

Last month, a wave of ESA legislation was introduced across the country.

Jonathan Butcher, the Will Skillman Fellow in Education at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said Utah and Iowa’s programs, the first approved this year, are more correctly identified as “account-style” programs.

In a normal-style ESA account, parents are able to save money from year to year. When their child is in middle school, they might decide to save more knowing high school will be more expensive. 

In Utah, $42 million was allocated to the ESA program, with anyone able to apply but priority given to low-income families. The money, however, does not roll over year after year.

In Iowa, the money in an ESA account, which will be around $7,500, has to go towards private school or associated costs — not homeschooling or other educational options.  

“I think both Utah and Iowa are excellent programs. It’s very exciting to see these become a reality for students,” Butcher said. “I would just say they’re account-style, right? I think the most positive thing, the most beneficial thing about these particular programs is that they are universal.”

He added that in Arizona parents have the freedom to save and spend the money more widely. While parents still need to take their children out of public school to access the funds, they can use it for certain “public school services.”

“So you can use the account and say, ‘Hey, look, I’d love for my child to take Spanish at this local science school because they have a great Spanish program,’ or ‘I’d love for them to be able to participate in you the football team or band or whatever.’ And so they’ll use the account to pay for that contracted service,” Butcher said.

At least 10 other states have some sort of ESA legislation before them, from expanding ESA eligibility in Florida to creating brand new programs in Washington.  

ESAs are largely a partisan issue

Republicans, who are far more supportive of school choice and skeptical of public schools in general, are unsurprisingly also the primary backers of ESAs.

Democrats, on the other hand, raise multiple concerns, as do teachers’ unions. They say ESAs are simply school vouchers by another name.

One of their objections is that public taxpayer money is used to fund individuals going to private schools, where the institutions can pick and choose who gets accepted. 

“Children who are special needs, who may have mental health issues, who may have physical disabilities or whose parents don’t meet the criteria of the religious institution can be denied admittance to that private school,” Iowa State Education Association President Mike Beranek said. 

“And so that’s very hard to understand why these private institutions who will be receiving public dollars do not have the same requirements as a public school,” he added. 

Another issue raised — one that has given Republican states such as Texas difficulty in implementing ESAs — is rural residents.

“In many of our rural areas here in the state, there is not access to a private institution. So, in real terms, in practice, people who are in our rural communities will be subsidizing parents who live in larger areas, larger urban areas, suburban areas that have a higher frequency of private institutions,” Beranek said. 

Perhaps the biggest concerns raised by opponents of ESAs is they take away money from public schools and there isn’t enough transparency on how the money is used. 

“My primary issue being as a classroom teacher and a parent is that it does directly defund our local public schools,” said Beth Lewis, director of Save Our Schools in Arizona.

“A second reason why the ESA voucher is a problem is that there’s no transparency or accountability, and that’s baked in by design. So we have no idea how taxpayer dollars are being used, what kind of curriculum is being taught, whether standards are being met, whether teachers have fingerprint, background checks, or credentials,” Lewis added.

The push has grown since the pandemic

Parental choice in education has become increasingly popular since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, as homeschooling and private school enrollment rose due to a myriad of factors, such as school closings and mask mandates.

“Following the COVID remote schooling and all this disruption to schooling that happened during the more active period of the COVID pandemic than what we’re in now, it got sort of a lot of parents agitated, and I think created a little bit of a political movement around parental choice in schools,” said Sarah Reber, Joseph A. Pechman Senior Fellow and former David M. Rubenstein Fellow in Economics Studies at Brookings Institution.

Republicans have seized on discontent with the public school system, fueling ESA legislation in multiple states.

Advocates for ESAs argue this helps gets students out of public schools, particularly ones that are failing or parents don’t feel align with their values or goals for their child, a message that advocates say resonates with parents more since the pandemic.

Source: TEST FEED1

Chinese balloons flew over US three times during Trump administration: officials

Balloons similar to the one that was shot down off the coast of South Carolina this weekend flew over the U.S. at least three times during the Trump administration, according to a senior U.S. defense official.

As Republicans spent the past few days criticizing the Biden administration over its response to the suspected Chinese spy balloon that flew across the country, an official revealed during a briefing on Saturday that the U.S. was aware of three other instances during the prior administration and one instance earlier in the Biden administration that such an apparatus “transited” the country.

“PRC [People’s Republic of China] government surveillance balloons transited the continental United States briefly at least three times during the prior administration and once that we know of at the beginning of this administration but never for this duration of time,” said a senior defense official. “We spoke directly with Chinese officials through multiple channels, but rather than address their intrusion into our airspace, the PRC put out an explanation that lacked any credibility.”

Biden authorized the missile strike that shot down the balloon Saturday. Republican lawmakers have been arguing that the response should have come sooner, but military officials warned the president that the best time to take down the balloon was when it was over water, citing the risk of damage to people and property if it was shot down over land. Biden told reporters he wanted it shot down when he learned it entered U.S. airspace last week.

Trump denied the revelation by defense officials that Chinese balloons flew over the U.S. during his administration, calling it “disinformation.”

“The Chinese Balloon situation is a disgrace, just like the Afghanistan horror show, and everything else surrounding the grossly incompetent Biden Administration,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social site. “They are only good at cheating in elections, and disinformation — and now they are putting out that a Balloon was put up by China during the Trump Administration, in order to take the ‘heat’ off the slow moving Biden fools. China had too much respect for ‘TRUMP’ for this to have happened, and it NEVER did. JUST FAKE DISINFORMATION!”

Defense officials also countered an explanation by the Chinese that the balloon was blown off course.

“This surveillance balloon purposefully traversed the United States and Canada. And we are confident it was seeking to monitor sensitive military sites. Its route over the United States, near many potential sensitive sites, contradicts the PRC government’s explanation that it was a weather balloon,” the official said, adding that additional balloons have been spotted over Central America and South America.

Source: TEST FEED1

Anti-TikTok pressure is bipartisan and mounting in Congress

Anti-TikTok pressure is mounting in Congress from both sides of the aisle, with lawmakers proposing legal measures to ban the popular video sharing app from use in the U.S. to requests for dominant app stores to drop it. 

The push is largely based on concerns that the app, owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, poses national security and privacy risks based on the data TikTok is able to collect on users’ activity on their devices both on and off the app.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) introduced a bill last week that would ban TikTok in the U.S. It is the first of its kind to be introduced this Congress, following a similar proposal led by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) last year. 

“The big problem with TikTok is that it is a backdoor for the Chinese Communist Party into the personal data and the personal lives of every American who uses it, that includes especially our kids,” Hawley told The Hill. 

Security experts have expressed similar concerns about the app.

Brandon Pugh, policy director of the cybersecurity and emerging threats team at the R Street Institute, said the app presents a privacy concern and a security threat in terms of how the data collected can be leveraged or exploited against Americans, particularly those “in sensitive positions or our most vulnerable populations like children.”

“As a general principle, China has a history of amassing large amounts of data on their own citizens and those around the world, including Americans,” Pugh said. 

“This data can reveal sensitive parts of our daily lives, including health and location information,” he added. 

Democrats shared some of these concerns, but caution that a singular focus on TikTok may miss broader issues posed by apps run by foreign adversaries and the data collected by social media apps as a whole. 

Hawley and Buck’s legislation would direct the president, by use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, to block and prohibit transactions with TikTok’s parent company ByteDance, with penalties for entities that attempt to evade the sanctions.

It would also require the director of national intelligence to submit a report and brief Congress on what the lawmakers characterized as TikTok’s threats to national security. It said TikTok could allow China to access U.S. user data and use it for “intelligence or military purposes, including surveillance, microtargeting, deepfakes, or blackmail.”

Hawley said he is concerned that China is “vociferously attempting to gather information on as many Americans as possible” to build data files and use it to “feed their algorithms” and “who knows what else.” 

“Frankly, I don’t care to find out. I would prefer that we deny them access to Americans’ data. And I want to say, particularly — as the father of three children, I particularly despise the idea that China would be able to build files on our kids beginning at a young age by tracking them all around the internet,” he said. 

TikTok spokesperson Brooke Oberwetter said TikTok’s policy “clearly states [that] we collect ‘keystroke patterns or rhythms.’ This is not the same as collecting the content of keystrokes.” That data is used to help TikTok detect spam and bots, and to assist with “debugging, troubleshooting, and monitoring for proper performance,” she said. 

“We understand that there are concerns about TikTok. That is [why] we have been working with [The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States] CFIUS for over two years on a plan to address those concerns in the U.S.,” Oberwetter said in an email. 

President Biden ordered CFIUS to review TikTok in June 2021, after withdrawing executive orders issued under former President Trump to ban new downloads of the app in the U.S. Few details have emerged about the administration’s review.

“We hope that legislators who want to see these concerns addressed will encourage the Administration to conclude its national security review of TikTok so we can continue to implement this solution and provide peace of mind to our community and our stakeholders,” Oberwetter said. 

In addition to the ongoing CFIUS review, TikTok briefed members of the media this week on a plan TikTok dubbed “Project Texas” that relies on software from Austin-based company Oracle.

TikTok officials said all U.S. user traffic is routed through Oracle’s servers, NPR reported. TikTok first started its relationship with Oracle to manage data under the Trump administration, when the former president made his own push to put TikTok out of operation in the U.S. 

Oracle engineers will be able to inspect TikTok’s source code, including the algorithm that drives what videos are served to users, and a third-party monitor will inspect TikTok’s data and algorithm in case Oracle misses anything, according to NPR. 

This is the second time Hawley has introduced legislation to ban TikTok. His previous bill to prohibit the use of the app on government devices was successfully added into a government funding package at the end of last year and signed into law by President Biden. 

Separately, a number of states, including Texas, Maryland, New Jersey and Ohio, have banned the app from government devices.  

Hawley’s latest proposal faces a tough road — especially in the Democratic-controlled Senate. 

Democratic lawmakers broadly are seeking more measured steps than Hawley’s proposed ban. 

Earlier this week, Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) asked the chief executive officers of Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores, warning its “vast influence and aggressive data collection pose a specific threat.” Spokespeople for Apple and Google did not respond to requests for comment. 

Bennet said that TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, is compelled by Chinese law to comply with requests from the government for access to data from such apps, which could potentially allow the Chinese government to access and collect information on American citizens.  

Oberwetter said Bennet’s letter “relies almost exclusively on misleading reporting about TikTok, the data we collect, and our data security controls” and “ignores the considerable investment” made with Project Texas. 

In the long run, Bennet told The Hill he thinks Congress should address concerns posed by TikTok by way of adopting his proposal to create a Federal Digital Platform Commission tasked with oversight over digital platforms. 

“I don’t think we should be doing this on a one-off basis if we can avoid it. We need a coherent and comprehensive approach; that’s the way to get to that clear and comprehensive approach,” he said. 

Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Mark Warner (D-Va.) raised similar issues as Hawley about TikTok’s data collection and the possibility of TikTok being used as a potential propaganda tool. Warner said the app’s data collection is not “dissimilar to some of the collection of American companies,” but his concerns are amplified by supposed ties to China. 

“If suddenly, I’m not saying this is happening today, but a decision is made that [TikTok is] not going to show videos … that doesn’t do anything other than reinforce that Taiwan should be part of the [People’s Republic of China] forever, that would be a national security concern,” he said. 

Cyrus Walker, the founder and managing principal at cybersecurity firm Data Defenders, raised similar concerns. He said the Chinese government could use the app to influence American users to think a certain way about a particular topic or policy.

He explained that since TikTok is owned by a Chinese-based company, it’s possible that the government could use the app to spread disinformation or share videos that amplify negative views towards the U.S. or undermine American values.

“It’s a concern about how the application itself could be used as a strategic tool of China’s effort to influence American sentiment across various spectrums of society and the economy,” Walker said. 

For instance, he said the Chinese government could use specific algorithms on TikTok to increase the number of views of a video, hence allowing more users to see it.

“The algorithm could be manipulated to elevate the exposure of the video across the platform more than it normally would have gotten in its general state,” he added.

Rather than a TikTok ban, Warner is planning to introduce a proposal that would establish a comprehensive and risk-based process to review foreign-owned technology services that pose national security risks. In addition to TikTok, the proposal could target reviews of technology like the Russian-based Kaspersky antivirus software, a Warner spokesperson said. 

Walker also said he wouldn’t oppose a nationwide ban of the app, especially if the company does not completely divest itself from Chinese ownership and become a wholly-owned U.S. subsidiary or entity.

“I wouldn’t have any issue with an all-out ban simply because of the truly controlling entity behind it that will then have the capability to access our lives,” he added.

Source: TEST FEED1

Five things Biden is likely to say and not say in the State of the Union

President Biden on Tuesday will deliver the State of the Union address to a divided Congress, which will bring him face-to-face for the first time with the new GOP House majority.

The address always represents a chance for the president to speak to a large national audience.

This one comes as lawmakers and the president face a summer showdown for raising the nation’s debt ceiling that will have huge implications for next year’s presidential race.

Here’s five things the president likely will say — and five things he probably won’t say — during the address.

WILL SAY

The debt limit

​​Biden will likely reiterate his calls for Congress to raise the debt limit without conditions, arguing that it is a congressional responsibility to send him a clean bill. 

Biden met Wednesday with Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for their first face-to-face summit.

McCarthy left the meeting signaling optimism about the chances of reaching a deal, though neither side made any commitments.  

Biden is almost certain to repeat his calls for a clean debt-ceiling hike in his speech, while warning against cuts to Social Security and Medicare. The address represents an opportunity for Biden, before a large national audience, to set the stage for the debate to come on his own terms.

Police reform

In his 2022 State of the Union address, Biden emphasized his opposition to the idea of defunding the police.

On Tuesday, in the wake of the beating death of Tyre Nichols at the hands of Memphis police, Biden is likely to take a different tone.

He may still call for the need to fund the police, but he is also likely to make a loud call for police reform — particularly after a meeting last week with the Congressional Black Caucus.

Given the string of mass shootings at the beginning of the year, also watch for Biden to again call on Congress to pass a ban on assault weapons.

Ukraine

Russia’s war on Ukraine will be a big part of Biden’s address, especially with Republicans sounding different notes on the fight.

The president is likely to again frame U.S. support for Ukraine as part of a broader fight against authoritarianism.

The Biden administration last month approved the transfer of tanks to Ukraine, and an additional package of assistance is expected to be announced around the anniversary of Russia’s invasion, which will come just days after the State of the Union address.

Some foreign policy experts are looking for Biden to use the speech to lay out a possible roadmap to ending the conflict in Ukraine, though the White House has said that should be determined by Ukrainian leaders.

The economy

Biden got exactly what he was hoping for on Friday: a surprise jobs report that showed the economy added 517,000 jobs in the month of January.

It was the perfect report for a president who wants to talk about a strong economy in the State of the Union address, which is likely to be followed by a signal from Biden in the weeks ahead that he fully intends to run for reelection in 2024.

Biden teased what he will say on the economy in Friday remarks about jobs numbers that also showed the nation’s unemployment rate falling to 3.4 percent. He signaled his argument will be that he inherited inflation from the pandemic, and that his policies have the nation on the right track.

“Do I take any blame for inflation? No,” he said Friday. “Because it was already there when I got here, man. … Jobs were hemorrhaging, inflation was rising, we weren’t manufacturing a damn thing here, we were in real economic difficultly, that’s why I don’t.”

Immigration

A bipartisan immigration deal has been elusive for years, but Biden is likely to call on lawmakers to give it another shot on Tuesday.

The president has faced stiff criticism over the influx of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border from both Republicans and Democrats since he took office. The White House has said only action by Congress will solve the problem, a point he’s expected to reiterate on Tuesday.

WON’T SAY

Classified documents scandal

If Biden brings up the classified documents controversy that has been an unwelcome storyline at the beginning of the year, it will be a surprise.

Classified documents from Biden’s time as vice president have been found at his Delaware home and former office in Washington, D.C.

A special counsel is now investigating the matter, along with a separate special counsel investigating documents found in the possession of former President Trump.

The Republicans in Biden’s audience on Tuesday are promising investigations.

Hunter Biden investigations

House Republicans have in recent days ramped up their focus on investigations into Biden, including one that will focus on the finances and conduct of the president’s son, Hunter Biden.

While Biden may urge Congress to focus on issues that matter to the American public, he is expected to steer clear of weighing in specifically on the investigation into his son.

The day after the State of the Union, the House Oversight and Accountability Committee will hold a hearing featuring three former Twitter employees testifying about the platform’s decision to limit the spread of a New York Post story about Hunter Biden in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election. 

Trump and other GOP leaders

Biden and other White House officials have made it a point not to mention his predecessor by name if they can help it, and Tuesday’s speech is likely to be another example of that.

Biden is unlikely to discuss former President Trump, despite him being the only declared candidate in the 2024 field, though he may drop a comparison to the state of the economy or pandemic when he took office.

The president is also unlikely to make any mention of prominent GOP figures sitting in the audience on Tuesday, such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.).

Biden will almost certainly acknowledge McCarthy, even if only briefly. McCarthy will be seated behind Biden and the president acknowledged the Speaker during remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast. 

Trump-DOJ investigation 

While Biden likely will avoid any mention of the review of his handling of classified documents, he will similarly avoid talk about the DOJ probes of his predecessor.

Trump is under scrutiny for a litany of issues, including his conduct around the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol and his handling of classified materials after federal agents found dozens of highly sensitive documents at his Mar-a-Lago property in Florida last year.

Biden has made it a habit to avoid weighing in on Justice Department matters, and while it may be easy to score political points by pointing out the leading figure in the GOP is under legal scrutiny, he is not expected to bring it up during Tuesday’s address. 

Omar, Swalwell and Schiff’s committee removals

McCarthy and House Republicans chalked up a victory last week with the successful removal of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) from the Foreign Affairs Committee.

He has also unilaterally blocked Democratic Reps. Adam Schiff (Calif.) and Eric Swalwell (Calif.) from serving on the House Intelligence Committee.

While these moves have been criticized as “political revenge” after Greene and Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) were removed from their committees last Congress, Biden is likely not going to mention any of it, instead keeping his focus on policy.

McCarthy will be sitting behind Biden, next to Vice President Harris, for the first time during a State of the Union address.

Instead of bashing his attacks on some Democrats, Biden is more likely to say he wants to get along with the Speaker, consistent with his remarks about having respect for one another in last week’s prayer breakfast.

Source: TEST FEED1

Prospects rise for NY charges against Trump in Stormy Daniels case

New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s latest moves suggest prosecutors are nearing a decision about charging former President Trump in connection with a $130,000 hush payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election. 

The Manhattan district attorney’s office this week escalated the fight by empaneling another grand jury in the case and presenting witnesses.  

Legal experts and a former colleague of Bragg’s said the Democratic attorney’s actions indicate prosecutors are edging closer to possible charges against Trump. 

“If they actually are presenting witnesses, the first thing I said is, ‘Oh, this is real. They’re going for it,’” said Catherine Christian, a former financial fraud prosecutor in Bragg’s office who was not involved in the investigation. 

Trump has downplayed the development in a series of Truth Social posts, arguing Bragg should focus on fighting crime in New York.  

The former president painted the investigation as a witch hunt and warned about statutes of limitations, referring to the time window in which prosecutors can bring charges. 

“Some Radical Left crazies, coupled with ‘ratings crushed’ and failing Fake News, are trying to get [Bragg] to go the prosecutorial misconduct route, and take on certain very weak cases which are dead anyway based on the Statute of Limitations. FIGHT VIOLENT CRIME!” Trump posted on Wednesday. 

Trump attorney Ronald Fischetti and Bragg spokeswoman Danielle Filson did not return requests for comment for this story.  

The controversy surrounding Trump and Daniels began when Trump’s longtime personal attorney, Michael Cohen, made a $130,000 payment to Daniels in October 2016 to stop her from publicly alleging she had an affair with Trump. Trump has denied the affair. 

Cohen later pleaded guilty to federal campaign finance violations. He claimed that Trump directed him to make the payment and that Trump reimbursed him in monthly installments that included a bonus, even presenting one of the purported checks to lawmakers at a 2019 committee hearing. 

Bragg could attempt to bring state charges of falsifying business records against the former president if prosecutors can show that Trump, with an intent to defraud, was personally involved in unlawfully designating Cohen’s reimbursements a legal expense.

That misdemeanor would carry up to a year in jail, but a felony version of the crime could carry up to four years.  

For prosecutors to pursue the charge, they would additionally need to show the fraud included an intent to commit another crime.  

Legal experts suggest that could involve breaking state campaign finance or tax laws, but they questioned if a federal campaign finance violation would suffice. 

Prosecutors would also need to grapple with the five-year statute of limitations on most New York felonies. Many known allegations involve transactions in 2016 and 2017. 

Christian insisted Bragg wouldn’t have moved forward with the grand jury if he was too late, suggesting a legal doctrine might be in play that allows prosecutors to bring charges after the deadline in certain circumstances, known as tolling. 

“I assume — these are very competent people — they found a reason why it was tolled in this case, possibly because he’s been out of the jurisdiction,” said Christian, who is now a partner at Liston Abramson. 

If the case gets to the merits, proving either charge could also heavily rely on the testimony of Cohen, a convicted felon. 

“I do think Michael Cohen comes with some credibility, given his current track record of cooperation. But we’ll see. He’ll definitely be attacked,” said William “Widge” Devaney, a former assistant U.S. attorney in New Jersey who is now a partner at Baker & McKenzie. 

Cohen said on Wednesday that he recently spoke to Bragg’s office and provided his cellphone, describing it as a “reinvigorated” investigation. 

“I’ve said all along that I thought the DA’s case is by far the simplest to prove, and it is the most destructive to Donald Trump individually, and to his business as well,” Cohen told CNN’s Don Lemon. “I do believe that he will see repercussions for the first time in almost his entire life.” 

The grand jury could also end without bringing any charges, as did one earlier in the investigation. 

Cyrus Vance Jr., Bragg’s predecessor and the one who began the probe, convened a previous grand jury as the investigation expanded from the hush payment to an additional prong of whether Trump and his businesses unlawfully manipulated asset values for tax and loan benefits. 

After Bragg took over, that grand jury expired without levying any charges against the former president. 

At the time, the investigation seemed to lose steam. Two top prosecutors who expressed a desire to charge Trump resigned, indicating that Bragg had stopped pursuing the indictment. 

In the months since, Bragg has secured convictions for the Trump Organization and its former chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, on charges related to executive perks.

Now, the hush payment and the president himself have reemerged as a focus in just one of multiple legal battles involving the former president. Trump could become the first former president to face an indictment.

Federal investigations into the mishandling of classified records at Mar-a-Lago and efforts to block the 2020 transition of power also continue. A district attorney in Georgia is investigating Trump’s actions following the 2020 election, and the New York attorney general is also pursuing a civil lawsuit against the former president. 

“On one level, I think Bragg doesn’t want to be left out of the party if there are going to be additional criminal charges brought against Trump,” said Devaney.

Source: TEST FEED1