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MoveOn.Org's Campaign Topic of the Week: Blame the GOP for the rising cost of college and interest rates... Obama to make students loans a campaign issue.

Posted by Joan Preston on April 28, 2012 at 8:30pm

Here is the latest campaign tactic to come out from the NON-PROFIT EDUCATIONAL ORGANIZATION MoveOn.Org: they are planning to send out e-blasts via Facebook and other social media to our young adults 'freaking them out' about students loans, debt, and the rising cost of college by blaming the GOP.  We are all well aware of the rising cost of an education in this country, but their whole aim is to blame the Republicans.  How is they are considered non-partisan and educational when they out right say their intent is to lay blame on the conservative candidate?  Their goal is not to make college any more affordable or to inform anyone of the facts concerning the cost, but to scare them into voting for a communist!  Anyway, you see for yourself what their latest messaging is all about.  And by the way, they want 5 bucks too...

How is it they qualify for this?  MoveOn.org Civic Action is a 501(c)(4) organization which primarily focuses on nonpartisan education and advocacy on important national issues. MoveOn.org Political Action is a federal political committee which primarily helps members elect candidates who reflect our values through a variety of activities aimed at influencing the outcome of the next election. MoveOn.org Political Action and MoveOn.org Civic Action are separate organizations.

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Hi—I wanted to make sure you saw this email we sent the other day. This is an incredible opportunity, and every dollar counts!

Young voters could decide the 2012 election, and Republicans are slapping them in the face by trying to double the interest rates on student loans this July. We've got a plan to make sure every college student in America knows what's happening and who's to blame. Can you donate $5?

Dear MoveOn member, 

In 2008, young people voted in record numbers and went for President Obama over John McCain by more than 2-to-1.1 This year, every election expert agrees that if that happens again, Obama will win easily—and the Democrats will probably win back the Congress.

And now Republicans have handed us a golden opportunity to fire up young people to vote in 2012.

You see, because of Republican obstruction in Congress, interest rates on college loans are set to double this July—pouring even more debt on a generation already drowning in student loans. President Obama is pushing Congress to stop it, but as usual Republicans have dug in their heels.2

To make sure young people know what's happening, we're launching one of the largest online ad campaigns in MoveOn history—putting ads on the Facebook page of every college student in America to warn them about this Armageddon of student debt.

We've already tested several versions of these ads, and we know they're effective at getting students to take action. But we'll have to scrap the plan unless we can raise $200,000 from MoveOn members. Can you chip in $5?

Yes, I can contribute $5 to help make sure young people vote in 2012.

MoveOn has already heard from hundreds of thousands of young people freaking out about this—and we're already working to make sure they call Congress, register to vote, and keep taking action on campus.

But really, we need to reach the millions of young people who aren't hearing about this, and hands down the best way to reach them is on Facebook. 

Facebook ads are awesome because unlike TV, radio, or newspaper ads, people can click on them and sign up to take action. And of course, Facebook is where young voters spend so much of their time.

Nothing strikes fear into the hearts of Republican strategists like the idea of another wave of young voter turnout like in 2008, and this Republican war on students gives us a chance to make it happen, if we can act fast.

Click here to contribute $5 to help make sure young people vote in 2012.

Student debt has become an absolutely explosive issue among young people. Since 1999, student loan debt has increased by more than 500%. You may not realize it if you don't have kids or if you went to college 10 or 20 years ago, but it now costs on average more than $21,000 a year to go to a public school with in-state tuition. The best private schools are almost triple that much.3

In fact, we've seen two of the largest petitions in MoveOn history in recent months calling on Congress to provide relief for those drowning in student debt. This is a sleeping giant of an issue, and in the coming weeks it can really blow up.

The Republicans' doubling of interest rates is just the latest attack on students. For years they've been slashing funding for higher education, leading directly to skyrocketing tuition at public colleges and universities. Just last year, they cut $8 billion out of the Pell Grant program for low-income students and reduced the income threshold for eligibility for a full Pell Grant.4

This is the ultimate teachable moment for young voters, showing them who's on their side and why it's so important to vote. With your help, we can make this one of the key turning points of the 2012 election.

Can you contribute $5 to help make sure young people vote in 2012?

Thanks for all you do.

–Steven, Joan, Wes, Marika, and the rest of the team

Sources:

1. "Young Voters in the 2008 Election," Pew Research Center for People & the Press, November 12, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=274743&id=40284-21569168-ZY9eAtx&t=5

2. "Obama To Make Student Loans a Campaign Issue," Slate, April 20, 2012
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=274744&id=40284-21569168-ZY9eAtx&t=6

3. "Chart of the Day: Student Loans Have Grown 511% Since 1999," The Atlantic, August 18, 2011
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=274368&id=40284-21569168-ZY9eAtx&t=7

"College costs climb, yet again," CNN Money, October 29, 2011
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=274745&id=40284-21569168-ZY9eAtx&t=8

4. "Student loan rate hike: What you need to know," CNN Money, April 24, 2012
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=274746&id=40284-21569168-ZY9eAtx&t=9

Paid for by MoveOn.org Civic Action, www.moveon.org, not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

Want to support our work? MoveOn Civic Action is entirely funded by our 7 million members—no corporate contributions, no big checks from CEOs. And our tiny staff ensures that small contributions go a long way. Chip in here.

MoveOn.org Civic Action is a 501(c)(4) organization which primarily focuses on nonpartisan education and advocacy on important national issues. MoveOn.org Political Action is a federal political committee which primarily helps members elect candidates who reflect our values through a variety of activities aimed at influencing the outcome of the next election. MoveOn.org Political Action and MoveOn.org Civic Action are separate organizations.

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Obama Attacks our College Youth

Posted by Marcia Wood on April 24, 2012 at 8:26pm

 

Obama Pretends to understand their struggles with college loans because he’s walked in their shoes

Columbia Party Boy

4063498546?profile=original4063498660?profile=original

 

No Student Loans 

Free Free Free

Illegal Aliens get free ride

Remember

      

 

4063498619?profile=original

 

It’s the Jobs “STUPID”

Millions of graduates and no jobs

Our kids could pay their loans if they had a decent job

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Obama and tuition reduction

Posted by STEVE GOLDBERG on February 4, 2012 at 2:36pm

So Obama will withhold federal funds if colleges raise tuition.  Where does he get the right to start managing colleges and universities.  Here is the deal, the federal government now controls the federal grants to colleges and universities and is the only one now allowed to loan money for college  tuition.  That gives the federal government control of our higher education.  Their next step is not just tuition cost containment, but whether the students they are paying for are  receiving value for what the government spends and that means control of the curriculum .  They may elect not to pay colleges that have Ayn Rand and Friedrich von Hayek on their mandatory reading lists.  That's how they do it, little by little in small steps.

I wrote a book of short stories to educate Americans about how Obama and his progressive colleagues act and  think.  It has been called a Tea Party primer.  Check it out on Amazon.com in soft cover and Kindle version or on Barns and Noble as an e-book for their NOOK.  The title is OBAMA'S SHORTS.  WARNING: This book contains a political treatise and satire.  The text has not been approved by the U.S. Department of Thought or The Reading Protection Agency.  You may incur tax liability from reading it, pending new regulations from Obama's Kinetic Knowledge Transfer Czar.  READ AT YOUR OWN RISK. 

More book  information at www.obamasshorts.com.  The only way to save America is to educate its citizens about our founding principles. 


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Rajjpuut's Folly: After “Kiss of Death” Letter Obama Willfully Threw Money at Solyndra

Posted by Bob VanDeHey on September 26, 2011 at 1:27pm

  

Obama Ignores “Going Concern Doubt” Analysis
Before Cheerfully Subsidizing Solyndra
 
 
                Did you know that the recently bankrupt Solyndra, green-tech firm propped up with $535 million federal assistance wanted to go public? That they wanted to go public and sell stock in the company even before Mr. Obama began touting them? That the planned initial public offering (IPO) was abandoned. That one of the steps required before any IPO is an audit of the company finances and an examination of their business plan for the future? That the solar-power panel company’s finances were so awful that two months before an Obama visit to Solyndra the accounting firm of Pricewaterhouse Coopers LLC warned investors that Solyndra had financial problems so deep that they “raised substantial doubt about it ability to continue as a going concern?” Did you know that the standard wording from audits which use the word “doubt” and “going concern” in the same sentence is known in the business world as the “Kiss of Death” letter and means that over 80% of the firms so described will NOT be in business a year from now?
            Did you know that a day before Solyndra went belly-up that the Energy Department turned down a request to renegotiate the loan agreement because another “restructuring was not feasible.” Did you know that one month before that . . . Solyndra executives were allegedly telling California representative Henry Waxman that everything was going great and the company expected to “double revenues in 2012?  Does that mean they expected to lose twice as much money as well? Could it be they hoped Rep. Waxman would take their threat** as a promise? Did you know Solyndra spent more than $480,000 on lobbying in Washington in the last 365 days? Could it be they hoped Congress and the Obama administration could be cajoled into helping them endlessly?
            Three more questions?   Would you have been as cheerful knowing the financial status of the company as President Obama and Vice President Biden were during their many Solyndra photo op visits? Do you believe, as your blogger Rajjpuut does, that Mr. Obama’s proclivity for throwing money at problems (a mere cash infusion will make everything okey-dokey at Solyndra right away) blinded him to the reality that Solyndra was a losing proposition, a reality that any sensible person should have seen? Would Obama have invested HIS money as recklessly as he did YOURS? Does the FBI routinely raid bankrupt companies? Oooops, that’s four questions.
            On his May 2010 photo op when Obama told America that the Solyndra California factory he was visiting, subsidized by U.S. taxpayers displayed “the promise of clean energy isn’t just an article of faith.” Despite the two month lead time to read over and understand the Pricewaterhouse financial analysis, it appears certain that Mr. Obama did believe that throwing money at Solyndra’s way would “turn the ugly duckling into a swan.” Mr. Obama also seems to be ignorant of the fact that good money can be sent after bad, but never should be. The inevitable abandonment of the IPO; the whole history of Solyndra’s existence (never once showing a single profitable quarter in five years); and then allowing a last-minute effort to refinance with taxpayers (the most important investors) taking a back seat to the new investors . . . none of these obvious red flags seemed to alarm the president about OUR money. Mr. Obama refused to accept what was obvious to anyone who chose to open their eyes and their mind.
            Eric Shultz, a Whitehouse spokesman, thinks we’re all stupid and that it’s still possible to pull the wool over our magnifying glasses and fool us about Solyndra and Obama’s green-tech initiatives. Schultz said in an e-mailed statement that selection of companies to receive U.S. backing are “merit- based decisions made by career staffers at the Department of Energy. He added that the process for this particular loan application had begun under President George W. Bush, not mentioning that the loan was denied for three consecutive years by the Bush administration.  “Every project that receives financing through the Energy Department goes through a rigorous financial, legal and technical review process.” WOW, really??? Really??? Let’s see now? 
The Obama $787 Billion stimulus was supposed to create jobs. So far the green-tech initiatives (Mr. Obama promised to create five million new green jobs in his first term) have created roughly 3,500 jobs total at an average cost of $10.88 MILLION per green job taking an average of 1.4 years to create each job. Solyndra just laid off 1,100 workers when it filed for bankruptcy. Exactly how “rigorous” is this financial, legal and technical review process anyway?  Could it be that government playing “venture capitalists” is a very bad, indeed ruinous idea? Could it be that the 72% of the Obama stimulus was aimed at Obama cronies and Obama campaign supporters without regard to ethics or financial reality?
Of course you’ve probably heard that Energy Secretary Steven Chu made a public commitment to “speed up the approval process” of green-tech applications for federal loans and subsidies. How wonderful!
Bottom line: Solyndra disclosed the “going concern” warning by PricewaterhouseCoopers, its accounting firm, in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing on March 16, 2010.  So it’s quite possible that Solyndra’s execs up until the time they told Rep. Waxman that everything was going great, etc. were dealing an honest hand . . . which makes the Obama administration criminally negligent with the taxpayer’s money. The warning read:
“The company has suffered recurring losses from operations, negative cash flows since inception and has a net stockholders’ deficit,”
In June 2010, the month after the President Obama visit mentioned above, Solyndra executives withdrew their planned $300 million IPO.   Solyndra’s business model was based upon a supposedly strong competitive advantage employing thinner panels that could be used on virtually any roof and because they used less of the expensive silicone it was felt that the cost of their more expensive technology could be somewhat balanced by the lower cost of resources. Silicone prices have fallen recently and fell another 30% in the last year evaporating any hope of the company ever becoming competitive in the marketplace. Problems and temporary solutions for Solyndra kept taxpayer money slipping down a rat-hole after that. 
In February of this year House Republicans began investigating Solyndra’s loan-guarantee program and sent a letter to Energy Secretary Chu announcing their actions. The investigations so far point to crony-capitalism and a surprising new twist: socialist venture capitalism as the Obama administration sought to pick the winners and losers in the marketplace with foolish infusions of money into failing concerns in favored industries. The Republican investigations showed that Obama campaign fundraiser George Kaiser’s foundation (George Kaiser Family Foundation based in Tulsa, OK) owns 37% of Solyndra. Mr. Kaiser made 16 visits to the White House since 2009 according to visitor logs. 
Besides the statements allegedly made to Rep. Waxman that Solyndra “was in a strong financial position” a July 13 letter from Solyndra to the Energy Committee said revenue had increased to $140 million from just $6 million in 2008 and was projected to almost double in 2012.    Could it be that the Energy department doesn’t understand that if you’re selling more product but losing money on each sale . . . that doesn’t mean too much. The idea is to make a GASP “profit.” Yes, yes, we know that’s considered an ugly word in the liberal, progressive and socialist lexicon . . . but such are the facts of life.
 
Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
 
** Rajjpuut strongly suspects that the good congressman may be throwing Solyndra’s execs under the infamous bus. Mr. Waxman is purportedly part of the gang that was pushing so hard for Solyndra to get the federal dough. It’s also possible he’s merely stupid. An awful lot of people do NOT actually listen too well . . . instead they tend to hear either what they fear; or what they want to hear. Being told revenues have gone up 23 times in three years and that revenues would almost double again in 2012 . . . is clearly NOT the same as being told that PROFITS have gone up 23 times and would almost double . . . sad but true but politicos seldom can be expected to sympathize with nor understand business jargon. So, Friend, what questions would you have asked here? Perhaps something silly like, “Wow, that sounds impressive, so how much money are you guys making? Perhaps the progressive politicians being in “over-their-heads” when dealing with business explains why it’s been 900 days since the Democratically-controlled Senate passed a budget? Or why the Democratically-controlled House of Representatives didn’t pass a 2011 budget?  It could explain a lot.  The fact is that despite Hollywood's eternal enthrallment with "lovable losers," in politics as in the rest of life:  incompetence (unlike absence) does NOT make the heart grow fonder.
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Rajjpuut's Folly: Will SALLY MAE Drop the Next Economic Boot upon Our Necks?

Posted by Bob VanDeHey on August 11, 2011 at 4:33pm

 

 
Sally Mae ‘Next Economic Flashpoint
Aiming toward Disaster,’ Warns Moody’s
 
 
            How dare these credit-rating agencies continue giving Barack Obama all this heat? Last week Standard & Poors lowered the Federal Government’s rating on bonds and U.S. paper from Aaa+ to an unheard of low Aa+ and also downgraded the government-owned mortgage giants Fanny Mae or Freddy Mac in the same fashion. And now the credit-raters at Moody’s are telling BO that the national student loan program (which Barack took away from the free markets and gave over entirely to the government roughly thirteen months ago) a.k.a. “Sally Mae” has within it the makings of the economic surprise-disaster of the year. 
            It works like this: just as the government decided 34 years ago that everybody must own their own home (by FORCING mortgage loan companies to make poor loans to unqualified buyers with the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 a.k.a. CRA ‘77) and took the percentage of “suspect home loans” in the nation from 0.24% in 1975 to 34.2% by 2005 . . . the Obama administration has likewise decided to extend the idea of college loans to virtually every young person in the country. And just as the sub-prime lending crisis that sunk our economy from 2005 to 2008 was predictable from the very day President Jimmy Carter signed CRA ’77 into law . . . this Obama-formatted Sally Mae boondoggle, too, has a very predictable ending akin to a banana peel being dropped under your moving feet.  
The obvious result of Sally Mae’s creation will be seen when all these new college grads will have ZERO jobs awaiting them when they leave school . . . with no jobs, they’ll have no noteworthy income other than food stamps (which Obama has recently authorized for college students as you probably know) . . . with only food stamps as “income” these students will not be able to repay their student loans e-v-e-r . . . and the effect of all those student loan defaults will, Moody’s appraisal of the situation warns, very likely mean that the present S&P Aa+ rating will degenerate into a much, much lowered rating by S&P, Moody’s, Fitch’s and other credit-rating agencies. The size of the now expanded student loan program will ensure that America’s debt to GDP ratio rises from its present 110% (following recent authorization to expand the debt-ceiling to $17 TRillion) to a Greece-like 128%. 
Meanwhile Europe is burning courtesy of the riots in England; and the economic collapses of Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Ireland, Hungary; and now perhaps Belgium and France as well . . . all the while the U.S. economy seems to be more and more rivaling these pathetically-poor (p-poor?) European role models. Just as an old folk song asked us Where Have All the Flowers Gone? and then led listeners upon a tragic house-that-Jack-built type story that wound up with all the military graveyards bursting into bloom . . . the Sally Mae program is a program created by blooming idiots holding the seeds of future economic disaster.
In response to the revelations by Moody, the Obama spin doctors and the Obama puppet master George Soros via his CREW people have been going wild trying to cover the President’s golf-playing tush. CREW, of course, is the much-quoted supposedly neutral (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington) research group. Funded by Soros, (figures NOT included within the main $48 million in media funding that Soros has sponsored this year) CREW has never run a positive story on Sarah Palin and never run a negative story on Barack Obama and runs highly negative stories on Conservative issues eight times for every single mildly negative story on liberal matters . . . according to CREW, of course, the newly Obama-formatted Sally Mae is the greatest thing to happen to young people since condoms. Condoms with holes in them . . . more likely . . . .
As another gross and needless debacle looms, friends, can’t you just see young Barack holding the axe in his hand above the fallen economic oak known as the free market, “No, Father, not me -- the Tea Party, did it!”
 
Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
 
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Yet Out Of The Other Side Of His Mouth...

Posted by Walt on April 2, 2010 at 10:45am
When obama hooks up the corner of his mouth to the side of his face during a speech, it must make you wonderwhat he is trying to hide, or how is he trying to deceive us with theuse of pretty words.

The body language gives him away.

Katie "Jane, you ignorant slut" Couric suffers the same affliction.

Let's consider obama's takeover of the student loan business and his healthcare bamboozle.

obama's recent gobbling up of private sector business comes in the formof his giving the government full control of the federal student loanmarket.

The problem obama says is that the subsidies the government was payingto banks to run the program was merely a sweetheart deal for the banksand was needlessly costing the government billions of dollars.

So obama takes away the middleman and another revenue stream from thebanks (that ought to help the economy) and says that students willapply for and receive their student loans directly from the federalliberal government.

Doing away with government paid subsidies for student loans will save us billions.

However, speaking out of the other side of his mouth, obama iscurrently on another 'obama tour' trying to indoctrinate the citizenryinto accepting the notion that government paid subsidies to theinsurance industry is change that is good and will also save usbillions.

How does that work when the insurance industry surely dwarfs that ofthe student loan industry and the subsidies will thus be larger?

What role for taxes and fees and fines not called taxes?

obama says this healthcare program is an important first step, abeginning. Does that mean he will eventually bump his head and realizethat paying subsides to insurance companies has also cost us needlessbillions, thus, the government will now take over offering healthcareto it's 'citizens' directly?

And what strings will be attached to student loans? Will applicantsonly receive cash if they attend some college created by the governmentthat has a professor named Sharpton, Jackson, Wright, Pelosi, Reed,Geithner, or Emanuel?

Will applicants have to major in community agitation as theorized by the likes of Saul Alinsky or those at ACORN?

His strings have been there before. Many recipients of his jobsprogram money said thanks, but no thanks, due to government mandated'strings." Not all states applied for Sec. of Education arne "I haveno educational degree" Duncan's recent funding program due to it's'strings.' Under obamacare insurers must offer health care plans thatmeet minimum requirements....requirements set by obama's government.

America wake up.

Before obama steals your alarm clock.
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