Wednesday, January 23, 2019
The Empathetic Trump
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
— Langston Hughes, Let America be America Again
It all started in September 2017. That was when the Trump, acting through his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, let it be known that the program known as the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) was coming to an end. The program provided protection for 800,000 young undocumented immigrants who had entered the United States illegally.
DACA was the culmination of years of failed efforts by Congress to take steps to protect illegal immigrants. Those efforts began in 2002 with the introduction of legislation known as the “Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act” or “Dream Act.” In its early incarnations, it was focused on providing financial aid for children who were in the country illegally. As it continued to be introduced in subsequent years, it was modified to include a pathway to citizenship for “dreamers.” Although the legislation was introduced repeatedly following its initial introduction in Congress in 2002, it never became law. As a result, the plight of “dreamers” remained in limbo. There are reportedly 3.6 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States who were brought into the United States before they attained age 18 and would be the beneficiaries of the legislation were it ever to pass. Without it they live under the constant threat of deportation.
In 2012, supporters of the legislation to protect dreamers persuaded President Obama to take steps to protect children who had been brought into this country illegally. On June 15, 2012, President Obama created DACA. Describing the program, the Department of Human Services said that immigrants who had been brought into the country illegally as children could be considered for temporary lawful status with work authorization, subject to taking certain steps to establish eligibility. Those steps included, among other things, demonstrating that on June 15, 2012 they were under the age of 31, had arrived in the United States, before attaining age 16, and had lived in the United States continuously since June 15, 2007, 5 years before DACA was created. DACA did not provide its beneficiaries the more comprehensive protection they would have received had Congress passed the Dream Act, but it was considerably better than nothing. And it was DACA that the Trump through his henchman Sessions, let the country know was coming to an end.
Here are some coincidences affecting DACA recipients and federal workers. There are approximately 800,000 people who are beneficiaries of DACA. There are approximately 800,000 federal workers who are not being paid because of the federal shutdown that the Trump has petulantly imposed on the country and its workers until he gets what he wants. There are also similarities in the words the Trump used to describe the effects of ending DACA and the effects of not paying federal workers.
On September 5, 2017, after Jeff Sessions announced that DACA was ending, the Trump said that the program had been created by President Obama using his executive authority and “It is now time for Congress to act. As I’ve said before, we will resolve the DACA issue with heart and compassion-but through the lawful Democratic process. . . while at the same time ensuring that any immigration reform we adopt provides enduring benefits for the American citizens we were elected to serve. We must also have heart and compassion for the unemployed struggling and forgotten Americans.” In speaking with reporters after his prepared remarks, he expressed compassion for the immigrants but said: “long term it’s going to be the right solution.” He went on to say: “I have a great heart for these folks we’re talking about. A great love for them and people think in terms of children but they’re really young adults. I have a love for these people and hopefully now Congress will be able to help them and do it properly.”
The Trump sounded the same note about the federal workers who are not being paid, although he was not as effusive in expressing his love for the federal workers as he was in expressing his love for the immigrants. “Mr. President, can you relate to the pain of federal workers who can’t pay their bills?” a reporter asked the Trump outside the White House in early January. “I can relate,” the Trump responded. “And I’m sure that the people that are toward the receiving end will make adjustments, they always do. And they’ll make adjustments. People understand exactly what’s going on.” Addressing the federal workers during the fourth week of the shutdown he had an encouraging tweet: “To all of the great people who are working so hard for your Country and not getting paid I say, THANK YOU – YOU ARE GREAT PATRIOTS! We must now work together, after decades of abuse, to finally fix the Humanitarian, Criminal & Drug Crisis at our Border. WE WILL WIN BIG!”
His words made DACA recipients feel a lot better. His words and tweets made unpaid federal employees feel a lot better. The Trump is a real word wizard.
Thursday, January 17, 2019
The DeVos and the Defrauded
Finley Peter Dunne [Mr. Dooley], _Colleges andD’ye think th’ colledges has much to do with th’ progress iv th’ wurruld? Asked Mr. Hennessey. D’ye think,” said Mr. Dooley, “tis the mill that makes th’ wather run?’
Degrees_
Most investors couldn’t have seen it coming, but those in the business were thrilled. The day after The Trump was given the keys to the best playroom he’d ever had, the stock in Strayer Education, Inc., the company that owns the for-profit Strayer University, jumped almost 20%. Stock in other for profit universities enjoyed a similar increase. Investors were prescient. Betsy DeVos was named Secretary of Education.
A fan of school choice, charter schools, and a major supporter of the Republican party, Betsy was a great choice for the position, even though she had no experience in the realm of education, other than her passionate support for the reportedly less than successful charter schools in Michigan.
After Betsy was confirmed by the Senate, she made up for her own lack of knowledge about the world of education by hiring people who had been closely identified with the for-profit college business. Among them was Julian Schmoke, who was placed in charge of the unit that investigates fraud in higher education. From 2008 to 2012 Mr. Schmoke was associate dean of the College of Engineering and Information Sciences at DeVry University. That university engaged in assorted fraudulent activities, for which it paid more than $1 million in fines and penalties.
Another Betsy hire was Robert Eitel who, prior to joining the Department, had been at Bridgepoint Education. That institution was fined $30 million on account of deceptive student lending practices.
According to a report by the Associated Press, Betsy took steps designed to improve the lives of the for-profit colleges, while making it more difficult for defrauded students to be made whole. As she explained, if a former student borrows money from the government to attend a for-profit college that defrauds the student, and the debt is forgiven or reduced, the cost of the forgiveness lands on the backs of the taxpayer. The defrauded students should, she believes, share in bearing some of the pain of having been defrauded. It should not all land on the backs of the taxpayers since they were not the ones defrauded. Happily for students, Betsy did not have the last word.
A federal court has now come to the rescue of the defrauded students and the Department of Education is being forced to help out the students. On December 14, 2018, a federal court ruled that Betsy’s efforts to force students who had been defrauded by for-profit colleges to bear some of the burden of paying the debt they had been induced to incur, were invalid. The court said the Department of Education had to bear that burden, and not the student. On December 13, 2017, the Department of Education announced that it would cancel $150 million in student loan debt for some 15,000 students who had been defrauded by the institutions they attended. Reportedly, half of the borrowers had attended Corinthian Colleges. Corinthian went bankrupt in 2015.
Commenting on the court order, Sen. Pat Murray (D-Wash.) said it was: “disappointing that it took a court order to get Secretary DeVos to begin providing debt relief to students left in the lurch by predatory for profit colleges. . . .” The December ruling was not the end of the good news for student borrowers.
On January 3, 2019, 49 state attorneys general announced that almost 180,000 students who had attended the for-profit college, Career Education, would not be required to repay $494 million in outstanding student debt. The settlement was the result of a five-year probe of Career Education by the attorneys general. That institution allegedly engaged in deceptive recruiting tactics in order to attract students. According to a report in the New York Times, among other things, students were charged for vocational programs that did not have the proper accreditation for students to obtain licenses to work in their fields of study. The loans that were forgiven were not federal loans. They were amounts owed to Career Education and, according to reports, Career Education had already written most of them off. That settlement does not relieve students of any federal debt they may have incurred in order to attend Career Education. Students will have to apply to the Education Department for forgiveness of federal loans.
Career Education expressed satisfaction at the conclusion of the litigation. Two other people who were probably delighted with the end of the litigation were Carlos Muñoz and Diane Auer Jones.
Shortly after taking office, Betsy appointed Carlos to serve as the General Counsel for the Department of Education. Before Betsy appointed him, he had provided consulting services to Career Education Corporation. Only he knows whether he was aware of the practices that caused his former client to forgive $494 million in student debt.
Diane was hired as a senior adviser to the Department of Education on post-secondary education. Before that, she spent five years as a senior vice-president at Career Education. Only she knows if she was aware of the practices that caused her former employer to forgive almost $500 million in student debt. Not that anyone in the Trump swamp would care.
Thursday, January 10, 2019
Fed. Workers' Woes
No memory of having starred,
Atones for later disregard. . . .
— Robert Frost, Two Tramps in Mud Time
It’s not all taxpayers he doesn’t care about. Only the 800,000 federal employees who are not getting paid. As far as the rest of us are concerned, he wants to limit the impact as much as he can. As Russell Voigt, the acting director of the office of Management and Budget said: “The administration is trying to make the shutdown as painless as possible consistent with the law.” The effort is not, however, directed at federal employees. Just the rest of us.
In late December, IRS employees received an undated e mail entitled “IRS Employee Emergency News.” It advised employees that “due to the lapse in appropriations most IRS operations are closed. An IRS-wide furlough began on December 22, 2018 for everyone except already identified excepted employees. Non-excepted employees are furloughed and placed in a non-pay and non-duty status until further notice. . . . Employees will be given four hours to close out work requirements and receive formal furlough notification.” That was followed by the good news that they would receive their December 31 pay checks.
The notice concludes saying that: “As an IRS employee affected by the government shutdown, there can be temporary hardships in meeting your financial obligations. This may occur regardless of when pay resumes for you as a furloughed or excepted employee.” The message provides information the employees may wish to share with creditors in trying to figure out how to deal with their inability to make payments. It further provides two phone numbers the employee can call for updates. The recorded message on one of the numbers advises the caller that the shutdown began December 22 and advises the caller that the caller has been placed in “nonpaid and non-duty status.” The other number rings with no response.
The 79,000 IRS employees are not, of course, the only federal employees who received the kind of messages IRS employees were given. IRS employees were joined by some 720,000 other employees of the federal government who were told they would not be receiving pay checks during the shutdown.
When proudly saying he would take credit for the shutdown a few days before it actually occurred, the Trump was unaware of one effect the shutdown had on non-federal employees. He did not realize that the shutdown did not merely impact federal employees and those with whom the unpaid employees had business dealings. It affected hundreds of millions of people not employed by the federal government. Here’s one of the reasons.
At the beginning of every calendar year, millions of taxpayers file tax returns as quickly as possible in order to receive refunds for taxes they overpaid the preceding year. Those refunds are frequently in the thousands of dollars. Recipients count on those refunds to meet other obligations they have. The funds come as delayed Christmas presents for the recipients. How important the refunds are is demonstrated by the statistics.
Between the first of January and the second of March 2018, the IRS paid tax refunds to 48.5 million households. Those refunds were in excess of $147 billion. In 2019 it is estimated that the total amount to be refunded will be in excess of $140 billion.
During past shutdowns, processing and payment of refunds was held up until the shutdown was over. Postponing the infusion of $140 billion into the economy has a profound impact not only on the taxpayer who does not receive the refund, but on those with whom the taxpayer has financial dealings such as merchants, creditors, landlords and the like. Here is one thing the Trump knew when he imposed the shutdown for which he was so pleased to take credit. He knew that federal workers would go without pay so long as the shutdown was in place. Here is something he did not know.
He did not know that during past shutdowns when the IRS employees were furloughed, tax refunds were not being processed and the $140 billion to which taxpayers were entitled were not processed. When someone pointed out to him that that was a lot of money to withhold from the citizens entitled to it, he immediately ordered the IRS to immediately bring back on staff, a sufficient number of employees to begin processing claims for refunds even though that had never been done in earlier shutdowns. Ordering IRS workers to begin processing refund claims, albeit without being paid for their work, showed how much the Trump cares about taxpayers who need the refunds to take care of their obligations.
Ordering the IRS to begin processing claims was not the only way the Trump proved his concern for his subjects. On January 6, 2019, while standing outside the White House, a reporter asked him if he could “relate to the pain of federal workers who can’t pay their bills?” He responded: “I can relate. And I’m sure that the people that are toward the receiving end will make adjustments, they always do.” He was probably thinking of his own experiences. Companies he controlled went into bankruptcy six times before he became president. As he told the reporter, he made adjustments. That’s how he got to where he is now. The rest of us are the poorer for it.