The Blaze has the article Armed School Resource Officers May Have Prevented a Mass Shooting at Oregon High School.

Purdue University professor Eric Dietz, Ph.D., the former director of Homeland Security for the state of Indiana and 22-year Army veteran, recently unveiled the results of research on active shooter situations. The research found that the presence of a school resource officer can drastically reduce casualties during an active shooter situation because response time is reduced significantly.

Well, Sturbridge, what do you think of Town Meeting voting to support school resource officers now? Were they being too emotional as some people claim, or were they just being up-to-date with the times?

June 12, 2014

Jacob Ryan posted on his Facebook page a link to the article Meet the Army Veteran Who Could Once and for All Destroy One of the Left’s Key Gun Control Arguments.

Dietz says there is more research to be done on the issue, including instances where there is no active shooter, to determine if there is a significant risk to having guns present at schools on a daily basis.

Unlike the rest of the Blaze story and its conservative commenters, an unlimited number of guns in the school might not be such a good idea. At least the Blaze had the integrity to include the above quote in the story.

Rebecca Deans-Rowe made the following comment to my original reflection of this blog post on Facebook.

This “research,” which is based on some huge assumptions, is extremely flawed. There was an armed security officer at Columbine, and this did absolutely nothing to reduce the death toll. The best this officer could do was call for help. The researcher assumes that the armed resource officers would be able to respond in a particular way that would stop and disarm the shooter, but there are numerous other ways this can play out and no evidence that the result predicted by Dietz is the most likely. We have some big decisions to make in this country about how we keep our citizens safe, and it should be based on reality, not bogus research by NRA puppets. Do we want to react to this gun culture or work harder to change it?

I agree with Mila, and not just because I have been a fan ever since I saw her on That 70s Show. It always sounded presumptuous to me when men said that.

I just received this email from Elizabeth Warren. The fight is not over. This is an example of how a Senator on our side should fight. We need to stand with her. I am beginning to see the tactic of tying the Student Loan Relief to Closing Tax Loopholes for Billionaires. Still, I worry that using convenient myths to further a cause will come back to bite us.

Steven, We lost the vote. This morning, the Senate held its first vote on the Bank on Students Act to let people refinance their student loans. We got a majority — 58 senators were ready to go our way — but the Republicans filibustered the bill and we didn’t even get to debate it. I guess this is when some people would give up. Not us. Not a chance. Here’s how I see it: When we first started talking about student loans last summer, we stood strong for a better deal on new student loans. Today, we got every Democrat, every Independent, and even three Republicans to support a bill that would permit refinancing for 40 million people who are shouldering $1.2 trillion in student loan debt. Considering the speed that the Senate normally works, that’s a lot of movement in a short time. And it’s not only what we did, it’s how we did it. We put the plan to pay for it right on the table. No gimmicks or smoke-and-mirrors. We said that when the government reduces its profits on student loans, the money should be made up by stitching up tax loopholes so that millionaires and billionaires pay at least as much in taxes as middle class families. We made the choice clear: billionaires or students. People who have already made it big or people who are still trying to get a fair shot. We made the choice clear — and then we fought for it. We stood up and spoke out — individually and through our terrific organizations. We gathered more than 750,000 signatures on petitions. We made our voices heard — and that’s how we got well over 50 votes. At this point, most Republicans want us to quiet down and fade away. They don’t want us to point out that this morning, most Republicans said it was more important to protect the tax loopholes for billionaires than to cut the rates on student loans. I think it is time to come back louder than ever. I think it is time to show up at campaign events and town halls and ask every single Republican who voted against this bill why protecting billionaires is more important than giving our kids a chance to pay off their loans. I think we need to ask, and ask again, and ask again. So there it is: Show up at an event and ask a question. Encourage your friends to show up and ask questions. Send an email. Make a call. And keep circulating the petitions. This isn’t over. In Washington, I hear people say that “Elections have consequences.” I’d like to shift that just a little bit and say “Senate votes have consequences, too.” When Republicans vote to force students to keep paying high interest rates on students loans in order to plug the budget holes from tax breaks for billionaires, then it’s time to hold those Republicans accountable. I don’t plan to let this issue die. I plan to fight back. And I hope people all across this country will do exactly the same. Thank you for being a part of this, Elizabeth

Salon has the article Elizabeth Warren faces right-wing stooge: Here’s who’s quietly funding her top critic by David Dayen.

Today, the Senate votes on Elizabeth Warren’s bill to refinance previously issued student loans to current rates, which would save borrowers $55 billion over 10 years. The bill is designed to play up a contrast between the two parties on student aid; it’s not going to pass. And ultimately we need to give young people a free or near-free public option for higher education, rather than modestly subsidize the indebtedness that causes delays in major purchases and harm to the economy. But you could certainly do worse than reducing the massive amount of money the government makes off student borrowers (and I don’t think you have to pay for it; an investment in higher ed pays off itself in the long run).

Here is another voice recognizing “and I don’t think you have to pay for it.”  He may have the wrong reason for his thinking or at least not the most proximate reason.  Still there seem to be signs that the idea is starting to sink in.  I am sure that my constant harping on this point in my posts on this blog have had nothing to do with the burgeoning awareness.  It’s probably just that if I could figure it out, certainly there are other people who could figure it out, too.

I’ll let you read the rest of the article about the subject of the headline.  He makes a good point of not assuming that just because a study comes from The Brookings Institute, that it means it must be a disinterested research analysis when it criticizes someone on the left in politics.

The Daily Kos has the article Elizabeth Warren’s Student Loan Proposal: Yet Another Progressive Political Loser.

In what is just the most recent example of The Big Lie at work (that the Govt’s finances are just like your personal finances and that deficit spending is inherently inflationary), Senator Warren has provided a perfect example of the kind of terrible political choices that Dems must make when they accept the Right Wing framing on deficits. Both Cons and Dems agree on the ridiculous proposition that deficits are actually harmful to the economy and nation. The Cons want to cut spending to reduce the “harmful” deficit and Dems want to increase taxes to reduce the “harmful” deficit.

This is the part of Elizabeth Warren’s plan that I keep trying to correct.  Before I had seen the above article, I saw a Facebook Post from the Daily Kos.

This week, Sen. Elizabeth Warren is proposing a plan to raise funds so people can refinance student loans at more affordable rates by closing tax loopholes to the wealthiest Americans.

I responded to that post with the comment:

She doesn’t need a plan to raise funds. Our government makes its own funds, like when it needs trillions to bail out the banks without raising taxes.  Closing tax loopholes  is a laudable goal.  If it makes strategic sense to link the two goals, only then is it a good idea to pretend that the two are related.

When I saw the “Political Loser” article, I thought “Yah!! someone else recognizes the problem.

Wouldn’t it be ironic if the Republicans started to point out that you could give student loan relief without compensating for it somewhere else in the budget?  That may be the only way that the Republicans can get away from the false choice accusation of either supporting students or supporting billionaires.  I’d believe that this is a very sly tactic that Warren has thought up if it weren’t for the fact that she seems to believe in this false choice in other remarks she frequently makes.  Or is the level of her slyness just much deeper than I can imagine?

The Daily Kos has this story Holy smokes! Eric Cantor loses GOP primary to absolutely unknown, underfunded challenger.

In one of the most shocking primary upsets of all time, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, the second-ranking Republican in the House, has lost to economics professor Dave Brat, a political unknown who was outspent 40-to-1. Cantor ran multiple attack ads against Brat, but Brat successfully made his outright hostility to immigration reform the centerpiece of the campaign, accusing Cantor of supporting “amnesty” and putting him on the defensive.

This does not appear to be a joke, a satire, or an April Fool’s prank.

Naked Capitalism has the story Student Loan Servicer Corruption Rewarded, Covered For in New Round of Obama Executive Actions.

You literally have the Administration going around the servicers to do their job for them, while also paying the servicers more to encourage better performance. And the servicers have already proven themselves to be criminals! Why are they even still in the equation? Why are the same servicers getting the contracts?

(FYI, the last part of the executive memorandum is about stronger financial literacy for borrowers before they take out the loans, and we all know that simply doesn’t work well.)

This is another example of this White House working to prop up a broken, corrupt existing system rather than working to overhaul it. The student loan debate is a sideshow compared to actually reducing the cost of higher ed, as organizer Melissa Byrne so compellingly points out. But trusting the same fraudulent actors in the servicing arena to better serve the customers they bilked, and then covering for them with all these add-on efforts, inspires no confidence that we’ll ever get to the meaningful solutions on the other side.

Well that surely put a quick end to the euphoria of my previous posts Obama Sidesteps Congress to Expand Student Loan Repayment Program and Elizabeth Warren On President Obama’s Relief on Student Loans.

Maybe the refrain from the fraudsters is, “Don’t take it personally.  Trying to cheat you was just business.  This time you can trust us to not look for sneaky ways to make more money.”

This US News story Obama Sidesteps Congress to Expand Student Loan Repayment Program has a little more depth to it than i have read so far.

As a service to readers of this blog, I’ll quote this one snippet from the article.

Currently, the Pay As You Earn income-based repayment option, which began in December 2012, is not available to students with older loans – those who borrowed before October 2007 or those who have not borrowed since October 2011. But an analysis the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau published in October shows many income-based repayment plans are underutilized: Fewer than 50,000 borrowers were enrolled in the Pay As You Earn program. Experts have said many students don’t enroll in the programs because they are confused about the process or are simply unaware of their options.

If you have a student loan and were not aware of this, then this might be something to investigate. I don’t remember when I paid off my student loans, but it must have been in the 1970s. I don’t know any of the details of the process now.

Elizabeth Warren just posted a comment on the recent signing by President Obama of student loan relief.

Proud to have a front-row seat for President Obama’s important announcement for America’s students today. Now it’s time to pass the Bank on Students Act!

I added my standard reminder as a comment.

Just remember that the United States Federal Government does not need to raise taxes to pay for its programs. The Fed proved this when they created trillions of dollars out of thin air to bail out the banks without even causing inflation.

So what is this silly idea of Republicans that every new expenditure must be “paid” for by corresponding changes to the budget elsewhere. It can always be “paid” for by the Fed creating the money to pay for it. The government doesn’t even have to borrow its own currency to pay for it.

I was just thinking that if we took advantage of this understanding of financing federal government expenditures, we would still keep track of the balance of taxes collected and dollars spent.  For control of the budget and the economy we need to know if we are running a deficit or a surplus, or a perfect balance.  However, the deficit does not need to be financed by debt.  The yearly deficit or surplus would be whatever it was, but it would not be tied to the level of Treasury securities outstanding.

The only reason to offer Treasury Securities to the public is to give people a safe place to put their money where we are even kind enough to pay them interest for taking their money out of circulation and letting us hold onto it for them.

If the public tries to park too much money with the Treasury, we could even charge them interest for our holding it for safe keeping.  After all, what sense does it make for the FED to be trying with all its might to pump liquidity into the economy, and then we take back that liquidity and pay people for giving it back to us in the form of letting them keep an account at the Treasury?  Buying Treasury securities is akin to putting money into a savings account at a bank.  One difference is that the banks use the deposits to shore up their stability while they make loans with a good fraction of that money.  The federal government does not need to be given back its own currency.  It is much cheaper for our government to make all the money it needs rather than pay people to give them back the money they have already created.