“Immigrant students have been at the center of a political firestorm,” says the Citizens League report, Educating Minnesota’s Immigrant Students. At a panel presentation of the report on February 27, study committee member Matt Musel said that they found “little data, but lots of politics and passion” surrounding the issue of immigrant students. The Citizens League is a non-partisan, citizen-based and multi-issue organization working to shape public policy in Minnesota since the 1950s.
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Author Archives: Mary Turck
Educating Minnesota’s immigrant students
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News Day: Unemployment / Bad news for bus riders / Nick speaks! / Pigs flying? / Viking stadium / Outrage of the day / Wonk alert / more
Unemployment up even more than expected national unemployment figures jumped to 8.1%, even more than expected, rising half a percent in the last month, with the economy shedding 651,000 jobs. Rates for blacks (13.4 percent) and Hispanics (10.9 percent) continue higher than the average, while the jobless rate for teen-agers continues at a whopping 21.6 percent.
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An Immodest Proposal
Rep. Tom Hackbarth (R-Cedar) proposed a new twist on the old link between professional sports and gambling this week. He wants to build a metro-area casino and use the income from the casino to build a new stadium for the Vikings. What a charming idea! We could encourage gambling in a time of general recession and job loss, siphon off the revenues of Indian-owned casinos, and stuff the pockets of Zygi Wilf and company, all at the same time.
Vikes spokesman Lester Bagley said they are not advocating gaming, but “if that’s what the state leaders want to use, then let’s sit down. At least someone is thinking creatively.”
My husband suggested an even more creative idea, and one perhaps more in keeping with the manly sport of football. Why not establish the first legal brothel in Minnesota, and use the proceeds to support the Vikings?
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News Day: Housing rescue / Tough rental market / Klobuchar=Blue Dog? / Headscarves and drivers’ licenses / Education, OSHA, Tibet, more
Housing rescue The Obama administration housing plan has two main thrusts, reports AP: refinancing mortgages for up to five million and modifying loan payments for up to four million. Both plans are limited to people who live in their mortgaged homes. The refinancing plan is available to borrowers who owe no more than five percent more than their home’s current value, and whose loans are held by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. The loan modification program would pay lenders to put borrowers into loans with interest rates as low as 2 percent for two years, then rising to 5 percent.
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News Day: More on MN deficit and recession
March 4: Back to school / MN Job Watch / TCF and TARP / TOP SECRET no longer / Sudan, Afghanistan, Mexico and more
Budget deficit: Day 2 In the aftermath of the revelation that the economic stimulus will keep the red ink from rising higher, lawmakers and the governor are back to sparring over how to make up the $4.6 billion deficit. A trio of MPR reports gives context: State Finance Commissioner Tom Hanson warned that the long-term problem will get worse, with a $5.1 billion deficit forecast for 2012-13, and that the economic stimulus is a one-time rescue that does not solve the structural problem.
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News Day: Feds rescue MN budget deficit
March 3: More news — Coleman asks for new election / Cut, cut, cut / Medicare paying off insurance companies / City Council putting brakes on Central Corridor plans? / Lock ’em up / MN Job Watch
MN budget deficit: better news MPR reports that the budget projections due out later this morning will show good news for Minnesotans, with federal stimulus money riding to the rescue. Without the federal aid, the two-year deficit was projected to grow to $6.4 billion, but with the aid, it will shrink to $4.57 billion (from the previously-projected $4.8 billion.) That’s about the only good news, with unemployment up, tax revenues down, and the Guv stlll insisting on balancing the budget by slashing LGA and other state expenditures and refusing to consider tax increases.
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News Day: It’s the economy (and the budget deficit and the CitiGroup and AIG bailouts)
More March 2 stories: The weather! / Facebook and Lent / Recount / Scam alert / Momos and pizza / Head scarves and gangbangers? / Some good news! / Welfare freeze / Miss North Dakota arrested in Iran
Stormy weather ahead Billions in bad news is expected when State economist Tom Stinson issues the next state budget forecast on Tuesday, writes Bill Salisbury in the PiPress. In December, Stinson forecast the $4.85 billion deficit that has had everybody from the capitol to city hall scrambling to slash budgets, and the betting is that the new prediction will be $6 or $7 billion.
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News Day: Budget, ballots, bishops, Bill Holm and more
February 27, 2009
The Budget Obama’s ten-year budget plan lays it all out, including a record $1.75 trillion deficit this year and, for the first time, putting the war costs into the budget.
The Ballots The three-judge panel reversed itself on Thursday, allowing testimony from a Republican election judge despite the Coleman legal team’s violation of rules of civil procedure — and thereby eliminated one possible grounds for appeal of their eventual decision.
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The budget: Obama’s ten-year plan
The White House released a 10-year, 134-page budget plan yesterday, projecting a record $1.75 trillion deficit by September 30, and pledging to cut that in half by the end of his term. According to NPR:
The deficit would remain near $1 trillion over the next two years before dropping to $581 billion in 2012 and $533 billion in 2013, the year that Obama has pledged to cut in half the deficit he inherited.
News Day: Carstarphen going to Texas – and in other news: Getting rid of environmental watchdog; First Dog; Pig brains; Workers’ comp abuses–by insurers; Cartel crackdown; Smoking in cars; Around the world in 90 seconds, and more
Carstarphen going to Texas The Austin school trustees >voted unanimously to hire Meria Carstarphen as superintendent on Thursday morning, ending the suspense over her future plans.
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Mary Turck