The news media has, rightly, been focused on health care reform over the last few weeks. Lost in the buzz over HCR is a significant development concerning the privatization of government operations. Or, more rightly, an end to a privatization scheme that has cost the taxpayer 100’s of billions of dollars over the last 4 decades.
A major reform of the student loan program was slipped through the House with very little fanfare and far less controversy than would have happened if not for the cover of HCR. The changes effectively end private-lender involvement in the student loan program. Lobbyist for the lenders had worked furiously to block the reforms, but now have little hope since the loan program changes were included in the budget reconciliation bill that contains the “fixes” to the Senate health care bill.
The battle over reform of the student loan program began last April when President Barack Obama called for repeal called for an end to the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFEL) program. The president said the program was, “taxpayers…paying banks a premium to act as middlemen — a premium that costs the American people billions of dollars each year….a premium we cannot afford.”
The U.S. Agency for International Development’s Production, Finance, and Technology (PROFIT) program in Lusaka, Zambia, is different from other development projects, according to Rob Munro, the program’s senior market development advisor. This is because PROFIT has “real clients” in the private sector who maintain relationships with smallholder farmers.
By working with these partners, PROFIT isn’t distorting the market “by throwing money at it” or giving farmers subsidies for inputs, such as fertilizer. Instead, it is working with farmers, the private sector, and donors to improve the competitiveness of rural businesses by linking large agribusiness firms to farmers. It’s helping to improve linkages within industries that large numbers of small and medium-sized enterprises participate in, such as cotton, livestock, and non-timber forest products like honey.
Specifically, PROFIT helps communities select and train agricultural agents who work with agribusiness to provide inputs to farmers in rural areas-places where agribusiness firms had been reluctant to go because they didn’t think there was a big enough market. The agents are essentially entrepreneurs who provide goods and services that the communities didn’t have access to. In addition to selling things like hybrid maize or fertilizer, the agents can also provide ripping services to farmers practicing conservation farming methods, as well as herbicide spraying and veterinary services.
The “key” to the program’s success, says Munro, is that the agent is a “community man” selected by the communities themselves, not by agribusiness firms. The farmers trust the agent not to run off with their money and to deliver the goods and services they’ve purchased.
Unlike traditional development projects that “inundate” communities with trainers, PROFIT minimizes the number of USAID staff involved locally, helping to ensure that the project isn’t viewed as traditional “aid,” which can create dependency. Unlike the AGRA-supported CNFA, which relies extensively on its own staff to train agro-dealers, 80 percent of the trainings for agents are not provided by PROFIT, but by firms that are training agents how to use their products.
PROFIT’s model means that the program doesn’t work “with the poorest of the poor,” but with farmers who have the ability to scale up, says PROFIT chief of party Mark Wood. If you start with the very poorest, Wood says, “it’s like trying to start a car without an engine.” But by working with the 200,000 farmers in Zambia who have the means to collaborate with businesses, PROFIT is helping to create opportunities for thousands of poorer farmers in the future.
Stay tuned this week for more about PROFIT and Mobile Technology’s work to help small and medium-sized enterprises and farmers use mobile phone technology for e-banking services and to access market information.
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So tonight (technically “last night” now?) was the long-awaited health care vote, and as I’m sure you all know, it must be a monumental event indeed to bring Kysen not only into the open, but into writing a diary… however disjointed and meandering it may be. 😉 The past few days have been the stuff anxiety attacks are made of for those of us who have invested our time, money, hopes, and passions in health care reform. The uncertainties seemed endless… would we have the votes, would something go wrong at the last minute? But much to the relief of all those holding their breath…
It passed.
This will be an open thread (surprised?). Follow me below the fold for more.
As we await the historic vote on health care reform, it’s important to remember that we’re just ten days away from the end of the first fundraising quarter of 2010. The fundraising totals reported in this quarter will be pivotal to determining the tenor of many races for the rest of the year. If there is any time to contribute, now is the time!
Please head over to the Expand the Map! ActBlue page and contribute whatever you are able to these terrific Democratic candidates for Senate.
Democrat
Currently At
End-of-Quarter Goal
Distance to Goal
Kendrick Meek
$25
$300
$275
Bill Halter
$445
$750
$305
Joe Sestak
$1,320
$1,600
$280
Paul Hodes
$1,447
$1,700
$253
Robin Carnahan
$1,163
$1,400
$237
Remember, the contribution you can make isn’t just a donation to a single candidate or political campaign. It’s an investment against Republican obstruction (and conservaDem enabling) and an investment toward achieving that more perfect union.
The New York Times posted a very interesting map of Afghanistan’s recent election.
Before continuing, I must note that my purpose is not to question whether irregularities or fraud might have denied Abdullah Abdullah victory; I am simply analyzing the data as it appears.
There’s a lot of data here, and interpreting it is fairly difficult; few people know much about Afghan politics and demographics. This map indicates the margins each candidate won. Kabul is the big red circle. In total, Karzai won 55% of the vote, essentially doubling the vote of the second-closest candidate.
Compared to a similar maps of U.S. elections, several things stand out. The first is the extent to which polarization is apparent. Afghani society is very clan-based, and elections can reveal polarization like nothing else.
Tonight, the President and the Congress will pass comprehensive health care reform. There are absolutely no voices left to refute this fact.
At this moment – 9:39 pm ET – on FOX News Hannity is spending time to forecast the defeat of certain Democratic Congressfolks in November: a Far Right concession speech if ever there was one. On MSNBC Ed Schultz is saying that Barack Obama may just be a genius: a stronger nod from the Far Left than is usually found from that source. CNN is running its viewers through the benefits of the now-finished reform bill as they will – not “may” – unfold over coming years.
Words Fail me. This is someone who’s internalised all those great speeches and great thoughts, and then says the right thing at exactly the right moment…learned not by teleprompter, but by heart
But he didn’t do it alone: great footage here of Nancy Pelosi pissing off Teabaggers, marching arm in arm, Selma like, with John Lewis, and wielding a mighty scary weapon – the gavel
A transcript of the whole amazing extempore speech after the flip
OK… while many are watching the NCAA Basketball games, I’ll be watching the big sports action of the weekend: The Health Care bill in the House of Representatives.
CSPAN is showing BOTH the debates in the House and the Reconciliation Bill debate in the House Rules Committee (on CSPAN 2). The major players will all be out there, making the points or stalling to try and get the bill bogged down. Whatever happens today will determine what gets voted on tomorrow.
Oh, boy. Do I ever need some brain bleach. Today, Rush Limbaugh listed a phone number for listeners to call to reach their representatives in Congress. What followed was a classic example of tragicomedy, except that it was true life.
From Time via Balloon Juice.
“Alert the patriots: Tyrants are ruining our country!”
Posted by Kate Pickert Friday, March 19, 2010 at 6:36 pm
13 Comments
A funny thing happened on the way to the congressional switchboard earlier this week.
On Wednesday, Rush Limbaugh told his listeners to call Congress and tell them to vote no on health care reform. That’s no small thing. With his millions of fans, this is the kind of advice that could crash the congressional phone system.
But Rush made a critical error in his activism and it revealed an insider trick about grassroots organizing and showcased the absolute hatred some of Rush’s listeners feel about Democratic health care reform. Stay with me here – I promise the payoff will be worth it.
FamiliesUSA, a pro-reform activist group, has a toll-free number on its web site, telling supporters: “Call your elected officials at 1-888-876-6242. Tell them that Americans deserve better than the status quo. We need quality, affordable health care NOW.”
People who call this number, however, don’t actually reach elected officials – at first. They reach a recorded message that begins, “Thank you for calling your representatives and your senators. Please urge them to vote yes on health reform…” After the pro-reform message, the call is routed to the actual capitol switchboard. The purpose of this is to two-fold: To give callers a kind of script to say when they do reach members and senators and to spare them the cost of a long-distance call.
Unfortunately for Rush, he gave out the toll-free FamiliesUSA number on his show on Tuesday, which meant his anti-reform listeners got a pro-reform message when they tried to call Congress. So many Rush fans called the FamiliesUSA number on Tuesday that it caused a massive spike in call volume, which was immediately noticed by the group’s telephone re-routing vendor. Not wanting to pick up the tab for anti-reform calls, of course, FamiliesUSA immediately shut down the number and got a new one, which is posted above and now functioning as intended. (FamiliesUSA executive director Ron Pollack says the cost of that brief spike is in the thousands of dollars. “It’s an ironic form of flattery,” he quipped when I reached him earlier today.)
But Rush’s callers didn’t understand this whole re-routing thing and many were absolutely and astoundingly enraged. Many of them assumed the pro-reform message they got was a left-wing conspiracy to take over government. Think this is a stretch?
Here’s a Youtube video posted by one such caller, who believed he had discovered a blatant case of “Obama propoganda…Alert the patriots: Tyrants are ruining our country !”
He’s not alone. After FamiliesUSA turned off their original toll free number, it was bought by someone else who must have known about the mixup. That new person put a pro-reform bulletin on an answering machine and recorded messages left by angry – and I mean very angry – Rush listeners. WARNING: Many of the message contain obscenities – they can be accessed by calling 206-666-6666.
If you ever had any doubts that there are people out there who truly believe the Democratic health reform plan is a communist conspiracy to take over America…
Embedding has been disabled for the youtube video mentioned in the article – here’s a link to it
I called the 206 number mentioned in the article and recorded some of the calls for you. These are not suitable for children. Lots of 10-12 letter words. This was recorded from a cellphone speaker, so the quality and volume are lousy. You may have to turn your speaker volume up all the way to hear it clearly.
The bill does this through several mechanisms. Firstly, it expands federal Pell Grants, which are government grants to low-income college students. These individuals would not be able to attend college without such types of aid (although an average Pell Grant these days would cover barely more than one-tenth the cost of attending a place like Harvard). The bill also sets Pell Grants to rise year after year, in line with inflation. President Barack Obama perhaps best explains the significance of this reform:
…we are also changing the way the value of a Pell Grant is determined. Today, that value is set by Congress on an annual basis, making it vulnerable to Washington politics. What we are doing is pegging Pell Grants to a fixed rate above inflation so that these grants don’t cover less and less as families’ costs go up and up. And this will help prevent a projected shortfall in Pell Grant funding in a few years that could rob many of our poorest students of their dream of attending college. It will help ensure that Pell Grants are a source of funding that students can count on each and every year.
Unfortunately, if the bill does not pass, this year’s Pell Grants will be cut by more than half. In a bad recession and with ever-rising college tuition prices, this would severely impact a large number of Americans. Many individuals seeking to better their lives through college would be deeply hurt. Some might be forced to drop out. Others might have to add on yet more crushing student debt, forced to take exorbitant loans from private lenders.
rightly, been focused on health care reform over the last few weeks. Lost in the buzz over HCR is a significant development concerning the privatization of government operations. Or, more rightly, an end to a privatization scheme that has cost the taxpayer 100’s of billions of dollars over the last 4 decades.
The U.S. Agency for International Development’s 
