President Biden: The NEW one and only politics thread

The interim speaker may remain so until the next election. Most of the people suited to the role want nothing to do with it. So far as I know there is no timetable for replacement, nor any limitation on the time an interim may serve.

 

I agree with a lot of this.

College as currently comprised is, IMO, an anachronism. At least for the purpose of matching practical education to people to jobs. There is no logical framework that holds equally the laudable things you're talking about with monasteries and lazy rivers. The latter belongs to an aristocratic class that can have those things if it pleases.

 

My understanding, which very well could be wrong and I’m happy to be corrected, is that the temporary Speaker has very limited power to do anything.

Seems like passing a budget deal would be an impossibility until there is a permanent Speaker.

 

I would advocate for an apprenticeship system on the order of what Germany has. If you are a young person living in a town with a Honda plant, and you want to get that good paying job, there should be some provision to get training either in the schools or via an OJT apprenticeship program. Good for both kid and company. It won't apply everywhere, of course, but if varied according to the local economy it would help.

 

The Legislature's Joint Finance Committee controls the purse strings when it comes to major capital projects -- it has shown time and again that it doesn't care what Evers or the UW administration wants.

The committee is interested in what wealthy and influential Badger boosters want. And so, the Shell project moves forward.

 

And that would be different from McCarthy how?

 

If you are trying to make college sound unattractive you’re doing a terrible job.

 

Honda has a high school apprentice program near its Ohio plants.

It largely develops engineering skills, though. Because grunts are a dime a dozen. Great engineers in rural and suburban Ohio are diamonds.

Which brings us back to…needing a college education.

 

If it was an anachronism wouldn’t higher ed be teaching a well-rounded liberal arts curriculum, rather than putting students into degree tracks for specific careers? Do accounting majors even have to take literature classes any longer? As an English major in the late 80s, I still needed math credits and PE credits to graduate.

 

I mean this sincerely: The Wisconsin practice facility was getting built if every single person in government was a Democrat. You don't get Fickell without it.

The other thing, the engineering building, I dunno, sure, yes.

 

I would think English majors still have to round it out to some degree, yes.

The larger point: If a college degree - or the jobs that come with it - add an average of five years to life, build a higher ed system tailored to maximize that value. Attend to raising the floor of the experience - and adding to the number of those on the floor - instead of refining the experience for rich kids.

My second point is we won't do it. No more than we'll ever get rid of 100-year-old golf courses regardless of the impact to climate change or more affordable housing.