Obama Returns to Texas to Raise Money, Talk Higher Ed
In his first trip to the Texas capital as president, Barack Obama served up little news but plenty of red meat for supporters in this decidedly Democratic part of the state. At a fundraiser benefiting the Democratic National Committee, Obama took swipe after swipe at Republicans for putting politics ahead of policy. Later, he talked higher education on the campus of the University of Texas, one of the nation's largest public universities.
While he was joined all day by a throng of current and former Texas politicians, the president steered clear of Texas politics. Republican Gov. Rick Perry greeted ...
Comments (6)
Joe Estep via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Oh, so we`re out of the the mess? Missed that one.
Bob Brown via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Well we are not in recession that is an improvement. We are slowly heading in the right direction fiscally rather what was happening.
If indeed as most agree the bubble burst, would you have us build another bubble or have a slow sustainable recovery?
Donald Dickson via Texas Tribune on Facebook
What left me scratching my head was the President's assertion that "education is our number one economic issue." Waitaminute....I thought it was health care. And I got news for you: It's health care. It's still health care. I don't know if the HCR bill has fixed anything that needed fixed. According to "60 Minutes," the bill did nothing to bring any rationality to soaring end-of-life care costs.
I also don't know how another 100,000 business and psych majors are going to turn our economy around. The other day I went looking for ANYTHING in my home that said "Made in USA" on it, and the only thing I found was a bag of potato chips. "It's health care, stupid."
Beverly Acrey Kimbrough via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Austin Community College can not turn out enough certified R.N.s as the industry demands. There is usually a 2 year waiting lists of qualified students waiting to get in. Maybe education and health care are related?
Donald Dickson via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Beverly, I think you've touched on an important part of the puzzle, which is that we ought to be doing a better job than we are of training people for important jobs without the need to obtain bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees. I think we have a lot of people who are wasting their time (and senselessly racking up enormous debts) pursuing these degrees which don't always prepare them for the jobs we need them to do. Why anybody would get a psych degree in this economy, or go to law school, is simply beyond me. I have a nephew who is interested in becoming a patent lawyer, and I'm begging him instead to become a patent owner.
I was once a principal in a telecom company, and we had a stable of telecom "engineers" who were high school graduates with years of telecom experience. These were smart people who had learned everything they knew on-the-job, and who at this stage of their careers were making pretty good money doing it.
In this day and age, when children learn how to use computers before they learn how to ride bicycles, there should be little or no need for anyone to get a four-year college degree, or three degrees, as a threshold to designing the next generation of hardware or software. There should be nothing unique about Bill Gates.
And it would be nice just to be able to wear or sit on anything "Made in the USA" again.
Veronica Estrada via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Texas rocks. President Obama didn't really have a lot to offer or say. One thing's for sure - he doesn't look very happy.