President Biden is unpopular.

Recent polling shows only 32% of Americans think Biden deserves reelection, and a majority of Democrats want their party’s nominee to be someone other than Biden.

Only 32% of Americans think Biden “has the stamina and sharpness to serve effectively as president.” And, as for younger voters like me, only 26% of Americans ages 18–34 want Biden to serve another term.

So, are young leftists like me just SOL? Do we have no choice but to suck it up and vote for Joe lesser-of-two-evils Biden in 2024? Or is there a progressive alternative for us to consider in the Democratic primary?

Luckily, there is a good, progressive alternative to Biden. Her name is Marianne Williamson.

Marianne Williamson, the self-help author turned presidential candidate, recently began her campaign for the 2024 democratic nomination for president. For progressives like me, a primary challenger to the left of Biden is good news.

Not only should Americans take Williamson’s campaign seriously, they should also take a serious look at voting for her in the 2024 primary election. Let me do my best to introduce Williamson and make the case for supporting her longshot primary bid against Biden.

Williamson has better policies

The first reason to support Williamson’s longshot bid for president is a simple one: she’s just better on policy than Biden.

Williamson supports universal, single payer health care – something that exists in some form in every other industrialized country in the world. Biden doesn’t.

Williamson supports tuition-free public colleges and universities for all. Biden doesn’t.

Williamson supports paring back our bloated defense budget. Biden – who recently requested a baffling $842 billion annual defense budget – doesn’t.

I could go on, but I think my point is clear: Williamson is bolder and better on the issues than Biden.

The Ross Perot effect

Before you rush to the comments, believe me: I understand that Williamson’s bid for the democratic nomination over an incumbent president is a longshot. But, a loss in the primary can’t always be how we as progressives define success.

Success can mean pushing the party and country’s Overton window to the left — something that Bernie Sanders’ campaigns in 2016 and 2020 certainly did. Despite primary losses, Sanders’ campaigns are undoubtedly the reason Biden’s first term has had some bright spots for progressives.

To continue pushing Biden and the Democratic Party leftward, we need a bold progressive in the primary to challenge Biden and, more generally, the Democratic establishment, on the issues. Why is it that Biden and co. oppose universal, single-payer health care? Why is it that Biden and co. oppose free tuition at public colleges and universities?

I like to call this the “Ross Perot effect.”

Perot was an independent candidate for president in 1992, running in a lane to the right of incumbent George H.W. Bush. Though Bill Clinton won the election, Perot’s success in the general election — garnering 19% of the popular vote as an independent candidate — certainly influenced Clinton to take a position in office to the right of what many progressives like me might’ve liked.

Even if she loses, a meaningful Williamson campaign could push a victorious Biden to the left.

So, if you’re a young progressive like me not looking forward to voting for 82-year-old Biden, look no further: Marianne Williamson is a great candidate to consider.

As college students with student loan debt await the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan, I thought it would be a worthwhile endeavor to take a deep dive into the court’s recent history as well as where it stands right now.

In recent years, the court has made plenty of, quite frankly, terrible decisions.

Just last summer, the court took away the constitutional right to abortion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. In short, the conservatives ignored the Ninth Amendment (which seemingly doesn’t exist to the court’s originalists) and court precedent in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey to do as the evangelicals have long wished: allow states to completely ban abortion (even in cases of rape) if they wish.

As we prepare for the court’s decision on student loan forgiveness this summer, another bad decision could be in line. In oral arguments, it appears seven justices are set in their decisions. Roberts, Gorsuch, Alito and Thomas appear likely to strike down Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan, while Sotomayor, Kagan and Brown-Jackson appear likely to uphold it.

The two wildcards are both Trump-appointed justices: Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. Kavanaugh is sympathetic to the Biden Administration’s interpretation of the word “waive” in the HEROES Act, while Barrett questioned whether any of the suing parties have legal standing in the case. If just one of the wildcards joins with four of the court’s conservatives, the Biden Administration’s student loan forgiveness plan will be struck down.

In case there is any debate where I stand on the legality of Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan, let me be very clear: Biden has the authority to cancel student loan debt. Congress gave him that authority under both the HEROES Act of 2003 and the Higher Education Act of 1965. Further, I have a tough time believing any of the suing parties have legal standing in their cases.

Regardless of the court’s decision in this case, the Supreme Court stinks. I was considering sugarcoating this column, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Increasingly so, it’s another political body that only cares about the elites that put them in their positions.

And I’m not sure the court is fixable. But, I have three ideas to try and fix our increasingly broken Supreme Court.

Term limits

If the court is going to be politically ideological — and it already is — then we might as well make it so that it at least reflects the political ideology of the people. We could do this by having a justice replaced every two years, with each new justice serving for an 18-year term.

This would ensure the court reflects the will of the people. Why does Donald Trump, a one-term president that lost the popular vote, get to nominate three justices to the bench for the rest of their lives, while Barack Obama, a president who won the popular vote twice, only get to nominate two?

Ethics code

The fact that the Supreme Court is not held to an ethics code baffles me. Why aren’t the nine justices on the court held to the same ethical standards as Congress or any other federal judge? Why can Clarence Thomas sit on cases concerning the events of Jan. 6, 2021, despite the fact that his own wife has some connections to that day’s events?

It doesn’t make any sense, and I hope Congress passes the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal and Transparency Act of 2022, which would create a code of conduct not only for the nine justices, but also for their staffers.

Balance the court

Some critics of the current Supreme Court have called for Democrats to add four seats to the Supreme Court and “pack” the court with four liberal justices, flipping the court from a 6-3 conservative majority to a 7-6 liberal majority. This approach is impossible right now because Republicans control the House, but it is a bad idea regardless; Republicans would likely just add more conservative justices to the court in future years.

Instead of further politicizing the court, we should aim to depoliticize the court. How can we do this?

We could balance the court by doing what Daniel Epps and Ganesh Sitaraman outlined in the Yale Law Journal. They call it the “Balanced Bench.” In short, the court would permanently have 15 justices: five Democrats, five Republicans and five that are picked unanimously by the other 10. The logistics get muddy, but the goal is this would create a more non-partisan and moderate court, two attributes the current Supreme Court is certainly lacking.

The Supreme Court is broken. Its justices are increasingly partisan and predictable, and only 40% of Americans approve of it. Can these proposals fix the broken court? I don’t know, but they’re worth a shot.

March is here, and many PK-12 school districts either are, or soon will be, on spring break. For families, this may mean a nice trip to Florida or getting ready for spring sports.

For teachers, administrators, school boards and superintendents the focus starts to shift to the budget for the next school year. School boards and superintendents are thinking about whether they have to make cuts, and if so, where they should make them. Teachers and administrators are thinking about whether they have a job for the next school year, if they’re getting a raise and how big that raise might be.

Certainly, every district in the state might not have to make cuts, but it seems many will. Willmar Public Schools, my alma mater, is bracing for a $2 million cut, which is 3–4% of the annual budget. Rochester Public Schools is looking to cut about $14 million from their annual budget. Many districts will be making decisions on if cuts are needed within the next four to six weeks, at which point the list of districts making cuts will be much clearer.

But hold on…our state has a $17.5 billion budget surplus. So, why are Minnesota’s school districts cutting their budgets? Shouldn’t this be a time of stability, if not expansion, for Minnesota’s public schools? That’s what I thought.

I reached out to the superintendent of Forest Lake Area Schools (FLAS), Steve Massey, to discuss why this might be.

First, Massey assured me his district was likely not in a position where it would need to make budget cuts ahead of next school year. “We are not in a position right now to have to make reductions,” he said.

One way districts can end up making cuts is if they lose students in their district. A large portion of state funding is per pupil, currently funded at $6,863 per pupil. So, districts that lose students might need to make cuts for that reason.
“It makes no sense, and it’s not wise, to keep spending the same amount of money as if you have the same number of kids,” Massey said.

However, per-pupil funding brings me to the first big reason districts are being forced to cut their budgets despite a massive state-level surplus. Our legislature has failed to keep school funding at pace with inflation. If state-level funding kept up with inflation since 2003, the $6,863 per-pupil figure would be 18.4% higher, at about $8,125 per pupil.

Take that difference – $1,262 – and multiply it by students in a district and that number adds up pretty quickly. Willmar Public Schools (WPS) has 4,279 students. So if per-pupil funding kept up with inflation since 2003, the state would be giving WPS $5.4 million more this school year in per-pupil funding.

“If the state is serious about fully funding public education, look no further than making increases to per-pupil funding. Bring it to the level where it would be had the state kept up with inflation,” Massey said.

Unfunded state-level requirements in special education are also hurting districts’ wallets. Though these special education requirements are good, the state should attach money to its special education requirements, too. This 2022 article from the Association of Metropolitan School Districts says districts would be getting $868 more per pupil if these special education mandates were fully funded.

FLAS is having a similar experience with special education.

“Our general fund contribution is $7.5 million per year to cover special education costs. If the state is serious about fully funding public education…make up that gap,” Massey said.

Lastly, Massey discussed the state’s formula for funding transportation. Instead of funding transportation by miles traveled, transportation is funded by how many kids are transported. It’s easy to see this isn’t an issue for some districts, but it is a huge problem for larger geographical districts like FLAS. The lack of transportation funding hurts FLAS, and Massey rightfully wants it fixed this legislative session.

“Ours is short by half a million dollars a year. Meaning I’ve got to hit the general fund to cover the difference,” Massey said. “That’s six, seven, eight teachers that I could hire and put into our classrooms. But because of the way the state covers transportation, I’ve got to pull those resources away from the classroom to cover transportation.”

I argue our state needs to go even further in our aspirations to fund public education.
I think a first-year teacher should make $60,000. We should universally fund preschool. We should increase in-class paraprofessional support. We should increase in-school mental health support. I’m probably (definitely) biased, being a student teacher myself, but we should also pay student teachers.

What Massey is asking for from the state is far from radical.

“I’m not asking for a handout. Just fund us the way we should be funded,” Massey said. “Keep up with inflation. Meet your obligation around special education. Fix the broken formula for transportation.”

There has been a shortage of officials in youth and high school sports across the nation, including in Minnesota, for the last several years. The United States lost about 50,000 officials from 2018 to 2022, according to the National Federation of High Schools.

Why do we face this shortage? What can we do to alleviate it? I had some ideas, but I reached out to John Millea, an advocate for officials who travels across the state to cover high school sports for the Minnesota State High School League, to discuss this issue more.

Sometimes my political columns get to be quite controversial, I’ll admit that. But, I hope the premise of this one is far less controversial: youth and high school sporting events can’t happen without officials. We need them in baseball to call balls and strikes and to decipher between out and safe. We need them in basketball to call fouls, traveling and more. I could go on, but I think you get the point — officials are crucial to the game, and their absence would be detrimental to youth sports.

“It’s a huge thing. It’s a national issue,” Millea said.

In my opinion, this all starts with how we treat officials. If fans, parents, coaches and players weren’t so quick to criticize officials for what they believe are bad calls, more officials would stick it out and continue to officiate.

“If we treat [officials] better and figure out how to pay them better, that would fix a lot of this,” Millea said.

I’ll say it again. Youth sporting events can’t happen if we don’t have people to officiate them. Millea said some high school football games have to happen on Thursdays or Saturdays because there just aren’t enough officials for them to all take place on Friday nights. On Twitter, Millea will also regularly point out to his 35,000 followers when games have to be canceled or moved because there aren’t any officials available for the game.

This isn’t a new issue, and the pandemic didn’t help. Many older officials stopped officiating when the pandemic began because of health concerns, Millea said.

Young officials have also encountered problems. Often, young officials face abuse their first couple of times officiating, and then they never officiate again, Millea said. We could retain young officials by being nicer to them, but how do we recruit them in the first place?

Some high schools, including Princeton, Luverne and Hutchinson offer introduction to officiating courses that allow teenagers to get their feet wet and potentially turn into lifelong officials. We need more schools to offer these courses, so we get young people interested and prepared to officiate.

Officiating isn’t all bad, either. I officiate youth soccer games and – other than a few bad experiences with coaches and parents – it has been great. Millea assured me that many long-time officials hold the same opinion.

“This is what these longtime officials tell me; they love these sports. This is a way to stay connected. They want the kids to have all of these opportunities. It’s a good little second income,” Millea said.

But, longtime officials aren’t just in it to stay connected to their favorite sports or collect a second income, Millea said.

“It’s the friends they make. It’s the relationships they make,” he said.

We all need to be nicer to officials. I also hope some of you consider becoming officials yourself. Learn more about officiating for the MSHSL.

I’ll start this column with a personal note. I’m nearing completion of my master’s degree and initial licensure in 5-12 social studies education, and I’m currently student teaching in a ninth-grade civics and government classroom.

I’m preparing for our upcoming unit about the U.S. Constitution, which will include some discussion about the Bill of Rights and the following amendments to our Constitution. Like all teachers, I’m thinking back to my own schooling experience: how did I learn this information? What was missing? What should I include? What shouldn’t I?

If I were to make a generalization, it would be this: social studies classes, concepts and topics often aren’t given the nuance they deserve. The Constitution and its amendments are no exception. The First Amendment gives us freedom of speech, religion, protest, assembly and press. The Second Amendment gives us the right to bear arms. The 13th Amendment is commonly thought to have abolished slavery.

My first two examples certainly deserve more nuance, but my third example – about the 13th Amendment – simply isn’t true. The 13th Amendment didn’t abolish slavery.

The 13th Amendment reads, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

The phrase in between the first and second comma – “except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted” – is the phrase I’m writing about. We (mostly) abolished slavery, but we didn’t abolish slavery for those who are convicted of a crime. Prisoners still work for barely any compensation, right here in public prisons in Minnesota.

I had a chance to speak about this issue with Filiberto Nolasco Gomez, a reporter who has written extensively about prison labor in Minnesota. He started by explaining there are many ways other than amending the Constitution to help humanize prison labor. We could start by recognizing inmates as workers.

“Because of court cases, inmates are not considered workers. Therefore, they have no workplace rights,” Gomez said.

A 1994 Minnesota District Court case, McMaster v. Minnesota, is what Gomez is referring to here. Essentially, they found there is a difference between incarcerated workers and every other worker and that incarcerated workers are not entitled to labor protections.

The University of Cincinnati Law Review discussed this same issue, saying we should update the federal Fair Labor Standards Act to include incarcerated workers in their definition of an employee.

How we define incarcerated workers is a big issue. Since they aren’t afforded the same workplace rights as everyone else, they can’t unionize for better pay, can’t take a day off, have no guarantees of sick pay, etc. It’s as simple as this: we don’t do enough to recognize the basic humanity of the incarcerated.

“If you don’t have a legal right to both work and have civil rights, you’re really not human,” Gomez said.

Not only is the current status of prison labor in Minnesota problematic and morally tragic, but it’s also systemically racist. Because we disproportionately incarcerate people of color, especially Black men, we also disproportionately subject them to prison labor conditions.

This problem is exacerbated by the fact that journalism also lacks in racial and ethnic diversity, so they often also turn a blind eye to this pertinent issue. Without a press that regularly investigates these issues, the public is unlikely to know or care about inhumane prison labor pay and conditions.

According to a Minnesota statute, the Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Corrections (DOC) Paul Schnell is given the authority to pay incarcerated workers whatever wage he “deems proper.” Currently, the DOC pays incarcerated workers on a scale from 25 cents to $2 per hour.

In an effort to simply recognize the humanity of incarcerated workers, Schnell and Gov. Tim Walz should raise the minimum wage of incarcerated workers to $10.59 per hour – the same as it is for large employers. If they respond they don’t have the money to do that, then we should reduce our prison population any way we can or call on the unified, DFL-led legislature to provide the necessary funding.

We recognize far too rarely that prison inmates are humans too. They are people who deserve to live with dignity. We can and should do better for them and this all starts with amending our Constitution to truly abolish slavery, recognizing incarcerated workers as employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act and simply paying them more under the authority granted to Schnell and Walz.

It’s the week of the Super Bowl. It’s the most-watched sporting event in the United States. Many, if not most, of those reading this column will be tuning in on Sunday to watch the Chiefs play the Eagles. I know I will be.

In the lead-up to the game, there are plenty of reasonable questions to ask. Is Patrick Mahomes going to play well? Why doesn’t the Super Bowl happen on a Saturday? What snacks should I bring to the party?

They’re all reasonable questions. The most important one, though, is the title of this piece. Should we let our children play tackle football?

When I write a question in my title, I usually have an answer in mind. That is not the case this time. I truly don’t know. Part of me hopes writing this piece will help me form my own answer to the question because, as of now, I just don’t know.

Youth sports are powerful. I coach a 14-and-under soccer team and have seen firsthand the power sports can have. I believe we should all encourage our children to take part in sports or any other activity (music, speech, debate, etc.) because they add so much value to our children’s lives.

Extracurriculars help kids develop social skills, teamwork and a good work ethic. Also, they’re fun. Above all else, we should just let our children have fun.

Football is definitely fun. It encourages the development of social skills, teamwork and a work ethic.

Check, check, check.

But these characteristics aren’t unique to tackle football. They also exist in other sports. And there are plenty of downsides to football that either don’t exist in other sports, or at the very least are far less extreme.

Take head injuries, for example. Boys’ football leads all youth sports in head injuries, with 10.4 concussions per 10,000 athlete exposures. It’s followed by girls’ soccer, with 8.2 per 10,000 athlete exposures.

I know what you’re thinking, that doesn’t seem like much of a difference. To a certain extent, that is true. But, due to the nature of these sports, the nature of their head injuries is different.

A soccer player might suffer a concussion after going head-to-head once with another player and be removed from the game. Over time, a football player can suffer thousands (yes, thousands) of subconcussive blows to the head while never actually suffering a concussion. Research shows these subconcussive blows have been linked to chronic traumatic encephalopathy, better known as CTE, which is a degenerative brain disease that can result from repeated hits to the head.

Further changes certainly can and should be made to sports like soccer to make them safer. But while these changes can be made in soccer, they can’t be made in football. Soccer could and should cut back further on heading at the youth level, and it wouldn’t hurt the integrity of the sport. Football is by nature a violent sport with far more collisions.

Is football a requirement for our kids to develop all of these skills and reap the benefits of youth sports? I don’t think so. The consequences of repetitive head injuries in football are alarming, and the benefits of youth sports and activities can be found in areas other than the football field.

Newton’s third law states for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. I believe Newton’s third law applies not just to the world of physics but to the worlds of politics and economics, too. In short, when there are surpluses, there must be deficits elsewhere.

The state of Minnesota has a $17.6 billion budget surplus. Some rejoice — look at our fiscal responsibility! But I have a different perspective. With that big of a surplus, Newton’s third law suggests there must be a $17.6 billion deficit somewhere.

So, where are the deficits? What aspects of our society have we been neglecting en route to this massive budget surplus? That’s my goal with this column — to find these deficits and explain how we should work to rebalance our state’s budget.

Education
En route to piling up a massive $17.6 billion surplus, we have piled up deficits in the world of education. Our schools struggle to hire and retain fully licensed teachers. The Professional Educator Licensing and Standards Board recently released its annual Teacher Supply and Demand Report that details these struggles. Nearly a third of new teachers leave the profession within five years and 84% of school districts say they are significantly impacted by the teacher shortage. These shortages are felt everywhere, but especially in special education.

The answer to the shortage of fully licensed teachers seems pretty straightforward to me. We need to pay our teachers more and support them with adequate resources and support staff to ensure success and retention.

Our deficits in the world of education aren’t limited to K-12 education; they extend to pre-K and higher education, too. Universal, publicly-funded pre-K education is a no-brainer to me. It is not only morally correct to ensure preschool-age children from lower-income families don’t fall behind academically, but it’s also fiscally savvy. Recent studies have shown that investment in high-quality early childhood education programs can yield significant economic gains down the road.

Further, Minnesota student loan borrowers owe $27.1 billion in student loan debt. Borrowers who went to public colleges and universities owe an average of nearly $31,000. This burden owed by borrowers wouldn’t be so big if we were adequately funding our public colleges and universities through the Legislature.

Child poverty and free student meals
It should be no surprise that this is on my list of priorities for the state Legislature’s massive budget surplus. We need to ensure equality of opportunity for all, and this means giving all of our young people an equal chance to succeed in school.

We can, and should, eliminate child poverty in our state through a child tax credit akin to the expired federal expansion of the Child Tax Credit. Since the divided Congress is unlikely to do anything to curb child poverty, we need to take initiative in our state to end child poverty in Minnesota.

Further, guaranteeing all students free breakfast and lunch would ensure that no poor students “slip through the cracks” and miss out on important meals that will help them reach their full potential in school.

Local journalism
We have a massive and expanding deficit in local journalism. The drying up of local news recently hit the St. Cloud Times, which lost its final reporter on Wednesday. The reality is that, while local journalism might not be sustainable on its own, it is still crucial for our society and democracy to function. That’s why we need our state Legislature to step in with a state-level bill akin to the federal Local Journalism Sustainability Act, which would bolster local journalism.

Instead of looking at our $17.6 billion budget surplus as a good thing or a bad thing, we need to take a more neutral approach to the situation. En route to this massive budget surplus, what areas of our society have we neglected and built up deficits in?

Fully funding public education systems, eradicating child poverty and bolstering local journalism would be a great start toward rerouting our surplus of funds to the areas they are most needed.

Because I write columns for the Minnesota Daily and am known in my family for being a political nerd, I’ve become famous — or perhaps infamous — among my friends and family for my left-wing political and economic beliefs. I agree that I am left-of-center, and I proudly accept that label. What I will not accept, however, is that I am an extremist.

What I and other progressives stand for is not extreme. In fact, I think just the opposite. Those opposed to a bold, progressive and left-wing economic agenda — sometimes coined as “moderates” — are the true extremists of our society today. One only needs to look at a few areas of policy before this becomes apparent.

Health care
Let’s start with health care. So-called moderates of the Democratic Party would call the Affordable Care Act — better known as Obamacare — a relative success that needs to be tweaked around the edges.

Republicans call for it to be repealed for being too far-reaching, even though a repeal of Obamacare would kick nearly 30 million Americans off their health care.

The Republicans’ position is worse, but that doesn’t make the position of “moderate” Democrats truly moderate. It’s still extreme to accept a status quo that leaves millions of Americans uninsured and millions more underinsured.

Is it extreme for progressives like me to push for a universal, single-payer health-care system — something that every other industrialized country on Earth has implemented — so all Americans can receive the health care they need?

Medicare for All, proposed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), is the only proposal that would ensure health care access for all Americans. Even conservative studies show consumers would save $200 billion per year if implemented.

So, are Sanders and I extreme for aiming to expand the healthcare system to cover all Americans and save taxpayers’ money while doing it? Or are “moderate” Democrats and Republicans extreme, as they aim to pad the bottom lines of their corporate donors at the expense of regular Americans?

Child poverty
So-called moderates of the Democratic Party — i.e., Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and co. — are just fine with seeing the Child Tax Credit expire, as are their colleagues in the GOP. This is tragic. And not just for our children and their families.

It is also tragic for our society, economy and country as a whole. If the moral tragedy of child poverty is not enough, I hope the economic factor is convincing. Child poverty is estimated to cost Americans more than $1 trillion per year due to expenses like lost economic productivity, increased health and crime costs and increased costs resulting from child homelessness and maltreatment.

So, not only would eradicating child poverty be morally just, it would also be fiscally responsible. Remind me, who are the “moderates” on the issue of child poverty again?

Homelessness
Right here in the Twin Cities, we are letting Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey get away with calling himself a moderate as well, despite brutally breaking up homeless camps in the middle of the Minnesota winter.

People experiencing homelessness are in need of one thing — a home. Not a temporary shelter. That is why the Housing First Model is the only model that makes sense with regard to homelessness. Just give them a place to live. Not only is it morally just, but it is also fiscally responsible. As of 2016, a person experiencing chronic homelessness costs taxpayers an average of $35,000 a year due to expenses like emergency room visits and legal costs.

As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said in “The Letter from Birmingham Jail:”

“Though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: ‘Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.’ … And Abraham Lincoln: ‘This nation cannot survive half slave and half free.’ … And Thomas Jefferson: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal …’ So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice?”

I agree with King. His sentiment remains true to this day.

Will we be extremists that expand health care to all or extremists that ensure only some can afford health care without being burdened by its cost?

Will we be extremists and eradicate one of the largest injustices we have in our society, child poverty? Or will we be extremists that allow it to exist in the wealthiest nation this world has ever known?

Will we be extremists and find homes for those in need so they can live in dignity? Or will we be extremists that allow many to spend another night homeless on the streets?

In all three instances, I want to be the first kind of extremist. I hope you choose the same.

Throughout the eight years that Barack Obama was in the White House, there were plenty of instances when people in the world of politics and on social media used the phrase “Thanks, Obama.” Sometimes, it was genuine praise. But more often, it was sarcastic.

Occasionally, a similar phrase — “Thanks, Joe” — is sarcastically directed at President Joe Biden, as many people complain about the status of our economy, a looming (or is it current?) recession, crime rates and high inflation and gas prices. Blaming the sitting president for current issues is often the easy thing to do, but it is rarely accurate. The ramifications of policies are often not felt until decades later.

In this case, many of our current issues, like inflation, inequality and crime, have to do with policies from the Clinton administration in the ‘90s. As it turns out, the phrase “Thanks, Bill” should be the more common one.

Trade

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was a trade agreement between the United States, Mexico and Canada that began in 1994. Permanent normal trade relations between the United States and China were established in 2000. While both of these consequential policies were established during the Clinton administration, the ramifications of these neoliberal free trade agreements are felt today more than ever.

The first way we feel the negative impact of Clinton-era free trade policy is in the supply chain. Simply put, we don’t make as much stuff in the United States anymore. This makes us more dependent on other nations, and in odd times (like a pandemic), it creates havoc that hurts our economy too. The pandemic’s effect on the supply chain is a key factor in inflationary pressures we face today. The best way to combat this is to move away from Clinton’s free trade, globalized view of the economy and start making things in the United States again.

Next, Clinton’s neoliberal free trade policy led to a net loss in American jobs and a net increase in inequality. The United States lost 3.7 million jobs due to the trade deficit with China, according to the Economic Policy Institute. This is good if you’re a wealthy corporation saving money on labor, but bad if you’re an average American looking for a well-paying job. It’s hard to argue that these neoliberal free trade policies aren’t playing a role in wealth inequality, which is at nearly the same rate it was the year prior to the Great Depression.

Welfare

Clinton may have been a Democrat, but his welfare policy was as conservative as can be. Typically, Democrats push to expand welfare to people, workers and families in need, but not Clinton. What may be Clinton’s most well-known and fulfilled campaign promise was his pledge to “end welfare as we have come to know it.” He redesigned our welfare system to place a significant burden on the part of regular people to first qualify for welfare benefits, usually through work requirements, before receiving them.

My opinion on means testing is no secret. It is part of the bigger war on normal people, and it hurts society as a whole by increasing deep poverty, as the poorest among us often don’t qualify for welfare benefits, despite needing them the most.

Crime

The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, better known as the 1994 crime bill, passed under the Clinton administration. It established mandatory minimums, the “three strike” rule and expanded the crimes that result in the death penalty. Its negative effects are still felt today.

Think about Trump’s cringey 2020 campaign ad about how we wouldn’t be safe in Biden’s America. First, it’s ironic because Trump and Biden were on the same side of this issue when the 1994 crime bill passed. Second, Clinton, Trump and Biden were all wrong on the issue of crime in the ‘90s. They wanted to throw every criminal into prison for as long as they could. Put simply, the goal of prison should be to rehabilitate criminals first, not to punish them.

Don’t be mistaken — there are many ways in which Biden has fallen short of my expectations, but much of our current economic and criminal state as a country is the fault of his predecessor more than two decades prior: Bill Clinton.

We live in a new, post-Roe country. I don’t like to say it, but it’s true. At this point, the more interesting, worthwhile question is this: what should the next step be for pro-choicers like me?

Some will call for Congress to pass legislation into law that protects a woman’s right to choose. That would be great, but it’s unlikely to happen in a broken Senate because of the filibuster. Some will call for the Democrats to reshape the Court to be more pro-choice. That would also be great, but it would take a long time to actually happen.

To be clear – pro-choicers should work to make these things happen too (we can walk and chew gum at the same time!) but our current, most urgent step is to make our country as pro-children as possible.

Before the Court released the Dobbs decision in June, I talked to Bruce Lesley, the president of First Focus on Children, and we discussed what we can and should do to help our children.

Unsurprisingly, our conversation started with the expansion of the child tax credit, which expired at the end of 2021. This has led to millions of children falling back into poverty.

“It’s pretty tragic … The evidence is pretty clear that it’s a disaster for kids to grow up in poverty,” Lesley said.

With the new Dobbs decision returning the issue of abortion to the states, it’s obvious that more people who are financially unready to become parents will become parents because of their lack of access to abortion services. Over the next generation, I expect this to lead to an uptick in child poverty rates — unless we do something to stop it. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: the best way to end child poverty is to give money to their parents. It really is that simple.

“It makes no sense that we as a country allow kids to live in poverty,” Lesley said.

He’s right. There’s the fundamental issue — we as a society should help our youngest, most vulnerable population thrive, period. But supposed fiscal conservatives and market fundamentalists should want to eradicate child poverty, too.

It depends on the study, but child poverty costs the U.S. economy between $700 billion and $1.1 trillion annually. Eradicating child poverty would cost an estimated $100 billion annually, making the eradication of child poverty the fiscally conservative thing to do. Allowing child poverty to exist is fiscally irresponsible — not to mention morally bankrupt — on the part of our government.

Next, I asked Lesley about universal, taxpayer-funded preschool. To me, it’s a necessity. In my work with young children in summer recreation programs, I can tell that some kids are already ahead of their peers both socially and academically. We need to close this gap before it widens. The best way to do this is to give parents of three- and four year-olds the opportunity to send their children to universal, taxpayer-funded preschool.

“The evidence is very clear that making investment in child development has huge benefits. We now know that kids start off way behind, and they never catch up,” Lesley said.

Not only is there a lack of public funding for universal preschool, there’s also a lack of public funding for K-12 schooling. We need to pay our teachers more. In order to truly get the most out of our children, we need the best people our society has to offer to become teachers. People often say teachers have the most important job in the world. I agree — now let’s pay them like it.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s proposal to make Minnesota teachers the highest-paid in the country would be a good start, but it needs to happen across the country, not just here in Minnesota.

The bottom line is this — now, more than ever, we need more pro-children policies at the federal level.

We could eradicate child poverty if we wanted, ensuring our children have a decent life through at least their first 18 years.

We could send all three- and four-year-olds to preschool if we wanted, ensuring our children don’t fall behind academically before they even get started.

We could make school lunch free, ensuring our children can focus on academics, not hunger.

We could pay our teachers more if we wanted, ensuring our children have the opportunity to pursue their dreams.

We could do all of these things and more — we just need to make these pro-children issues a priority.

Luckily, Lesley offered me a bright spot on all of this.

“We’ve talked a lot about pessimistic things … your generation is definitely very pro-kid. And if that holds, kids will start to see better results in how legislative bodies deal with that,” Lesley said.

Here’s to making it happen.