PATT MORRISON SCHEDULE
Thursday, April 5, 2012
1-3 p.m.
CALL-IN @ 866-893-5722, 866-893-KPCC; OR JOIN THE CONVERSATION ONLINE ON THE PATT MORRISON BLOG AT KPCC-DOT-ORG
DAVID LAZARUS GUEST HOSTS
1:06 – 1:30 OPEN
1:30 – 1:50
High school students call for free college tuition Calif. ballot measure
High school students in Oakland are pushing to get an initiative onto the California ballot that would raise income tax revenue to pay for their college tuition. A year ago, then senior students from public charter school Oakland Unity High School and public school Life Academy of Health wrote the College for California ballot initiative as part of a senior class project, and they and current seniors have been collecting signatures for an actual proposed measure, which would make university tuition free for full-time, in-state students who maintain a 2.7 GPA or perform 70 hours of community service each year. The measure would be subsidized by tax payers who earn more than $250,000 a year in taxable income. The students maintain that they want to restore the tuition-free education policy the state Legislature embraced in 1960 when it adopted the California Master Plan for Higher Education. The total cost, however, would be $2.8 billion. Should California tax-payers earning over $250,000 be forced to shell out tuition for in-state students? Is this approach a reasonable strategy for closing the gap between the 99 percent and the 1 percent?
Guest:
Estephania Franco (Eh-STEH-fa-NEE-ah), an 18-year-old senior at public charter school Oakland Unity High School, who has been collecting signatures for the College for California ballot petition to make University of California and California State University schools free for California residents who maintain a 2.7 GPA or do 70 hours of community service a year
Linda DeAngelo (Dee AHN-gel-loh), assistant director for research at the UCLA Higher Education Research Institute
Unconfirmed -- (POSSIBLE ECONOMICS ANGLE VOICE):
Charles Young, public policy professor at UCLA’s Meyer and Renee Luskin School of Public Affairs and former chancellor of UCLA from 1968 to 1997
1:50 – 1:58:30
The future has arrived – enter the flying car
Both the production automobile and the airplane arrived on the scene around the turn of the 20th Century, and humans have been dreaming of combining them ever since. Hollywood had lots of success - “Metropolis,” “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,” “Bladerunner,” “Back to the Future” and “The Jetsons” all featured some kind of flying car, but other than a few one-offs, the reality of parking a car inside your garage that also allowed you to soar over gridlocked freeways never quite arrived. Now, a Massachusetts company called Terrafugia has introduced at the 2012 New York auto show a functional flying car called the Transition. The Transition’s 23-gallon fuel tank will take a person with both a driver’s license and light sports aircraft license 400 miles by air, while earning a respectable 35 mpg in its earthbound mode. Although the sticker price of $279,000 might sound sky-high to some potential buyers, about 100 people have already plunked down $10,000 or more to reserve one. Maybe you’re dreaming about an end to sitting in traffic jams? Given how people drive in two dimensions, would you drive a flying car?
Guest:
Anna Dietrich, chief operating officer of Terrafugia (tare-ah-FOO-gee-ah), maker of the Transition flying car
2:06 – 2:19
Why is “compromise” a dirty word in Washington politics? A few lawmakers buck the trend, but can they balance the budget?
Political partisanship in the United States typically peaks during a presidential election year and 2012 does not appear to be the exception to the rule, but at what cost? The bureaucratic discord among Republican and Democratic politicians has never been clearer than it was last week during a debate over the federal budget in the House of Representatives, which ended with all House members voting strictly with their party alignment. Because Republicans make up the majority of the House, the GOP budget proposal passed, but will likely be rejected by the Democrat-controlled Senate. The endlessly uncompromising culture in Washington may be discouraging to some voters, but there are some politicians – a brave few – who actually do want to compromise. A tiny band of 38 lawmakers, 22 Democrats and 16 Republicans, have come together to propose a bipartisan budget that increases taxes, but also cuts entitlement programs. Are voters, conservative and progressive alike, simply tired of the lack of compromise reached by their elected leaders? What makes these 38 lawmakers different from the rest? And can we clone them?
Guest:
Stan Collender, budget expert and partner at Qorvis Communications (a corporate communication consulting firm), he has worked on the House and Senate Budget Committees, and edited Federal Budget Report, a newsletter that was published for almost two decades.
UNCONFIRMED
A Republican and a Democratic lawmaker who crossed the isle to work for a compromise budget.
2:21:30 – 2:39
Will health care clinics on high school campuses help reduce teen pregnancy rates?
Over the past two years, teen pregnancies at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, VA, have dropped by 35%. Why? Some birth control advocates say it’s because the school chose to move an adolescent health center into the school, where students can receive confidential reproductive health care. The Teen Wellness Center actually opened in 1986, three blocks down from the high school, but in 2010 the school administration allowed the clinic into the building, right next to the guidance office. The clinic is staffed by a full-time primary care physician and nurse practitioner, and student use of the clinic has doubled since the move. Is this evidence that education and access to contraception are more effective than teaching abstinence when it comes to reducing teen pregnancy? Should more high schools have free clinics available to their students?
Guests:
UNCONFIRMED
Representative from the “Teen Wellness Center” in Alexandria, VA
Representative from the California Endowment
Representative Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church, a group opposed to the relocation of the teen clinic
2:41:30 – 2:58:30
What is citizenship for?
Birthright citizenship and immigration remain some of the most controversial fights in today’s public policy debates. In the past week, we’ve seen several quasi “Dream Act” proposals as the competition mounts for Latino votes, most recently the still-not-unveiled plan that Marco Rubio has been talking about; President Obama has unveiled a new set of rules outlining better care for immigrants and asylum-seekers detained while waiting for their deportation hearings; and those who want to deny citizenship to American-born children of undocumented immigrants still want to amend the U.S. Constitution to end birthright citizenship altogether. What if we left behind the contentious argument and, instead, contemplated taking the policy even further? What if no one was granted automatic U.S. citizenship, regardless of the nationality of his or her parents? What if everyone had to do something to earn it? That is the premise of a thought experiment by Eric Liu. He joins David to talk about it.
Guests:
Eric Liu, author, former Clinton speechwriter and policy advisor
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