New America in the News: 2007

Two seemingly unrelated developments last week tell us a lot about immigration and the public's attitude toward it.

One was the conservative reaction to a bill introduced in the Legislature that would give a $500 savings account to every child born in California.

The other was a study by the Public Policy Institute of California concluding that immigration -- legal and illegal -- tends to increase wages for everyone except earlier immigrants.

Three years ago, the University of Nebraska’s Board of Regents, eager to find more funds for undergraduate need-based financial aid for students at its flagship campus in Lincoln, struck a deal in which the National Education Loan Network, would provide loan funds that the university would administer to its graduate and professional students. As part of the arrangement, authorized through a process known as “school as lender,” Nelnet, as the Lincoln-based lender is known, would give the institution more than 6 percent of the profits to use for need-based aid...

BOB MOON: A couple of senators have come up with a plan for turning back the tide of debt — a bipartisan commission with some special clout. Nancy Marshall Genzer reports.

NANCY MARSHALL GENZER: Nobody on Capitol Hill has been able to come up with a way to let the air out of ballooning budget deficits...

WASHINGTON, Mar 2 (IPS) - In a move that has surprised many foreign policy analysts here, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has appointed a prominent neo-conservative hawk and leading champion of the Iraq war to the post of State Department Counselor.

California lawmakers are considering giving $500 to every single baby born in the state. The bipartisan bill aims to give babies a financial head start with a savings account.

"Anything we can do to encourage savings and investment and to provide a young adult -- especially young adults from lower income families, families of modest means -- to be able to have a small nest egg to go to college to learn a career, down payment on the house, would be a good thing," said Sen. Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento.

Happy birthday, baby, here's $500 -- courtesy of California taxpayers.

Legislation announced Wed- nesday would provide a tax-free, long-term investment account to every baby born in California, regardless of the parents' financial or immigration status.

Senate Bill 752 is meant to persuade more families to invest for the future.

"If we ask people to invest in California, California must invest in its people," said Sen. Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, who is co-authoring the bill with Republican Sen. Bob Dutton of Rancho Cucamonga.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Every child born in California would get a $500 savings account to start building a nest egg for college or a down payment for a home, under a state Senate bill introduced Wednesday.

California would be the first state with such a program, said David Lesher, a program director for the nonprofit New America Foundation, based in Washington. A national savings program has languished in Congress since 2005; a similar program has increased savings in Britain since 2002.

Brein Clements, co-owner and head chef at Restaurant Omakase, has watched the same scene repeatedly since he opened the restaurant in downtown Riverside in July.

"People finish their meal, they go straight to their cars and drive off," said Clements, who operates the restaurant - a combination of Japanese and French cuisine - near The Mission Inn along with his wife Roryann. "They don't stay and walk around the city, because there really isn't that much to see. It gets frustrating."

What do fifteen of the smartest people in the room-presidential scholars, best-selling biographers, and White House veterans of both parties--think history will say about the legacy of George W. Bush? And is there anything he can still do to change it?...