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Booker talks student debt, gun violence

By GEORGE PELLETIER - Milford Bureau Chief | Jan 2, 2020

Telegraph photo by GEORGE PELLETIER U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., on Thursday brings his presidential campaign to the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College in Goffstown for ‘Politics Unplugged.’

GOFFSTOWN – Cory Booker of New Jersey may be trailing in public opinion polls in the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, but the U.S. senator pushed forward during a Thursday “Politics Unplugged” event at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College in Goffstown.

The session was moderated by sponsor StayWorkPlay Executive Director Will Stewart and Victoria Adewumi with the city of Manchester Health Department.

Booker talked pop culture (he’s dating actress Rosario Dawson) before discussing politics. He projects a college tuition debt cataclysm for New Hampshire and most of the country.

“This is a national crisis. It is undermining our national strength to be competitive and it has changed a whole generation,” he said. “When baby boomers were around the age of millennials right now, they controlled about 30% of the wealth in America. For millennials now, they are controlling about 3% or 4% of wealth in America. And they have colossal amounts of debt, now in the trillions of dollars.”

Booker said many nations strive to lower barriers for attending college.

“Germany is at 4% of the median income to go to college,” Booker said. “In Canada, it is 6% to 7% of the median income to attend college. Here in the United States, it’s between 50% and 60% of the income of the family. This is changing our culture, literally. We have a generation of people who now are putting off other decisions.”

“This is a national urgency and we have to do something about it,” he added.

The 50-year old senator and former mayor of Newark, New Jersey, discussed two bills, one that creates debt free college, and a second, essentially called, “Baby Bonds.”

“I think everybody in this nation should have wealth by the time they turn 18,” Booker said. “It’s an idea for both sides of the political aisle, which is just to give every single child born in America $1,000 in an interest-bearing account. And then every year of that child’s life, like the Earned Income Tax Credit, they would get deposits in that account based on their parents’ income.”

Booker pointed out that student debt cannot be refinanced under current law. He added that many people suffer financial crises and student debt cannot be discharged under bankruptcy.

On a related topic, Booker said New Hampshire faces the same situation as New Jersey: College students who attend out-of-state colleges not returning home.

“My city was 60 years of losing its population,” he said. “New Hampshire is losing its population. Iowa is losing its population. What you see is that pulling of young talent to certain geographic areas where there is a richness of communities and cultures. We are losing out on that vitality.”

Booker shifted gears and discussed topics such as the housing crisis.

“Under my leadership, my presidency, we’re going to create a rental tax credit, where people who want to stay in communities like this, teach in these communities like this, they should be able to get a rental tax credit. Under my bill, if you’re paying over 30% of your income on rent, you can qualify for tax credit — which would give 82,000 people in this state a tax break, with a median average of $4,000 a year. These are common sense things we should be doing.”

Booker shared that he was taught by his parents and grandparents that when tragedy happens, “our moral imagination responds,” touching upon the gun violence that’s plagued the country, speaking of the Las Vegas concert and Orlando, Florida nightclub shootings of recent years.

“They’re killing our children. A 14-year-old was killed in Des Moines, (Iowa) just before I left. They’re killing children, hiding under their desks in Newtown, (Connecticut) and Parkland, (Florida). We’re the strongest nation on the planet Earth, not because of our military, but because of the connections we have between us.”

“But what do we do with our generation?” he asked. “We send our children to school with the implicit message, ‘We can’t protect you and so we’re going to teach you how to hide.’ There are more shelter-in-place drills in the United States of America right now than there are fire drills.”

Booker said it’s not a matter of disagreement.

“We need healing in this country. I want our next president — God, I hope that you give me the honor of being it — but whoever it is,” Booker concluded, “I want their heart and their passion and their gut to always be about teaching this country to love more, to have greater empathy and defy hate.”

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