The Time Remaining...Financial Realities

I'll start here with the "Time Remaining," Other issues that Pelosi and the newly elected Democrat-led U.S. Congress hope to enact during the beginning of their tenure in January:

Time remaining until 100 hours: Raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour, maybe in one step. Cut the interest rate on student loans in half. Allow the government to negotiate directly with the pharmaceutical companies for lower drug prices for Medicare patients. Broaden the types of stem cell research allowed with federal funds. "I hope with a veto-proof majority," she added in an Associated Press interview Thursday. [Kos, 2006]

Minimum Wage
I think this one will be easy to discuss, as so much of this will affect my life and the lives of those around me. In the past, when I was in graduate school, I worked a minimum-wage job. Paying rent, tuition, car notes, insurance, and basic living expenses like gas and food, on a single person's minimum-wage salary, would have been impossible if it were not for the significant help I received from my mother. (Thanks, mom!) Can anybody in the DC area reasonably live on $824 a month (the federal minimum wage of $5.15), before taxes?

Student Loans (You know you have some)
Of course, now that I'm back in school, I have student loans. Getting a Ph.D. is not cost-free, even though my employer contributes $1,500 a year. My tuition is approximately $6,000 a year (out of state tuition is over $500 per credit hour) for four years. Tuition and books come out to about $26,000, not counting running two households (one in PA, where my school is, and one in VA, where I have a mortgage). So, minus help from the college (about $4,500-6,000, when all is said and done), I will still have to find at least $25,000 with which to fund my continued education. I have been able to pay some of the tuition out of pocket, and all the rooming, books, and other fees. I expect that I'll have about $17,000 in student loan debt when I get my Ph.D., which is quite low in the scheme of things. With the way it's looking, if I repay in 10 years at the current 6.8% rate, I'll owe $23,456. If I pay it at Pelosi's reduced rate, I'll owe only $20,077. That's a savings of $3,379.

Pharmaceutical Companies & Profit
The whole point of the federal government managing prescription drugs directly with the pharma companies is to save tax dollars. At the moment, pharmaceutical companies are some of the most profitable companies on the Fortune 500 (see Healing Daily). Seniors deserve affordable medications, just as we deserve affordable health care. This small step is leading the way toward universal healthcare, I hope. Let's just see what Clinton et al. propose in the coming year; however, more so than this, it'll take a new president to really affect change in pharmaceutical overcharging and health insurance mismanagement. Both of these groups are the reason most Americans cannot afford reasonable health care, and why those that can must sometimes stay in dead-end jobs because they're tied to the benefits. And that leads us to stem cell research ... a topic for my next blog entry.

References Cited
Kos. (2006). The Pelosi Agenda: Draining the Swamp. Accessed November 6, 2006, from http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/6/11395/3029