Pelosi to Cheddar: GOP Has Saddled Millennials with 'Unconscionable' Debt
*By Carlo Versano*
Young Americans face a double burden from crushing student debt and the ballooned federal deficit that resulted from President Trump's tax cut, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told Cheddar's J.D. Durkin in an interview that aired Wednesday.
Pelosi called the economic position many millennials find themselves in, even as the economy remains strong, "unconscionable."
"Republicans foisted onto future generations \[an\] economy that is unfair, that is not really lending itself to growth in a strong, predictable, confident, certain way," Pelosi said.
Democrats have already begun making the case to young voters that they are the party of fairness. Pelosi pointed to encouraging millennial turnout in the midterm elections and said that H.R. 1, a sweeping anti-corruption and voting rights bill that's currently in committee, is among her top legislative priorities. That bill is getting "tremendous response" from young voters who want to see more transparency around so-called "dark money" in elections and know that their vote matters, Pelosi said.
That bill also includes provisions that would create automatic nationwide voter registration and crack down on gerrymandering. Conservative lobbyists have [called](http://conservativeactionproject.com/conservatives-oppose-h-r-1-the-ultimate-fantasy-of-the-left/) it "the ultimate fantasy of the left," and the GOP opposition means it has virtually no chance of becoming law while Republicans control the Senate and White House.
Nevertheless, Pelosi sees that type of legislation as key to attracting broad millennial support in 2020.
"That's hard to break down the skepticism that is there, but we're on a path to do it," she said.
While President Trump and the GOP will likely run on a message of tax cuts and economic prosperity, Pelosi seems to believe they are vulnerable on the fairness message.
"Eighty-three percent of the benefits of their tax bill went to the top 1 percent," Pelosi said. " I think that it's important to note that we want an economy that works for you... not for the top, the wealthiest people in our country."
On the burden of student debt, Pelosi said she recognized that it weighed on millennials "like an anvil" as they begin their professional lives, and makes everything harder ー from getting married to starting a business. She did not mention to Cheddar any specific actions Democrats in Congress will take with regard to student debt relief, though she noted that a now-expired provision of Obamacare was built to expand funding of community colleges and Pell grants and mitigate interest rates. "We have to go back to that," she said.
With a temporary break in the impasse over border wall funding heading toward a Feb. 15 appropriations deadline, Pelosi didn't show her cards on how House Democrats are negotiating to ensure the government isn't shut down again.
"I think that the shutdown was a bitter pill for some of the Republicans to swallow and they might like to avoid that," she said.
After scrutiny over the negative impact on the mental health of children, social media apps have begun adding stricter limitations to parental controls. Jim Steyer, CEO of Common Sense Media, a nonprofit organization focusing on recommendations for entertainment platforms, joined Cheddar News to talk about the changes, why they might not be enough, and what parents can do to help. "It's almost that the companies — whether they're Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube, or whatever — have to start the process from the beginning of designing the product," he said. "They have to be much more clear about age verification so that a 12-year-old and 11-year-old can't get on there." Steyer also pushed for federal legislation to reign in the issue.
As Big Tech companies from the U.S. like Google and Apple managed to build market dominance overseas, the European Union has decided to curb what it sees as monopolistic growth. Greg Martin, the co-founder of Rainmaker Securities, joined Cheddar News to talk about how the impact of the antitrust regulations being adopted. "I think there's a lot of great outcomes here, but those will be far down the road [because] I do think there's some interoperability things that need to be worked out technologically," he said. "But it's going to be really good ultimately for the consumer in my opinion."
Tenicka Boyd is a digital creator making content that reflects her two passions: activism and style. The TikTok star joined Cheddar News to talk about her platform and new looks this Spring. Boyd admitted that at first she wanted to remain anonymous on the social media platform before finding her passion. "I just joined TikTok hoping that no one would find me, and I started creating colorful content," she said. "I didn't know that you could monetize this and really do it full time, and I just followed my passion because I realized that you can have multiple different lives and do multiple different things."
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