Recessionary Woes: Examining Economic Policies and Their Impact on Student Loan Debt and Housing Stability in the United States

Recessionary periods can seldom be avoided, but our modern public infrastructure has designed mechanisms to respond to these downturns. Economic policy has rapidly changed over the last 50 years, and the types of tools policymakers use have evolved with it. When looking at the Great Recession (2007-2009) and the COVID-19 recession (2020), a federal response structure was vital for the health of the macroeconomy. These recessionary periods serve as case studies for a review of economic policymaking activity in the United States since 2000. To examine the efficacy of the federal government’s fiscal and monetary infrastructure, policies focused on supporting student loan borrowers along with policies aimed at homeowners and renters have been identified and reviewed. Government policies supporting student loan borrowers after the Great Recession expired too soon following their implementation. This front-loaded support only worsened the economic position of borrowers during the 2010s. A more thorough policy response during the pandemic has provided relief to student loan borrowers for the duration of the crisis. The housing sector suffered considerably in both recessions. The policy response to the pandemic was considerably well-tailored to meet the needs of homeowners but was less successful in meeting the needs of renters. Still, most households had a more difficult time after the Great Recession because policies were not sufficiently implemented to disburse stimulus in the appropriate timeframe. Policymakers actively avoid missteps from the Great Recession response, enhancing the overall policy results of fiscal and monetary measures enacted during the pandemic

Special Education Teacher Perceptions on the Nature of Resources of Respective Programs Across Contexts

Special education teachers must have access to adequate resources in order to provide their students with the opportunities they need to succeed. However, there are significant disparities in the access to resources across different contexts. Previous literature has identified team support, administrative support, and training to be significant resources perceived by special education teachers. The purpose of my study was to examine the perceived nature of resources by special education teachers and investigate the variation of these perceptions across different socioeconomic contexts. I conducted seven interviews with special education teachers in Massachusetts to gain greater insight into this topic. This paper attempts to answer the questions: How do special education teachers perceive the nature of resources for special education in their context? How do perceptions of resources vary across higher-income and lower-income school contexts? Through my interviews and after analyzing my qualitative data, I found that special education teachers perceived support and training to be extremely important resources for their special education programs but perceived administrative support to be lacking and training to be ineffective. While teachers had similar perceptions of resources on the surface, a deeper analysis of teacher perceptions found that the negative perception of resources was intensified in the lower-income context compared to the higher-income context. These differences point to the fundamental role that funding plays in resources for special education programs

The Paradox of Death Penalty Delay: A Judicial, Empirical, and Ethical Study

The American death penalty has been at the center of political debates for decades. More specifically, the complexity of death penalty delay has gained significant attention from the public as well as the Supreme Court justices. Death penalty delay represents the time that transpires between when a capital crime is committed and when the execution is carried out. Today, more than half of all prisoners currently sentenced to death have been on death row for more than 18 years. This staggering statistic has ignited debate and divided the conservative justices from the liberal justices even more. This thesis will first analyze the historical evolution of this delay and explain the root causes that have contributed to the growing amount of time spent on death row. Through a judicial lens, the central arguments made by the conservative and liberal justices will be evaluated. The conservative justices consistently argue that delay is simply caused by the defendants themselves to prolong their lives. The liberal justices tend to argue that delay is a result of forces beyond the control of the defendants, and that the delay itself is a violation of the Eighth Amendment’s protection against cruel and unusual punishment. The issue of actual innocence is embedded in both discussions. My argument will highlight the paradox that such delay has created: the longer an inmate spends on death row, the more likely he or she is to be exonerated if wrongfully convicted. Therefore, this thesis will illuminate the connection between delay and exonerations, proving that death penalty delay allows innocent defendants to investigate and present their claims in ways that were not possible during the initial trial

An Analysis of the Rise and Fall of Cape Wind and its Implications in Environmental Policy

Cape Wind was the first proposed offshore wind farm in the United States, but it was never built. Proposed in 2001 and canceled in 2017, Cape Wind fought against well-funded opposition groups who used the regulatory and permitting process to create legal battles every step of the way. The Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, which was composed largely of members of the 1% who owned ocean property off the coast of Cape Cod which was where the wind farm was proposed, contributed millions of dollars to ensure that Cape Wind was never built. During public meetings to discuss Cape Wind, the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound used local and national politicians to take up time that was reserved for the public comment as a tactic to try and suppress support. Additionally, there were a variety of Environmental Impact Statements and review processes that Cape Wind needed to pass to begin construction on the turbines, and the Alliance used these regulations to sue Cape Wind and the federal agencies supporting Cape Wind as a means to delay the project. This thesis examines the tactics used by the Alliance to delay and eventually cancel the construction of Cape Wind. It further links these tactics to practices that are utilized to cancel environmentally friendly projects or fund projects that are harmful to the environment, despite public opinion

Wrong Choices, Missed Chances: The Motivations of Opposition Politicians and the Ensuing Failures at Regime Change in Venezuela, 2013-2022

This work presents a study of the failures to achieve regime change in Venezuela between 2013 and 2022. By using the critical juncture framework, this thesis shows that there have been moments of opportunity where permissive conditions (i.e., structural factors) were present to achieve regime change, that the Venezuelan opposition was incapable of seizing upon those moments of opportunity because they made sub-optimum strategic and coordination choices, and that these choices were influenced by the motivations that opposition actors have to be in politics

How to Make Revolution

Christina Heatherton reflects on lessons from her new book, Arise! Global Radicalism in the Era of the Mexican Revolution (University of California Press, 2022) to describe how to avoid the traps of revolutionary nostalgia and engage in the collective process of making radical struggle