Preview to DLC in Denver: Sen. Clinton walked purposefully into a ballroom at the Hyatt Regency Hotel on Wednesday to unveil the first component of her American Dream Initiative. Consistent with her strategy of uniting all the non- Kossack strands of the Democratic Party, Sen. Clinton began by ticking off the various Democratic think tanks — the Center for American Progress, the Progressive Policy Institute, the New Democratic Network, Third Way, and Hope Street — who played a role in developing her plan to produce one million more college graduates by 2015.
At the core of her college plan is the same "basic bargain" of more opportunity for all and more responsibility from all that her husband talked about in 1992. The "American Dream Grant" would award states $150 billion over 10 years to reduce tuition and increase graduation rates; it would also consolidate existing education tax credits into a new $3,000 refundable tax credit. The goal is to make it possible for "any student willing to work part-time or perform community service" to go to four years of college tuition free. In the hopes of spurring universities to improve their graduation rates, the block grant would be tied to both the number of students that a state has as well as the number of graduates it produces.
The DLC's Bruce Reed told ABC News following the event that it would be up to the states to decide how to structure the work requirement, how much community service to require, and whether to require students to maintain a particular grade point average to qualify and remain eligible. The plan's benefits would be universal — though its proponents expect it to have the biggest impact on lower income families who are more likely to send their kids to lower-priced schools. As Sen. Clinton, Gov. Vilsack, and Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) write in today's Denver Post, their plan is to pay for it by "getting rid of wasteful business subsidies." LINK