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No, Manchin won't back it, hes already said he doesn't believe it fits reconciliation (bullshit given what the Republicans did with reconciliation), and I absolutely am going to blame Joe Biden given hes the figurehead of the Democrats at the moment. Every pseudo-Republican "Democrat" (including Joe "nothing will fundamentally change" Biden) is committing to keeping America on the fast track to fascism and I'm tired of it.
America needs bold change and Democrats are completely unwilling to make it happen. I refuse to believe they aren't able to whip Manchin into shape, they have plenty of power to support primary challengers, deny him funding, etc. That he gets to be so independent and dictate the entire Democrat agenda is because they let him do it. What is the point of having these supposed Democrats when they're acting as stealth Republicans helping to ensure anything the Democrats want to do either doesn't happen or is made shittier. They do the shit I complain about Republicans doing when they're compromised with.
At this point I almost think the Democrats want to lose the Senate and the House in the midterms so they can go back to pretending that "if WE were in power we'd do good things, we promise!" so they can fundraise more.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
I don’t know how anyone would have expected a Biden presidency to be anything other than a “nothing will fundamentally change” one given that everything about his campaign indicated it would be exactly that.
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The problem is it’s not giving money out it’s just eliminating debt, that money is already gone it’s not like you move it anywhere else, and even if you could they wouldn’t, these things are never a matter of priority because if we don’t get student debt forgiveness they’re definitely not going to fund social services anymore. Well just be in a situation where people still have lots of student debt and things like food stamps are underfunded.
It’s just not an either or situation, its a we get this or we get nothing situation because America is fucked up.
Debt forgiveness gets attention because Biden can do it himself, Congress is useless since it’s controlled by blue Republicans, and a lot of the change you prefer and suggest are going to need Congress. Debt forgiveness gets attention as being done first because it’s the only thing that can be done at all, sadly.
EDiT: also schools already have been raising their prices, it’s like the argument about the minimum wage increase that prices will inflate, they’ve already been inflating, unfortunately nothing is going to stop that, not forgiving loans certainly hasn’t stopped the gross inflation of tuition
On February 20 2021 06:50 LegalLord wrote:
I don’t know how anyone would have expected a Biden presidency to be anything other than a “nothing will fundamentally change” one given that everything about his campaign indicated it would be exactly that.
I agree and this month long stint of pretending to be positive about him has worn thin for me. I tried, but he’s everything he’s always been, which is not good.
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On February 20 2021 05:10 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
? Show me where I said that college education is no longer worth the investment.
When you alluded to "the increase of college costs significantly outpaces the growth of income/wages, defaulting on the loans can destroy one's credit" which brings into question it's current value. If it is worth the investment for the large majority, what is the problem exactly? That large loans take years to pay back, and sometimes require sacrifice but are worth it in the end? I don't actually want this to sound snarky, but it just doesn't follow for me.
Why would we want to prevent 18-year-olds from voting I'm not interested in red herrings, so let's please stay focused on the financial consequences of student loans.
Your question of why should we allow 18 year olds to take on this debt is not about financial consequences, it is about the ability to enable them. I point out voting because an 18 year old can choose a politician that will remove their debt, but not choose to initiate that debt in the first place in your scenario. When loans weren't as readily available, less people took them out, leading to less default and lower costs in education. The age at which a contract can be made has no bearing on these outcomes. 18 year olds are not the one's defaulting. Look at the demographics and you will realize that.
I believe you have it backwards. Personal finance courses, in high school, have traditionally not been required for high school graduation. Plenty of schools never even had them. There's essentially no reason why a high school senior would know the ramifications and fine print surrounding student loans and debt, unless they were privately taught it by an adult outside of the school setting (and, fittingly, those adults would be disproportionately college-educated... hence the vicious cycle of poverty). Fortunately, personal finance courses are starting to become more common nowadays in high school, but their existence is not a panacea.
Nonsense. Stop infantilizing people. There has never been more information available to people in the history of civilization. NEVER. The idea that people are unable to make informed decisions is just irritating. Be honest, how long, in hours, would it take you to understand how loans work. How hard would it be to find the ramifications of taking on this debt. Find stories of the issues it can bring out. There is literally no shortage of this information, with no barrier to reaching it for anyone that is preparing to go to college.
On February 20 2021 01:34 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
Couldn't be a worse segment? Really? You can't think of any people who would be less deserving of money than people who went into debt to pursue a better life for themselves and their families? And, again, please stop making it sound like helping one group of people means we can't also continue to help other groups of people. Nobody is proposing the cancellation of SNAP just to fund student loan forgiveness.
The problem I run into is the idea that there is no limit to what can be done. So there is no priority. And it is not based in reality. Your posts actually seem a lot closer to my mind set than some others here, so maybe we are talking past each in a sense. I already dropped a suggestion earlier in limited forgiveness only to those with less than 10k in loans. That covers a large % of borrowers, a majority of defaulters and costs less than 80 billion total. That is almost 300 billion less than just giving all borrowers 10k in relief, and that targeting would help those most burdened and likely to be caused harm.
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He’s fucked up the stimulus check, he’s reneged on his immigration stance returning to Obama/Trump immigration policy, 15 dollar minimum wage is going away, what is he accomplishing? No major reforms are happening. He rejoined the climate accords but frankly so what? Do we believe the US will actually follow them? It’s a symbolic gesture at best. Going back to preTrump isn’t good enough, preTrump is the precipice of fascism, Biden isn’t even going to take the country left, or center, or right, he’s going to keep it far right and keep it wobbling an inch from that fascist precipice that’s created a country where 50 billionaires have as much wealth as the bottom 50% of society.
America has such dysfunctional government and such sub standard infrastructure, debt problems, wealth inequality, these things make people like Trump look popular, because people look around them and then at their government and see something that’s so bad that literally Trump might be better. Trump was a uniquely bumbling fuckwit, but the next Trump? He might be competent, and then when his followers storm the Capitol they might keep it.
Dysfunctional, ineffectual, mediocre governance is a basically an autoimmune disease in this country that’s letting what should be petty weak diseases like Trump devastate the country. In a country where the government serves the people and people can trust in their government because of it people don’t send Trumps to the White House.
EDIT: since I’m defaulting to an angrier posting style, I should say, I’m not mad at anyone in this thread for anything they’ve said, I’m just very disgusted with the US right now and I hate seeing my cynical thoughts validated by reality. 
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Stimulus checks for one, and reading through his list of EOs a ton of these are just undoing Trump shit, that’s not forward progress, that’s just resetting the US back to its Far Right but slightly less Far Right status. The rest are task forces and recommendations, and frankly I’m not seeing that as being particularly meaningful. He’s not moving the country forward he’s just keeping it effectively the same as it was before Trump.
America needs more than that, America pre-Trump was still absolute shit, it was just hidden under a coat of paint, but people know what’s under the paint now, hollow gestures read as a lot more hollow when you’ve seen how much of the US government relies on the kind of good faith that it’s abundantly clear doesn’t exist in this country’s political class.
Also I like that politico article because it details some of he times Biden’s been proven to be shitty and a huge liar, lol. It’s got all time hits like his plagiarism, the crime bill, his anti-choice stances, his anti-busing-ness, he’s weird bs about marching in the Civil Rights movement, and voting for the Iraq War.
This is not the man America needs leading it right now, lol
His first month has been things like the 1400 dollar checks instead of 2000 dollar checks, and the minimum wage increase getting given up on, voters are going to look at his presidency and see another mediocre subpar Democrat and given he already performed below expectations against Trump by losing House seats and barely squeaking by on (now broken) promises of immediate 2000 dollar checks, the next election cycles are going to be brutal without Trump to compare to and use as a boogeyman.
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On February 20 2021 06:47 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2021 06:07 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 20 2021 04:32 JimmiC wrote:On February 20 2021 02:55 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 20 2021 02:15 JimmiC wrote:On February 20 2021 01:45 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 20 2021 01:37 JimmiC wrote:On February 20 2021 01:34 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 20 2021 01:09 dp wrote:On February 19 2021 16:49 GreenHorizons wrote:
[Snip]..sounds better to me than not helping millions of desperate people until you can exclude affluent people from benefiting too.
I get your argument. But look at your wording. There. Is. No. Desperation. Not being able to buy a house because of past loans or bad credit is not a national emergency. No one, at all, would be forced to starve to pay back student loans. If your financial situation is bad, you can literally have your required payments dropped to 0$ a month, for as long as your income stays there, until they are eventually forgiven. If you think that is suffering, I really feel like the conversation wouldn't amount to much. Student loan forgiveness often takes 20-25 years. That's not feasible. Student loan debt is something like $1.6 trillion in this country, and it's absolutely hamstringing millions of people into not being able to progress in their lives for at least a decade. GH is spot on in that there is plenty of desperation when it comes to student loans and interest, and you're simply incorrect when you say that no one is starving because of their loans. People can't afford to pay rent (let alone own their own property) or afford other necessities because of their eternal student debt. It's actually a big deal for a lot of people. True, but a small % of the over all poor and a small % of those with student loans. Sure, but why do we need to wait until people are literally starving to death, because they can't afford their student loans, to help them out? Why can't we make society more comfortable for people who are middle class or lower-middle class, before they become completely impoverished? You don't, but why not do something better for more people? Why are you creating a scenario where the only option is debt forgiveness or nothing? You have not argued any of my points over the last pages only this strawman you have created. I'm not the one saying that it's either debt forgiveness or nothing; I already noted that it would need to be part of a multi-faceted solution. I don't see how you could think that I'm creating that scenario, when I've consistently been pushing for additional things and not just student loan forgiveness. You keep saying "why not do better for more people", but I don't know what you're looking for here. What's your alternative to what I said, which is "Forgiving current student loan debt in some capacity, whether it's 50% or 75% or 100% of the remaining costs for everyone + Creating a proactive plan for future students so that they don't fall into the same trap, such as capping tuition costs based on socioeconomic status, which would proportionately, and significantly, reduce loans/debt (if unable to make college tuition actually free for everyone in the future) + Continuing to encourage high school graduates to consider university, but also advertise reasonable alternatives that some young adults may prefer, such as trade/vocational schools." I think that's pretty comprehensive, but of course we could find ways to do even more. What are your alternatives to all this though? What plan do you have, that will help even more people than all of this? If you don't want to forgive student loans or lower the future costs of tuition, then what do you want? You say I haven't argued against any of your points... One of your first points (to me) was that student loan forgiveness wasn't a particularly popular idea, which GH and I both disproved by citing polls. You did mention that you would prefer having 0% interest loans, but that does even less to help people; you can't propose that alternative while simultaneously arguing that we need to come up with a plan that casts as large of a net as possible in helping people. 0% interest isn't as significant as forgiving student loan debt, for the past and present college students, so I assume you have other ideas than just this. Your Wharton article provided some interesting context about who benefits the most when it comes to student loan forgiveness, but it's not an argument against why student loan forgiveness will help people. (Obviously, people who take out larger loans would benefit more in a hypothetical scenario where everyone's loans were forgiven.) Yay! You and him actually did not disprove that. As I pointed out your source was pretty questionable and the one GH used when I looked inside and quoted it I explained why it also did not say that it is super popular. It is popular to do something about debt forgiveness, it is much less popular to do full debt forgiveness. I really couldn't find any great data to say if it is or is not. To do so you would also need more questions on the survey then were asked, even a simple on a scale of 1-10 how important is this issue would add a lot of context. The Warton article provided some different solutions to debt forgiveness that are tied to income which I think would be far more beneficial to society and more bang for the buck. They also talk about rules around how much private can charge and so which I know you would already be on board with. On top of that I think if that money was allocated to other programs for the poor, it would benefit the students who are in that situation due to student loans, whereas loan forgiveness only hurts those with student debt. Seeing that college educated people make up such a small % of the poor I only feel more strongly about this now than I did before today. Those programs could be existing like food stamps, things around affordable housing, or a whole other host of social programs that have shown to be a lot more effective then stimulus checks or student debt forgiveness. I align with many of your thoughts on how to improve the system, but I don't think it is possible while keeping so much profit available and allowed within post secondary (both for the schools and those who work and run them). And I don't believe debt forgiveness in anyways brings us closer to any of that but rather pushes us further away. If their was unlimited money to spend I would be on board, I don't believe that is the case. Yes, the Wharton article proposes finding equitable ways to forgive student loans, and points out that those methods exist, which is exactly what I've been saying since my first post. It's agreeing with those of us who are arguing that forgiving student loans is helpful when done correctly, and certainly doesn't say that we should be throwing the idea out altogether, in favor of something else entirely (which is the position that you and dp have taken). You're suggesting that, instead of having any sort of student loan forgiveness, we put more money into programs for the poor. That would certainly help the poor out, and I'd happily vote for giving more aid to the poor. However, we also want to help other people besides the poor, right? I'll try an analogy with something else we both care about which is the environment. There is huge popularity and drive around ending single use plastics. Straws became enemy number 1 largely because of a disturbing video of a sea turtle with one stuck in its nose. A huge amount of money and effort was spent trying to get people to use other kinds of straws, banning them in some places and so on. Was this bad? No, not really, but did it impact the ocean plastics or oil consumption? Not at all. There are so many other things that could be focused on such as composting that would make a way bigger impact to the environment.
Same with plastic bags, by simply charging 10 cents per bag you can reduce use by over 90%! Plastic bags are not terrible, they are just terrible when there is way to many. In very humid places paper does not work because it tears and the cost to the environment of spoiled and lost food is far higher than a plastic bag. Also, many people reuse their grocery bags as garbage bags, it is not better if people are now buy more garbage bags since they have less grocery bags. The other is many of the reusable bags are actually worse than the single use, I've done the math on some of them where it would take 100 uses or more to make it a win for the environment and there is no way they last that long, also some are made with mixed materials making those bags near impossible to recycle when they reach their end date (there are some very good ones as well). So well top of mind might be "banning plastic bags is good for the environment" that is only true if there is the right rules and regulations around the replacement.
And that is what I'm saying here, if it is just done in the ham-fisted everyone gets all their debt up 50K forgiven it won't be nearly as good for society or those in need as a more targeted, more well thought out approach would be.
Would you not be very disappointed if this lead to a larger wealth gap? If this does not make education more accessible to those who it is not right now? I sure would be.
I appreciate your attempt at trying to find a useful analogy. If the primary purpose of the analogy is to point out that the situation involving the financial costs of American education is extremely complex and requires a lot more than simply forgiving student loan debt, then yeah, I've been saying that all along. I understand that only targeting a small piece of a problem (i.e., the plastic straws) won't solve the issue, but keep in mind that the more comprehensive environmental analogy would be: If we could snap our fingers and immediately make all litter/plastic disappear, right now, should we do it? And a lot of us are saying "Of course! And then we can focus on moving forwards and decreasing future waste too", but some others are saying "No, we shouldn't eliminate all current litter/plastic, because then we won't be motivated to fix anything in the future, and what about the fact that the people who make more waste would be helped more than the people who make less waste?" And to that, I would repeat the same mantra: I'm fine with additionally putting forth other legislation to make our future better, but that doesn't mean we should completely ignore our past/present situation and those who are suffering right now. Also, I don't understand why you would worry that eliminating debt would lead to making education less accessible. The whole point of making college more affordable is, tautologically, so that more people can afford to go to college. You've misunderstood my point and seem to think me and DP agree, which we do on somethings but really do not on many many others. I've said probably 50 times since this came up even before the election, if you have unlimited money by all means do this and all the other stuff, if you do not then use that money better. The later is most certainly the situation. Yes everyone needs help, it would be great if everyone could be millionaires. I sure wish I could get some help. On the other hand I also understand scarcity and therefor am looking for the best value for the money that is available to be spent. To disagree with your analogy snapping your fingers and making all the plastic disappear would solve the problem for everyone on the planet. That is fair and equitable, had you said snapping your fingers and getting rid of all the plastic for 7% of the people I would have a different take. Forgiving student loans, especially in the way that is being discussed does not do that at all, it solves the problem of for a select group of people. If Statos poor lawyer gets his debt canceled he will be able to get himself a new BMW and a much nicer condo, great for him but is it really important that he gets to be comfortably middle class sooner? Is that better than giving that money to people who need it much more desperately? Or to fund a program like food stamps that keeps more of that money from ending up in the black market or spent on things that do not help the most vulnerable? I explained early why it could be worse. There will be no pressure anymore to solve the systemic problem. Do you really think congress is going to do all the work to fix a broken system that no one is complaining about? Do you not think that schools might raise prices since people won't care what it costs since it is not "them" paying anymore? At there very least there is no way they are dropping them. Best case scenario it becomes super expensive public education because the government is paying all the way too expensive prices, you have not increased accessibility, you have not controlled costs. You have increased the profitability of the current system for the group that you agree with me is taking advantage of people. You have also spent a crap ton of money to help 7% of your poor, I want to spend a crap ton of money to hopefully help them all, but at least help most of them. The instant the loans are forgiven people are not going to talk about this until it is a problem again, why not just fix it, or at least try to fix it right now? No one has answered yet why people who have student loans are the priority to get done first? There are many other groups of people in a much worse situation who need help more (and those groups include the students who do really need it and it is not just a quality of life thing). I think we should prioritize those group first. Then I think we should fix the system or at least improve on it and then I think we should help those who have been harmed disproportionately by the current broken system. I mean what if instead of people with student loans we gave all this money to everyone who is white? (being purposely outrages to illustrate a point). I think almost everyone here would see that as wrong. But the numbers are actually similar to the number of college educated people who are poor 7.3 %. And this does not mean you could only help the whites, just that is who you are going to help first, and you can work on helping the others later. Changing student to white changes things because we all know that is unfair, but I'm not sure why so few think that helping only those who are college educated is not also unfair. It is not racism like the above analogy but it is not equitable and wouldn't help those in the most need. It would also help a ton of people who don't need it, and helping people is good. College educated people are "elites" that does not mean that they are all rich but it means they have additional systemic advantages and in that way it mirrors whites position in society. That also does not mean they don't deserve any help, but I do think it means that they don't all need the help or the first help and should be top priority. I think (almost) everyone would agree that giving only the whites this bonus would not be good. Most of the poorest people in the US never had a opportunity to even get this debt to have it be a problem. They got none of the value of school, none of the experience, none of the connections and social group and because of that even if they have the same income they are in a worse position.
I think if we were to go down the road of prioritizing funding for all the various things we'd like, given a highly limited budget, I would need to do more research. I definitely don't have a hierarchy off the top of my head in terms of the dozens of progressive ideas I'd like to see enacted/funded with their exact costs, but I also don't think that student loan forgiveness is unaffordable for the United States. I have no problem saying that the poorest of the poor should have funding for basic necessities before we deal with general student loan forgiveness. Relative ranking is different than what I was originally talking about, which is whether or not student loan forgiveness is a good idea in the first place. I also don't think that anyone who was posting a pro-SLF argument was saying that this was the #1 most important issue/demographic to address right now; I certainly wasn't suggesting that.
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On February 20 2021 06:59 dp wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2021 05:10 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
? Show me where I said that college education is no longer worth the investment. When you alluded to "the increase of college costs significantly outpaces the growth of income/wages, defaulting on the loans can destroy one's credit" which brings into question it's current value. If it is worth the investment for the large majority, what is the problem exactly? That large loans take years to pay back, and sometimes require sacrifice but are worth it in the end? I don't actually want this to sound snarky, but it just doesn't follow for me. Show nested quote +Why would we want to prevent 18-year-olds from voting I'm not interested in red herrings, so let's please stay focused on the financial consequences of student loans.
Your question of why should we allow 18 year olds to take on this debt is not about financial consequences, it is about the ability to enable them. I point out voting because an 18 year old can choose a politician that will remove their debt, but not choose to initiate that debt in the first place in your scenario. When loans weren't as readily available, less people took them out, leading to less default and lower costs in education. The age at which a contract can be made has no bearing on these outcomes. 18 year olds are not the one's defaulting. Look at the demographics and you will realize that. Show nested quote +I believe you have it backwards. Personal finance courses, in high school, have traditionally not been required for high school graduation. Plenty of schools never even had them. There's essentially no reason why a high school senior would know the ramifications and fine print surrounding student loans and debt, unless they were privately taught it by an adult outside of the school setting (and, fittingly, those adults would be disproportionately college-educated... hence the vicious cycle of poverty). Fortunately, personal finance courses are starting to become more common nowadays in high school, but their existence is not a panacea. Nonsense. Stop infantilizing people. There has never been more information available to people in the history of civilization. NEVER. The idea that people are unable to make informed decisions is just irritating. Be honest, how long, in hours, would it take you to understand how loans work. How hard would it be to find the ramifications of taking on this debt. Find stories of the issues it can bring out. There is literally no shortage of this information, with no barrier to reaching it for anyone that is preparing to go to college. Show nested quote +On February 20 2021 01:34 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
Couldn't be a worse segment? Really? You can't think of any people who would be less deserving of money than people who went into debt to pursue a better life for themselves and their families? And, again, please stop making it sound like helping one group of people means we can't also continue to help other groups of people. Nobody is proposing the cancellation of SNAP just to fund student loan forgiveness. The problem I run into is the idea that there is no limit to what can be done. So there is no priority. And it is not based in reality. Your posts actually seem a lot closer to my mind set than some others here, so maybe we are talking past each in a sense. I already dropped a suggestion earlier in limited forgiveness only to those with less than 10k in loans. That covers a large % of borrowers, a majority of defaulters and costs less than 80 billion total. That is almost 300 billion less than just giving all borrowers 10k in relief, and that targeting would help those most burdened and likely to be caused harm.
I think Mohdoo's water example (previous page) addressed your first question very well, in that something being a worthwhile investment doesn't mean it can't be improved or made more accessible for more people.
I know that 18-year-olds aren't the ones defaulting on their loans, but they're the ones signing the contracts and then defaulting on their loans 20+ years later, because only after college and after becoming a real adult do they realize what they committed to doing. I understand that your take is about pushing them to be held responsible for their actions, but I also think that accountability has to be proportional... when you have all of society, including parents and role models, saying "go to college and work hard and you'll get a good-paying job" and then the kids trust the adults but the jobs just aren't there, I think that there's more blame to go around than just telling the graduates to suck it up.
I agree with you that we weren't laying out a list of priorities and creating a hierarchy for them; we were merely talking about whether or not student loan forgiveness would be a good thing. The argument wasn't whether or not it was the most important thing at this point in time. I do think it's based in reality though, in the sense that SLF is something that could be paid for and could be done sometime during the Biden administration, for what it's worth.
To your suggestion about limiting forgiveness to only those with less than $10K in loans, would that include graduates who had more loans but eventually paid off most of it, and then their final $10K would be erased? As an example, if I had $50K in student loan debt and this idea was put into effect tomorrow, I wouldn't be affected at all immediately, but after I eventually paid off $40K and was down to $10K, the final $10K (say, ten years from now) would be erased?
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On February 20 2021 08:58 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2021 08:28 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 20 2021 06:47 JimmiC wrote:On February 20 2021 06:07 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 20 2021 04:32 JimmiC wrote:On February 20 2021 02:55 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 20 2021 02:15 JimmiC wrote:On February 20 2021 01:45 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 20 2021 01:37 JimmiC wrote:On February 20 2021 01:34 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
[quote]
Student loan forgiveness often takes 20-25 years. That's not feasible. Student loan debt is something like $1.6 trillion in this country, and it's absolutely hamstringing millions of people into not being able to progress in their lives for at least a decade. GH is spot on in that there is plenty of desperation when it comes to student loans and interest, and you're simply incorrect when you say that no one is starving because of their loans. People can't afford to pay rent (let alone own their own property) or afford other necessities because of their eternal student debt. It's actually a big deal for a lot of people. True, but a small % of the over all poor and a small % of those with student loans. Sure, but why do we need to wait until people are literally starving to death, because they can't afford their student loans, to help them out? Why can't we make society more comfortable for people who are middle class or lower-middle class, before they become completely impoverished? You don't, but why not do something better for more people? Why are you creating a scenario where the only option is debt forgiveness or nothing? You have not argued any of my points over the last pages only this strawman you have created. I'm not the one saying that it's either debt forgiveness or nothing; I already noted that it would need to be part of a multi-faceted solution. I don't see how you could think that I'm creating that scenario, when I've consistently been pushing for additional things and not just student loan forgiveness. You keep saying "why not do better for more people", but I don't know what you're looking for here. What's your alternative to what I said, which is "Forgiving current student loan debt in some capacity, whether it's 50% or 75% or 100% of the remaining costs for everyone + Creating a proactive plan for future students so that they don't fall into the same trap, such as capping tuition costs based on socioeconomic status, which would proportionately, and significantly, reduce loans/debt (if unable to make college tuition actually free for everyone in the future) + Continuing to encourage high school graduates to consider university, but also advertise reasonable alternatives that some young adults may prefer, such as trade/vocational schools." I think that's pretty comprehensive, but of course we could find ways to do even more. What are your alternatives to all this though? What plan do you have, that will help even more people than all of this? If you don't want to forgive student loans or lower the future costs of tuition, then what do you want? You say I haven't argued against any of your points... One of your first points (to me) was that student loan forgiveness wasn't a particularly popular idea, which GH and I both disproved by citing polls. You did mention that you would prefer having 0% interest loans, but that does even less to help people; you can't propose that alternative while simultaneously arguing that we need to come up with a plan that casts as large of a net as possible in helping people. 0% interest isn't as significant as forgiving student loan debt, for the past and present college students, so I assume you have other ideas than just this. Your Wharton article provided some interesting context about who benefits the most when it comes to student loan forgiveness, but it's not an argument against why student loan forgiveness will help people. (Obviously, people who take out larger loans would benefit more in a hypothetical scenario where everyone's loans were forgiven.) Yay! You and him actually did not disprove that. As I pointed out your source was pretty questionable and the one GH used when I looked inside and quoted it I explained why it also did not say that it is super popular. It is popular to do something about debt forgiveness, it is much less popular to do full debt forgiveness. I really couldn't find any great data to say if it is or is not. To do so you would also need more questions on the survey then were asked, even a simple on a scale of 1-10 how important is this issue would add a lot of context. The Warton article provided some different solutions to debt forgiveness that are tied to income which I think would be far more beneficial to society and more bang for the buck. They also talk about rules around how much private can charge and so which I know you would already be on board with. On top of that I think if that money was allocated to other programs for the poor, it would benefit the students who are in that situation due to student loans, whereas loan forgiveness only hurts those with student debt. Seeing that college educated people make up such a small % of the poor I only feel more strongly about this now than I did before today. Those programs could be existing like food stamps, things around affordable housing, or a whole other host of social programs that have shown to be a lot more effective then stimulus checks or student debt forgiveness. I align with many of your thoughts on how to improve the system, but I don't think it is possible while keeping so much profit available and allowed within post secondary (both for the schools and those who work and run them). And I don't believe debt forgiveness in anyways brings us closer to any of that but rather pushes us further away. If their was unlimited money to spend I would be on board, I don't believe that is the case. Yes, the Wharton article proposes finding equitable ways to forgive student loans, and points out that those methods exist, which is exactly what I've been saying since my first post. It's agreeing with those of us who are arguing that forgiving student loans is helpful when done correctly, and certainly doesn't say that we should be throwing the idea out altogether, in favor of something else entirely (which is the position that you and dp have taken). You're suggesting that, instead of having any sort of student loan forgiveness, we put more money into programs for the poor. That would certainly help the poor out, and I'd happily vote for giving more aid to the poor. However, we also want to help other people besides the poor, right? I'll try an analogy with something else we both care about which is the environment. There is huge popularity and drive around ending single use plastics. Straws became enemy number 1 largely because of a disturbing video of a sea turtle with one stuck in its nose. A huge amount of money and effort was spent trying to get people to use other kinds of straws, banning them in some places and so on. Was this bad? No, not really, but did it impact the ocean plastics or oil consumption? Not at all. There are so many other things that could be focused on such as composting that would make a way bigger impact to the environment.
Same with plastic bags, by simply charging 10 cents per bag you can reduce use by over 90%! Plastic bags are not terrible, they are just terrible when there is way to many. In very humid places paper does not work because it tears and the cost to the environment of spoiled and lost food is far higher than a plastic bag. Also, many people reuse their grocery bags as garbage bags, it is not better if people are now buy more garbage bags since they have less grocery bags. The other is many of the reusable bags are actually worse than the single use, I've done the math on some of them where it would take 100 uses or more to make it a win for the environment and there is no way they last that long, also some are made with mixed materials making those bags near impossible to recycle when they reach their end date (there are some very good ones as well). So well top of mind might be "banning plastic bags is good for the environment" that is only true if there is the right rules and regulations around the replacement.
And that is what I'm saying here, if it is just done in the ham-fisted everyone gets all their debt up 50K forgiven it won't be nearly as good for society or those in need as a more targeted, more well thought out approach would be.
Would you not be very disappointed if this lead to a larger wealth gap? If this does not make education more accessible to those who it is not right now? I sure would be.
I appreciate your attempt at trying to find a useful analogy. If the primary purpose of the analogy is to point out that the situation involving the financial costs of American education is extremely complex and requires a lot more than simply forgiving student loan debt, then yeah, I've been saying that all along. I understand that only targeting a small piece of a problem (i.e., the plastic straws) won't solve the issue, but keep in mind that the more comprehensive environmental analogy would be: If we could snap our fingers and immediately make all litter/plastic disappear, right now, should we do it? And a lot of us are saying "Of course! And then we can focus on moving forwards and decreasing future waste too", but some others are saying "No, we shouldn't eliminate all current litter/plastic, because then we won't be motivated to fix anything in the future, and what about the fact that the people who make more waste would be helped more than the people who make less waste?" And to that, I would repeat the same mantra: I'm fine with additionally putting forth other legislation to make our future better, but that doesn't mean we should completely ignore our past/present situation and those who are suffering right now. Also, I don't understand why you would worry that eliminating debt would lead to making education less accessible. The whole point of making college more affordable is, tautologically, so that more people can afford to go to college. You've misunderstood my point and seem to think me and DP agree, which we do on somethings but really do not on many many others. I've said probably 50 times since this came up even before the election, if you have unlimited money by all means do this and all the other stuff, if you do not then use that money better. The later is most certainly the situation. Yes everyone needs help, it would be great if everyone could be millionaires. I sure wish I could get some help. On the other hand I also understand scarcity and therefor am looking for the best value for the money that is available to be spent. To disagree with your analogy snapping your fingers and making all the plastic disappear would solve the problem for everyone on the planet. That is fair and equitable, had you said snapping your fingers and getting rid of all the plastic for 7% of the people I would have a different take. Forgiving student loans, especially in the way that is being discussed does not do that at all, it solves the problem of for a select group of people. If Statos poor lawyer gets his debt canceled he will be able to get himself a new BMW and a much nicer condo, great for him but is it really important that he gets to be comfortably middle class sooner? Is that better than giving that money to people who need it much more desperately? Or to fund a program like food stamps that keeps more of that money from ending up in the black market or spent on things that do not help the most vulnerable? I explained early why it could be worse. There will be no pressure anymore to solve the systemic problem. Do you really think congress is going to do all the work to fix a broken system that no one is complaining about? Do you not think that schools might raise prices since people won't care what it costs since it is not "them" paying anymore? At there very least there is no way they are dropping them. Best case scenario it becomes super expensive public education because the government is paying all the way too expensive prices, you have not increased accessibility, you have not controlled costs. You have increased the profitability of the current system for the group that you agree with me is taking advantage of people. You have also spent a crap ton of money to help 7% of your poor, I want to spend a crap ton of money to hopefully help them all, but at least help most of them. The instant the loans are forgiven people are not going to talk about this until it is a problem again, why not just fix it, or at least try to fix it right now? No one has answered yet why people who have student loans are the priority to get done first? There are many other groups of people in a much worse situation who need help more (and those groups include the students who do really need it and it is not just a quality of life thing). I think we should prioritize those group first. Then I think we should fix the system or at least improve on it and then I think we should help those who have been harmed disproportionately by the current broken system. I mean what if instead of people with student loans we gave all this money to everyone who is white? (being purposely outrages to illustrate a point). I think almost everyone here would see that as wrong. But the numbers are actually similar to the number of college educated people who are poor 7.3 %. And this does not mean you could only help the whites, just that is who you are going to help first, and you can work on helping the others later. Changing student to white changes things because we all know that is unfair, but I'm not sure why so few think that helping only those who are college educated is not also unfair. It is not racism like the above analogy but it is not equitable and wouldn't help those in the most need. It would also help a ton of people who don't need it, and helping people is good. College educated people are "elites" that does not mean that they are all rich but it means they have additional systemic advantages and in that way it mirrors whites position in society. That also does not mean they don't deserve any help, but I do think it means that they don't all need the help or the first help and should be top priority. I think (almost) everyone would agree that giving only the whites this bonus would not be good. Most of the poorest people in the US never had a opportunity to even get this debt to have it be a problem. They got none of the value of school, none of the experience, none of the connections and social group and because of that even if they have the same income they are in a worse position. I think if we were to go down the road of prioritizing funding for all the various things we'd like, given a highly limited budget, I would need to do more research. I definitely don't have a hierarchy off the top of my head in terms of the dozens of progressive ideas I'd like to see enacted/funded with their exact costs, but I also don't think that student loan forgiveness is unaffordable for the United States. I have no problem saying that the poorest of the poor should have funding for basic necessities before we deal with general student loan forgiveness. Relative ranking is different than what I was originally talking about, which is whether or not student loan forgiveness is a good idea in the first place. I also don't think that anyone who was posting a pro-SLF argument was saying that this was the #1 most important issue/demographic to address right now; I certainly wasn't suggesting that. I know you were not, and I do understand your point. But I think you are still missing mine, I think a hierarchical ranking would be a great exercise because we would really get into what would be the "best" thing too do. And that is my point, it is not that loan forgiveness is "bad" it is that there are many many other things I think are better. But if that is all that is possible then do it, but then I think do it the best way possible which might not be the suggestion of relating it to present value by attaching it to income to income, there may be something even better, but we should do the best possible thing and I don't believe a flat forgiveness is that. I think the importance it has gotten in the media, but more so on this thread is way to high for how it would impact the USA. I'm not even sure why it is really considered a "progressive policy" as it is not using the data and money to make the biggest impact possible. If Biden is going to make a EO that is going to be very controversial and challenged in the courts (though farva knows way more about that so maybe what I have been reading is wrong) it should be a real gamechanger of a policy. I'm not sure 15 minimum wage is it either, but better.
Yeah I don't know if the label of "progressive" works for a bunch of these issues/solutions, but I'm sure that Democrats are more favorable towards student loan forgiveness and other proposed approaches to the financial costs of American education (and a $15 minimum wage... and UBI) than Republicans.
The hierarchy sounds like a fun exercise to create some day, but I was just happy to read about a topic involving education that wasn't directly connected to coronavirus lol.
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On February 20 2021 09:09 JimmiC wrote:Well he has broken some of FDRs records and most of the other things is most since FDR. It is also not the same situation. America now is not close to as bad as it was then. The biggest difference though is that FDR didn't have to compromise because he had a WAY bigger win which gave him a clearer mandate. He won 472!!!! to 59! The dems controlled the house 322-102 and the senate 70-23. The situations are really not comparable. FDR could have still got his stuff through with over 20 manchins. Also FDR ran on a mandate for change, his voters who made up the majority of Americans wanted it. Biden did not run on that, he ran on return to normal and some change and he won, that is what people wanted. If more people wanted more dramatic change the progressive part of the dem party would have more than 30-40 % of the dem vote. I should also add I'm not some huge Biden supporter. I just think that for one month in given the political climate and where the states was heading he was done a good job. For me he was able to make more changes quicker than I thought. From the info I got in this thread and the Dem thread I was expecting almost no EOs and it taking a lot of time to undo Trump. He has out preformed those expectations. I'll circle back to the stimulous part when I have more time and can read your sources.
America just experienced the first time a foreign flag was flown in the US Capitol, the flags were the Confederate Flag which is the flag of a (former) hostile foreign nation, and the other primary one was the Nazi Flag. They were flown in the US Capitol by a vicious mob of fascistic seditionists spurred on by a literal president in order to help overturn a democratically decided election. The US is in the middle of a once in a hundred year pandemic where hundreds of thousands have died and people have lost employment, and the context for this pandemic is one of massive wealth inequality and many Americans being unable to afford even a 400 dollar emergency.
This is absolutely a situation where an FDR is warranted, the US just glimpsed into the abyssal eyes of fascism peering over it's shoulder and Joe Biden's solution is to pretend it never happened and to keep doing all of the things that let fascism get so close.
And FDR had stronger Congressional support, but thats beside the point, the point is that the only reason that democracy is slow is because of our current politicians. The slow speed at which things are happening is not inherent to democracy, its entirely because we have one block of obstructionist politicians who we refuse to hold accountable. I just refuse to accept "democracy is just slow" as a reason when history has demonstrated that democracy doesnt have to be nearly as slow as it is.
And Manchin's obstruction is 100% on the Dems. Every time Manchin pulls a Republican its the Democrats who are pulling a Republican. The intricacies of Joe Manchin and the balance of Congress aren't going to matter to Americans. They're going to have heard, "2000 dollars checks immediately!" see that the checks have shrunk, they didnt go out immediately, and they'll look back at the special election in Georgia and go, "so this is what we get for busting ass for the Democrats? Fuck the system I'm not voting for them." Every mediocre negotiated down half measure the Democrats put out once every other year is not the kind of bold aggressive change that people need, and its going to bite them in the ass. And since Republicans dont have the House or the Senate they can't hide behind their usual, "but republicans!"
The next two years are 10,000% on Democrats, not only on any individual Democrat, but as a political party.
I also disagree that Biden was elected because people wanted what he was selling, given the crap margins he actually got and the fact that Democrats did so poorly in Congressional races it seems pretty clear that the biggest reason anyone voted for Joe Biden was because he wasn't Donald Trump. Even during the primarys the biggest question people had was "can this person beat Donald Trump?" Im sure Biden has delusioned himself into thinking his ideas are popular and that he was elected with a mandate to make sure nothing fundamentally changes, but the election was much more an indictment of Trump than anything positive about Joe Biden.
I understand that you and others want to give him time, but Joe Bidens entire political history indicates he won't step up to this moment and the way that a Democrat controlled Senate is sabotaging it's own legislation (in a way that gestures towards Bidens own crappy political beliefs) indicates that America isn't going to get better, its going to keep going down the same dark path thats breeding the dark new uprising of fascism in the US. As far as I'm concerned Joe Biden is content with that.
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On February 20 2021 09:30 Zambrah wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2021 09:09 JimmiC wrote:Well he has broken some of FDRs records and most of the other things is most since FDR. It is also not the same situation. America now is not close to as bad as it was then. The biggest difference though is that FDR didn't have to compromise because he had a WAY bigger win which gave him a clearer mandate. He won 472!!!! to 59! The dems controlled the house 322-102 and the senate 70-23. The situations are really not comparable. FDR could have still got his stuff through with over 20 manchins. Also FDR ran on a mandate for change, his voters who made up the majority of Americans wanted it. Biden did not run on that, he ran on return to normal and some change and he won, that is what people wanted. If more people wanted more dramatic change the progressive part of the dem party would have more than 30-40 % of the dem vote. I should also add I'm not some huge Biden supporter. I just think that for one month in given the political climate and where the states was heading he was done a good job. For me he was able to make more changes quicker than I thought. From the info I got in this thread and the Dem thread I was expecting almost no EOs and it taking a lot of time to undo Trump. He has out preformed those expectations. I'll circle back to the stimulous part when I have more time and can read your sources. America just experienced the first time a foreign flag was flown in the US Capitol, the flags were the Confederate Flag which is the flag of a (former) hostile foreign nation, and the other primary one was the Nazi Flag. They were flown in the US Capitol by a vicious mob of fascistic seditionists spurred on by a literal president in order to help overturn a democratically decided election. The US is in the middle of a once in a hundred year pandemic where hundreds of thousands have died and people have lost employment, and the context for this pandemic is one of massive wealth inequality and many Americans being unable to afford even a 400 dollar emergency. This is absolutely a situation where an FDR is warranted, the US just glimpsed into the abyssal eyes of fascism peering over it's shoulder and Joe Biden's solution is to pretend it never happened and to keep doing all of the things that let fascism get so close. And FDR had stronger Congressional support, but thats beside the point, the point is that the only reason that democracy is slow is because of our current politicians. The slow speed at which things are happening is not inherent to democracy, its entirely because we have one block of obstructionist politicians who we refuse to hold accountable. I just refuse to accept "democracy is just slow" as a reason when history has demonstrated that democracy doesnt have to be nearly as slow as it is. And Manchin's obstruction is 100% on the Dems. Every time Manchin pulls a Republican its the Democrats who are pulling a Republican. The intricacies of Joe Manchin and the balance of Congress aren't going to matter to Americans. They're going to have heard, "2000 dollars checks immediately!" see that the checks have shrunk, they didnt go out immediately, and they'll look back at the special election in Georgia and go, "so this is what we get for busting ass for the Democrats? Fuck the system I'm not voting for them." Every mediocre negotiated down half measure the Democrats put out once every other year is not the kind of bold aggressive change that people need, and its going to bite them in the ass. And since Republicans dont have the House or the Senate they can't hide behind their usual, "but republicans!" The next two years are 10,000% on Democrats, not only on any individual Democrat, but as a political party. I also disagree that Biden was elected because people wanted what he was selling, given the crap margins he actually got and the fact that Democrats did so poorly in Congressional races it seems pretty clear that the biggest reason anyone voted for Joe Biden was because he wasn't Donald Trump. Even during the primarys the biggest question people had was "can this person beat Donald Trump?" Im sure Biden has delusioned himself into thinking his ideas are popular and that he was elected with a mandate to make sure nothing fundamentally changes, but the election was much more an indictment of Trump than anything positive about Joe Biden. I understand that you and others want to give him time, but Joe Bidens entire political history indicates he won't step up to this moment and the way that a Democrat controlled Senate is sabotaging it's own legislation (in a way that gestures towards Bidens own crappy political beliefs) indicates that America isn't going to get better, its going to keep going down the same dark path thats breeding the dark new uprising of fascism in the US. As far as I'm concerned Joe Biden is content with that.
FDR having more Congressional support is literally 100% of the point.
Biden has pretty much the slimmest possible margin that he could have in Congress.
The level of expectations you have for what Biden should've already accomplished is simply unrealistic. It isn't possible with a 50/50 Senate and an extremely slim House majority. It just isn't. That's not how politics in our country work, and your view of the Democratic party as a monolithic entity that should be able to just force Manchin to do whatever they want is also completely unrealistic.
I'm pretty sure we had this conversation before, but the pandemic and the Capitol attack are in no way comparable to the Great Depression as the kind of massive societal upheaval that would lead to unique political change.
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On February 20 2021 05:48 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2021 04:43 Stratos_speAr wrote:On February 20 2021 01:16 JimmiC wrote:On February 20 2021 01:10 BisuDagger wrote:On February 20 2021 00:08 JimmiC wrote:On February 19 2021 23:32 Stratos_speAr wrote:First off, we explicitly addressed this "addresses the symptom not the cause" argument about two pages back. Everyone knows this, but the problem is that you can't get education cost reform through the Senate with a 50/50 split. Forgiving student debt is still a meaningful change because it helps millions of people and these people aren't likely to re-accumulate that same debt. It would be an incredible boost to the economy, particularly the generation that is just hitting what should be its peak spending power phase of life (e.g. buying new homes, having children, buying cars, etc. etc. etc.). Second, these arguments against it are very reminiscent of 1) "If I had to pay it they should to" (people have been explaining why this is a bad argument for a long time) and 2) arguments against pathways to citizenship for undocumented immigrants Third, arguments like this All the people who sacrificed "stuff" to pay off their loans (which is going to be everyone who has paid of their loans) will be mad that people who made bad choices are getting bailed out and they are getting punished for being responsible. It won't matter that there is lots of people who do need this, because there are lots who don't who will get it and that will be the focus of people who did not get it. Are straight out of conservative playbooks. Arguing that some people that don't deserve it will benefit and therefore we shouldn't do it at all is a foundational concept in conservative thought. As Zambrah said, I think it's much more ethically sound (and economically important) to help the countless people that really need it instead of worrying so much about a few people "not deserving it" that you don't help people at all. It's important to remember that "don't need it" is also an improper framing device to look at this with. Almost everyone who receives student loan forgiveness will benefit from it. It will benefit the economy in huge ways because even if you forgive debt for people making more money, it will still allow them to spend more money and help the economy. The only group of people that won't receive a stimulus from forgiveness are those that still have debt but already make a truckload of money (i.e. high six figure incomes). This is an extremely small minority of the debt-saddled population and people here are definitely overstating how many people have student debt and "don't need it". I mean yes that has been discussed back and forth every time this topic comes up because it is the major reason to be against this policy other than that you don't think it is a problem to begin with. I speak about it in more detail in my last post but spending your political capital to have this sued and held up in the courts is bad for the dems. I believe that suspending payments during the covid (maybe longer) and 0 % interest are positive policy for those with the loans without the political head aches of forgiveness and up the chances of an actual solution rather than just pushing the problem down a few years. Your also completely missing my point and being insulting when you say that I am saying that because not all need it nothing should be done. I'm saying that we should do something different that helps everyone (or at least more) that need it. Yes people being given large sums of money will all be helped, I know I could sure use it would put me way ahead from where I am now, but there are many people who need it more than me (and likely more that need it less but that is neither her nor there). But why just the students with existing loans? Why not everyone? I'd be way more behind everyone getting 50k than people with student loans getting 50k. What makes the student loan "special" compared to all the other reasons that people are hurting? Why is this the hill to die on, it affects a fairly small portion of the people in need. According to the below almost half of the US is in some kind of poverty (46.9%) over 75%!! of that group would be completely not impacted at all by this (23.7% no high school, 11.5% high school). Another 16% of that group (7.8% overall) would be marginally impacted as it is a fair presumption that some of this group would have little or no debt left. And those directly benefiting would make up only 8% (3.9% total) of the group. Is it bad to help 8-16% of the poor, no that is good, is it the best? Far from it. That money could be used to help a lot poor and not arbitrarily because they attended school, and since college people make way more on average it could be argued that many of that 8-16% are in the "better off" group of the poor. https://www.statista.com/statistics/233162/us-poverty-rate-by-education/I think a lot of people really into this issue are wearing blinders to how large the poverty problem is and what % college educated people make of it. I get it because I bet this thread leans heavily to college educated people and therefor most of our social groups and so on are made up of people similar to us. But the reality is a program like this is going to pull a few out of poverty and accelerate many others into middle class. That is not a bad thing, it is just not the best thing. Edit: this is why public post secondary makes so much sense for society. It makes keeping the costs reasonable for everyone, matter to everyone because everyone is paying for it. It also opens up the opportunity for education to many of those who currently do not have that option. I think a lot of people are forgetting that to many many of the poor people see those who get to go to college are already very privileged compared to them. And while they may be in a similar boat currently financially because of that debt, they are also in a better position because they can earn more and have a much better chance of getting out of their current situation. Someone with no education has no hope at landing that 60k, 80k 100k whatever job. Since it is clear there is burnout on parts of this discussion: How about actually applying the liberal views on wealth redistribution towards Universities that pay outrageous amounts of money towards their sports programs and coaches. Nick Saban earns $9.3 million dollars annually. How come more liberals aren't attacking the top 1% earners at University and demanding that Universities stop delivering large payouts to a small group of individuals and instead redistribute large amounts earned by the athletic department profits towards student scholarship programs? I'm certain if liberals got loud enough, they could at least make this a leading conversation. "Attend a game and X% goes towards helping our young adults get through college." I think an idea like that could be useful, the argument is always about how much money the teams bring in for the schools. The only issue I have really is with your framing, most liberals and other leftists do have issues with how much coaches are paid, do think the money should be more disturbed (liberals are the reasons that football and basketball programs have to pay for other athletics and scholarships). It is liberals that want to do away with profit in universities and so on. It is not liberals blocking change, debt forgiveness is just what they think they can do without it getting blocked by the reps. I don't think they should settle for what I belive is a very suboptimal solution.
Did not want it? And by that you mean signed for it, used it and then don't want to pay? Who know who else are at the prime major life expenditures? Every other person, which is the majority of their peers, that didn't go to college. They will/do earn less, have exactly the same costs otherwise and same potential life goals. Somehow the progressive outlook is to help which group?..
Both of these arguments are short-sighted. We do all realize that these are the same progressives that are pushing for universal healthcare, almost completely eliminating college costs, significantly improving welfare programs across the board, and a host of other things to help the poor, right? In what world are progressives advocating for helping the middle class and not the poor? It is entirely possible to have different policy proposals to address different issues. "But the poor are worse off!" Is a particularly disingenuous argument against this. Also the idea that a bunch of teenagers willfully consent to the current postsecondary education paradigm when they are conditioned during their entire childhood to pursue it by their parents (i.e. the Boomers) and had absolutely zero say in the design and implementation of that system is quite suspect. Explain why it is not feasible. Really, I want to know exactly why paying anywhere from 15% of disposable income or 0$ for those that can't afford it for 20 years is not feasible.
You know what else could help millions of people progress in their lives? An extra 50 thousand dollars. Know how we could help people afford necessities like food? Well, 1.6 trillion can go a long way. It cost less than that to run SNAP for the last 20 years. Your posts show an astounding lack of understanding of what the tuition debt-straddled population actually is and is going through. You seem to have this bizarre idea that everyone in this group earns a comfortable salary and that student debt payments are inconveniences that simply don't allow these people to have more spending money. Putting aside the fact that the vast majority of college graduates don't hold professional graduate level education (e.g. physician and lawyer), it's also important to note that the average primary care physician earns ~$170k per year, which is less than their average student debt load (now north of $200k). The average lawyer in my state makes ~$80k per year when they hold nearly $150k in debt on average. Law school graduates are also unemployed at far higher rates than even the general population. As several of us have pointed out and cited, your mental picture of what this group looks like is flat-out wrong. Student debt payments are keeping people from doing everything from affording necessities to owning a home instead of renting to having children to a host of other necessary expenditures. Thinking that it should be fine to pay 15% of your disposable income for 25 years is naïve when, in reality, that 15% is a lot more when added onto the absurd cost of healthcare in this country and the housing crisis that results in rent costing far, far more than the 30% rule of thumb. Also, as I mentioned before, this doesn't even address the problem that around 40% of college graduates are under-employed. Nope, almost all of what you said is inaccurate to my points and various strawmans on them (not to mention even lower shit you pull that I will talk about later). And then on top of that when you start talking about someone being poor because they 150k in debt while making 80k shows you don't understand what it is to actually be poor. (here is a finacial advisor talking to a person who makes 85k a year, has 120k in debt from school, it is not the exact numbers you presented but darn close, and this person is not poor or even remotely close if you think they are that is because you are extremely entitled). You should probably read that Warton article because it explains how present value matters much for than current value and factors go into calculating that. Unlike you who have said what a massive problem this (and I have never said it is not a massive just that compared to other problems it does not compete) is you have not refuted the data I provided, or provided any data at all, on the scope of the actual problem. I understand the scope it is you that do not, and unlike you I'm not emotionally invested because I'm not receiving money. Here is another way to look at this, 3.6 million people are college educated and living under the poverty line, 50 million people are living under the poverty line or 7% are college educated. Explain to me how this plan is better for the poor then a plan that would send the same amount of money (10k or 50K) to everyone under the poverty line instead of loan forgiveness? And that would not be my ideal solution either, but it pretty easy to see why simply forgiving student loans is not the best use of money to help those in desperate need. To me it seems like you are angry, likely because this personally impacts you, and have blinders on to anything that does not 100 % agree with you. How much debt do you have? What do you earn? Why do you deserve some large payment of money and a single mother who didn't graduate from high school living their car does not? A lot of people are suffering worse than you and deserve that help more because they likely had a much worse start, and they do not think they are poor because they can't drive a nice car, they think they are poor because they have trouble feeding themselves and their children (yes some college educated people are in this group and they also should be helped, they just shouldn't be the only ones who should be helped) and Lawyers making 8k year with 150k in debt are super far down the list of people who need help. Hell you even attributed a quote to me that was not me and if you can't see that me and him have different perspectives that shows a serious lack of reading comprehension as well as who is actually being disingenuous here! Do you not understand the term or is that just a insult you like to throw out because you know you won't get banned for it?
I would suggest that you stop using the "strawman" label when pretty much this entire post completely misses the mark and fails to comprehend everything that I said.
First, I never said that making $80k and being $150k in debt is "poor". It is still a massive financial burden and a huge problem for people and for our economy. It was one example that I elaborated on because DP (and now you) don't seem to understand the reality of the student debt crisis and what it means for people. You just seem to think "they have a degree, so we shouldn't care about them!". I say this because the alternatives you've offered to debt relief are half-baked and poorly thought out. It's makes me think that the empathy that you try to show with your progressive ideals ends when it doesn't make you feel better about yourself.
Second, I also never said that debt relief is better for the poor. Clearly an economic policy that doesn't even target a certain group won't meaningfully affect them. The working poor/those that are not college educated require different approaches to their economic problems. I alluded to this maybe a page ago. Keep up.
Third, I didn't attribute a post to you that wasn't yours. I quoted you two in the first half of my response because you were making similar arguments.
Fourth, it's cute that you try to assume emotional bias instead of addressing the flaws in your arguments. My military service is making my debt a non-issue, so I don't gain anything meaningful from debt relief.
Finally, I know very well what it means to be poor, and there's a good chance that I know more than you do about it. Maybe the fact that you aren't affected by the student debt crisis biases you emotionally?
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FDR having more Congressional support is literally 100% of the point.
Biden has pretty much the slimmest possible margin that he could have in Congress.
What you're misunderstanding about the intent about my post is that politics isn't the laws of physics where Joe Biden not having 60 Senate seats means he is literally incapable of doing anything. If Americans held our politicians to account for their actions and the Democrats could grow a backbone to take their opponents to task properly in the media we could see a more whipped Democrat party. If Americans went to Collins house, or Murkowski's house, or Romney's house and protested like they did at Hawley, then we could see Republicans vote on pieces of legislation that are popular. Manchin got pressured into supporting stimulus payments because people got pissed at him and held him accountable for his dumb views and he was forced to change them. My point is that politics are not immutable, and saying, "thats just how politics works" is not something I can accept. Republicans are not physically unable to vote for Democrat bills and vice versa, the state of US politics can and has been different before, and I urge people not to accept the last forty years of supermassive dysfunction as an immutable fact of the way democracy has to operate.
The level of expectations you have for what Biden should've already accomplished is simply unrealistic. It isn't possible with a 50/50 Senate and an extremely slim House majority. It just isn't. That's not how politics in our country work, and your view of the Democratic party as a monolithic entity that should be able to just force Manchin to do whatever they want is also completely unrealistic.
Its not just what Id like him to have accomplished, its the trajectory his presidency is currently taking, starting off on the stimulus debacle was a dumb start but at least it was possible to believe it was JUST an idiotic failure in communication. But seeing huge parts of the stimulus package be drained away, and not drained away because of the Red Team, this is all on Joe Manchin. This is budget reconciliation, Joe Biden's got a Congress at his disposal that can theoretically make big change, and instead we're seeing the change get smaller and smaller.
The Democrats are a monolithic entity in that they are a political party, just as we expect the Republicans as a whole to eat some shit over Marjorie Taylor Nutjob the Democrats have to eat shit when Joe Manchin puts his Republican panties on and starts to sabotage good things. McConnell has proven that whipping your party into line is absolutely possible, Democrats are just afraid to do it, because they're deeply uncomfortable wielding power in the ways the Republicans are.
In 2022 people aren't going to go, "wow Manchin stinks! But I still really have so much faith in my recently flipped blue Senate seat!" they're going to go, "so we busted our asses organizing for these people and they did the minimum possible?"
I'm pretty sure we had this conversation before, but the pandemic and the Capitol attack are in no way comparable to the Great Depression as the kind of massive societal upheaval that would lead to unique political change.
They're comparable in the same way that I can look at a man that is 6'5" tall and a woman that is 6'3" tall and go, "they are both very tall."
Its like youre going, "apples to oranges!" but you can totally compare apples to oranges. They are both fruit, for example. They contain red in both RGB/RBY color spaces, they both have seeds, they're both edible, they're both able to be made into fruit.
Comparisons do not need to be 1:1 perfect comparisons.
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EPT
