Official LRC President Joseph R Biden Thread

Monkeys Skyping wrote:

L L wrote:

What are you talking about?

High school grads that don’t have any college don’t typically make enough money to pay much in income tax to cover any college loan forgiveness.

You know where the taxes will come from?

Mostly college grads who did well in life, moved up in income and are now paying a fair chunk of taxes.

College grads without debt make more money and will have more to spend without that debt.

This generates higher payroll taxes, higher income taxes and more money spent on businesses to increase their revenue.

Working class high school grads will have no added cost but will benefit by the higher demand with more consumption.

They won’t be taking taxes out if their paychecks and handing it over to college grads.

You sound like you are auditioning for Fox News.

While your nuanced analysis of who would mostly be paying for a tuition reimbursement program and how it is probably a net societal benefit seems reasonable, Agip's probably also right that it would be weaponized and effectively so.

agip wrote:

Monkeys Skyping wrote:

While your nuanced analysis of who would mostly be paying for a tuition reimbursement program and how it is probably a net societal benefit seems reasonable, Agip's probably also right that it would be weaponized and effectively so.

Keep in mind, in this rich country the average income of high school grads is $38,000 or so. The average high school grad pays federal income tax. LL's argument doesn't really fly.

The whole '40%+ don't pay fed income tax' thing is a bit of a misunderstanding of the data.

I'm guilty of this too.

It's mostly very young people, very old people, and those temporarily out of the work force.

If you are of working age and work full time, you are almost certainly paying fed inc taxes.

It's incorrect to line up all workers, draw a line at 40% and say 'you pay no fed inc taxes.' That's not how that stat works.

So I will stand by my argument that taking money out of high schoolers' pockets and handing it to indebted college kids is grossly unfair and pure class warfare.

https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/remember-47-percent-who-pay-no-income-taxes-they-are-not-who-you-think

L L wrote:

agip wrote:

I wouldn't count on it.

Handouts to college grads might be a pure essence of fire breathing class warfare that the GOP would use to hammer the dems over and over and over again.

The idea of high school grads taking tax money out of their paycheck and hand it over to college grads because the college kids weren't responsible borrowers...kind of makes me sick.

If it makes me ill, imagine how it makes a red state working class guy feel.

What are you talking about?

High school grads that don’t have any college don’t typically make enough money to pay much in income tax to cover any college loan forgiveness.

You know where the taxes will come from?

Mostly college grads who did well in life, moved up in income and are now paying a fair chunk of taxes.

College grads without debt make more money and will have more to spend without that debt.

This generates higher payroll taxes, higher income taxes and more money spent on businesses to increase their revenue.

Working class high school grads will have no added cost but will benefit by the higher demand with more consumption.

They won’t be taking taxes out if their paychecks and handing it over to college grads.

You sound like you are auditioning for Fox News.

Just Another Hobby Jogger wrote:

agip wrote:

more and more, the history of the US is about people in red states, living in a fox news bubble, convinced the nation is being given to black and brown people. not sure how we climb out of this. Maybe if the dems hold the house and senate and the nation doesn't end?

No, that won't stop their paranoia. We already had that from 2009 to 2011, and they got more paranoid.

Their anxiety comes from loss of control. So they want to be in control. They refuse mask and vaccine because that makes them feel like they are in charge, although they cannot control the spread of conoravirus. Better yet, they can spite other people, which makes them feel empowered.

But their anxiety will not stop as long as globalization and automation change our economic lives, and non-white immigrants change our cultural identity. Worse yet for them, more LGBTQ people are out of the closet. They will keep getting more and more frustrated because no matter what they do, the society keeps changing and moving away from their "good old America" of 1950s.

I don't know what, if anything, can be done to change their mind. The best we can do is to prevent the younger people from falling into the rabbit hole.

nonequals wrote:

Just Another Hobby Jogger wrote:

No, that won't stop their paranoia. We already had that from 2009 to 2011, and they got more paranoid.

Their anxiety comes from loss of control. So they want to be in control. They refuse mask and vaccine because that makes them feel like they are in charge, although they cannot control the spread of conoravirus. Better yet, they can spite other people, which makes them feel empowered.

But their anxiety will not stop as long as globalization and automation change our economic lives, and non-white immigrants change our cultural identity. Worse yet for them, more LGBTQ people are out of the closet. They will keep getting more and more frustrated because no matter what they do, the society keeps changing and moving away from their "good old America" of 1950s.

I don't know what, if anything, can be done to change their mind. The best we can do is to prevent the younger people from falling into the rabbit hole.

Lazy guy question (I've been meaning to answer myself): Roughly how many younger people are already in the hole? In other words, do the demographics of Trump voters in 2020 give us any hope that Trumpism will notably suffer in the coming years/decades because his supporters are heavily older and will die soonish? Or, do we ALSO have plenty of unethical/badly misguided 20 and 30 and 40-somethings?