Two questions about Biden's student loan plan

keep them ignorant wrote:

Millionaire POTUS pays less than $1000 in taxes and conservatives laud him as being a smart man.

College students gets an education that will allow them to become educated members of the workforce without being burdened by debt for the rest of their lives, and conservatives say, "That's so not fair!"

What's crazy, I guess, is these people are assuming I'm a liberal. I care about fiscal policy. I pay all my bills. I'm in the tech hub of Texas and I helped keep Texas RED.

But I recognize this system is garbage and needs to be fixed. The Republican party has made no attempt at fixing it and clueless kids are still accruing insurmountable debt. It has to go. This is a bipartisan issue the Republicans could have wiped out and endeared themselves with millennials. They decided to punt and now the democrats will reinforce their base.

Even with COVID where kids are now not even being given the education they were promised. ZOOM CLASSES? What the hell? Nobody has offered to adjust tuition or the debt the students accumulated for a degree they now might never see. It's completely unfair. Colleges need to fail, the price of education needs to drastically come down, and student loans become dischargeable.

* wrote:

Dan Kahneman wrote:

I think there is a certain unfairness in this concept.

Life isn't fair.

There are tons of subsidies and tax deals made that aren't fair to everyone.

But they are usually designed to help the public as a whole.

You have two points here, but only the second one may have some validity.

Your first point is irrelevant. To use the statement "life is unfair" as a sort of justification for unfairness may sound relevant but its not. To apply that reasoning to another situation, it would be like getting caught in a crime and saying, "well people commit crimes". I think a goal is to reduce unfairness.

Your second point might have a bit more validity. "Its designed to help the public as a whole". But, I don't think its good for society to reinforce those who have not been that responsible with money and to discourage those who have been frugal.

I am guessing those with high student loans had options such as less expensive colleges that may have resulted in smaller loans. I do think the interest rates should be very low or even zero. I would help them that way. Maybe even options where they could work off some of their loan.

ryan evans wrote:

Primo Numero Uno wrote:

This is about attaching another group of young Americans to the democratic party.

Trump had 4 years to help with this and Bush had 8. Do you not see how the Republican party is driving themselves out of office by not recognizing the needs of "young Americans"? The "old American" vote is dying and the Republicans are refusing to fix the problems old Americans caused.

And I voted for Trump. In this case, I am on the side of anybody who is going to fix this travesty.

I think you missed my point. Forgiving the student loans is not the fix. It is putting a bandaid on a severed limp that will keep bleeding. Obama is by far the most responsible for this mess. If you want to blame Trump for not getting rid of government backed non dischargable student loans I agree. But I stongly disagree with the public picking up the tab for these terrible loans and I'm glad Trump did not do that.

Everyone thinks Uncle Sam can just print money for this. It does not work that way. It is a tax one way or another. Either they steal money from the more responsible to pay off bad debt or they print money which is just a tax on our savings through currency devaluation. Meanwhile, lending companies and colleges made money off this scam. People who paid their way through school or paid off their loans are double losers because not only could we have had Uncle Sam foot the bill but now we pay for everyone else.

There has been zero discussion from the left about removing all protection for this garbage lending practice which clearly indicates they do not understand or care about the problem. In a decade we'll be talking about a new generation of these crap loans with a national deficit $12 trillion more than it is now.

Dan Kahneman wrote:

Your second point might have a bit more validity. "Its designed to help the public as a whole". But, I don't think its good for society to reinforce those who have not been that responsible with money and to discourage those who have been frugal.

I am guessing those with high student loans had options such as less expensive colleges that may have resulted in smaller loans. I do think the interest rates should be very low or even zero. I would help them that way. Maybe even options where they could work off some of their loan.

Then you are okay with sleazeball school administrators offering loans to unqualified borrowers (kids), knowing full well that based on their degree choice, will have limited employment opportunity and means to pay back a loan they can't discharge through bankruptcy.

Even those who are paying in cash *must* fill out a FAFSA and are offered loans for discretionary spending during their enrollment. Why? Because the system is designed to engender slave labor for as long as possible while lining the pockets of administrators as much a possible.

I'm not okay with that. Sorry. Never will be.

You make a well articulated point, but yes. The underlying system must be fixed or else it is a band-aid. Student loans must be dischargeable. Inaction to let people continue paying on lifelong debt for a valueless education is not the answer though.

I realize it is a tax. Happy to pay it, to be part of the solution. I realize you may not be happy to pay it, but eventually, I think you will agree it was the right thing to do. It's going to happen, regardless.

baa baa wool wrote:

Imagine being daft enough to think these are clever questions.

Such is the nature of "debate" around here. Just lazily throw out a couple asinine rhetorical questions instead of actually articulating a stance and supporting/defending it.

CarbonFiberJoe wrote:

DeTron Lames wrote:

Continued tax cuts by the Bush and Trump administration have starved universities of federal money they used to get.

Fact check: false.

Feds cut taxes, states get less money from the feds. States cut taxes, states have less money. Fed money that might have been used at the state level drops. States plug those holes by taking money from education.

Problem is nobody really cares about student loan forgiveness. Like maybe 20% of the voting population truly makes it a top 3 issue.

Most people just say, why did you go in debt $100k for a medieval history degree? Everybody knows what the valuable skills are today...

This. One thing that has not changed from the time when I was a HS student to now a HS teacher is that kids always want to go to a school that is a) too expensive for them; b) too academically rigorous for them; or c) both. When I was looking at schools my parents flat-out told me I had a choice to either go to a state school or I could take the state school tuition and put it towards a private school I wanted to go to and then I could get a job or loans to pay the rest. Obviously I went to my state U.

Important lesson that kids simply don't believe, once you're out of college, no one give two sh!ts about where you went to school. That diploma from your private school is printed on the same paper that mine is. Now I make six figures and don't work summers. Go figure.

Let’s try a different slant through the self indulgent fog you are in.

Those that graduated high school and did not further their education who were working while you were in computer science are now obligated to pay your debts?

So, you have a degree in computer programming and can’t find a job that pays? Maybe, this is your fault? Have you ever taken responsibility for anything that you have decided in your life?

Just to double down on what I said prior, I give back to the real community that needs help. I am not going to give a dime to some privileged kid who has a warped sense of self in believing society duped him into seeking a higher education that casted him in a life of debt to make excuses for his own failures.

Swaglord_the_real_one_1 wrote:

Problem is nobody really cares about student loan forgiveness. Like maybe 20% of the voting population truly makes it a top 3 issue.

Most people just say, why did you go in debt $100k for a medieval history degree? Everybody knows what the valuable skills are today...

But that 20% will keep growing as more young people come through to voting age.

And I'm pretty sure medieval history is worth learning? Students and colleges usually push back on the idea they should be free conveyor belts for corporations looking for business grads.

solid thinking wrote:

baa baa wool wrote:

Imagine being daft enough to think these are clever questions.

Such is the nature of "debate" around here. Just lazily throw out a couple asinine rhetorical questions instead of actually articulating a stance and supporting/defending it.

Rhetorical questions are a perfectly valid form of argument. No one tried to answer them. I'll assume the answers are zero and zero.

DeTron Lames wrote:

CarbonFiberJoe wrote:

Fact check: false.

Feds cut taxes, states get less money from the feds. States cut taxes, states have less money. Fed money that might have been used at the state level drops. States plug those holes by taking money from education.

Neither the Bush tax cuts nor Paul Ryan tax cuts reduced federal spending for college. These are numbers that can be looked up.

ryan evans wrote:

I realize it is a tax. Happy to pay it, to be part of the solution. I realize you may not be happy to pay it, but eventually, I think you will agree it was the right thing to do. It's going to happen, regardless.

This is not the right thing to do because it will do far more harm than good. The best thing to do is probably to make the loans fall under other bankruptcy laws. We simply can not afford to continue this irresponsible fiscal policy. Our country is full of crap loans and bad debt. Why should middle-class white-collar debt be repaid but credit card debt held by blue-collar Americans without college degrees not be forgiven?

Once this happens there will be another group in line screaming for their government bailout. This will solve one problem by creating 3 others. All of this will end in the collapse of the dollar. Unfortunately, there have to be consequences for this irresponsible monetary policy our country has been apart of and people are going to suffer. We can continue down this bailout path and suffer continued economic decline or we can wise up and rip off the band-aid and allow a real economy to come back based on sound money. We've become too risk-averse to short term pain and unwilling to accept downturns but the only way we get out of this mess is let this bubble come down understanding its not going to be fair to all but at the end of the road we will have a strong economy that will benefit all.

If you worked and saved and paid for college as you went, screw you. You should have borrowed and let the government bail you out. It's the American way!

CarbonFiberJoe wrote:

solid thinking wrote:

Such is the nature of "debate" around here. Just lazily throw out a couple asinine rhetorical questions instead of actually articulating a stance and supporting/defending it.

Rhetorical questions are a perfectly valid form of argument. No one tried to answer them. I'll assume the answers are zero and zero.

No, they are the tactic of an intellectually weak child.

baa baa wool wrote:

Imagine being daft enough to think these are clever questions.

How much student loan debt did it take you to think of this retort?

the real truth wrote:

Bidens not going to be President and no one's paying off any student loans for you!

Delusion much?

This student loan stuff is all a distraction from the REAL oppression. For decades now, banks have been gouging hard-working, tax-paying, J. Christ-fearing American citizens with mortgage loans. Entire generations of Americans saddled with 15 years, many times even 30 YEARS of insurmountable debt, just so they can put a roof over their heads! Why should decent Americans be crushed with paying mortgage payments for years, just because they want to live inside, sheltered from nature's vicious elements?

It's time to put a stop to this - end this mortgage racket, demand the government forgive all mortgage debt, and let us get back to living mortgage-free as god intended. See Mark 11:15 ("On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, 16 and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. 17 And as he taught them, he said, “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’").