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That’s the problem with socialism, eventually you run out of “free” crap to give away. And in this case, the government has ran out of promises to erase student debt for America’s deadbeats.
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Originally Posted by ddeemo
No - getting treated for cancer is not really a choice if the option is or else you die.
Plenty of people choose to die instead of going through chemotherapy or other medical treatments. Sorry for the breaking news.
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The term usually refers to physician-assisted suicide (PAS), which is suicide that is assisted by a physician or another healthcare provider. Once it is determined that the person's situation qualifies under the physician-assisted suicide laws for that location, the physician's assistance is usually limited to writing a prescription for a lethal dose of drugs.
That’s the problem with socialism, eventually you run out of “free” crap to give away. And in this case, the government has ran out of promises to erase student debt for America’s deadbeats.
Plenty of people choose to die instead of going through chemotherapy or other medical treatments. Sorry for the breaking news.
Totally agree on the OPM (Other peoples money) - too many see that as someones elses problem to pay for which is why I would like to see everyone pay at least a tiny bit in taxes - have skin in the game. But most would not see treating cancer as a real choice because that is essentially giving up. There is no real choice other than treatment for most people - most that "choose to die" do so after attempting some level of treatment first. Why get a diagnosis if going to not do anything about it?
On the other hand, the choice of going to college or not is a real choice as is the choice to take out a loan for college. You are not giving up by being a skilled craftsman, a chef or running a small business - often these professions can make more than a marginal person with a college degree. Also taking a loan is a choice, some get scholarships, grants, join the military for benefits or work while in school - not the only choice is to take out a student loan even if choose to get a college degree.
Totally agree on the OPM (Other peoples money) - too many see that as someones elses problem to pay for which is why I would like to see everyone pay at least a tiny bit in taxes - have skin in the game. But most would not see treating cancer as a real choice because that is essentially giving up. There is no real choice other than treatment for most people - most that "choose to die" do so after attempting some level of treatment first. Why get a diagnosis if going to not do anything about it?
On the other hand, the choice of going to college or not is a real choice as is the choice to take out a loan for college. You are not giving up by being a skilled craftsman, a chef or running a small business - often these professions can make more than a marginal person with a college degree. Also taking a loan is a choice, some get scholarships, grants, join the military for benefits or work while in school - not the only choice is to take out a student loan even if choose to get a college degree.
Effort is generally not something the gimmie wants to invest.
The bringing in of the word/concept of "blame" is my reference to a very typical Republican strategy of "make life as hard as possible for people and get them to blame the Dems because the President is a Dem at the time" and it isn't just a thing related to this situation here, now, today, it is a much bigger strategy they've employed for a very long time. They get this whole reputation for being fiscally responsible when they (they meaning Republican elected leaders, not their conservative voters) only care about the budget when they are using it as a way to paint Democrats as irresponsible, and only when a Democrat is in office. It's an old trick. I was young enough to fall for it during Clinton's time...but I know better now.
And like I said, you CAN'T separate the matter of student loan relief from politics as it was a political move done by politicians, and you can't separate the economy from politics either, because political matters affect almost every inch of the economy. If I were going into foreign policy or culture war stuff in a way unrelated to economic matters or the subject of student loan relief, then I would agree that this is off topic.
And it's funny how it's not "political" when it's someone's drive-by snipe against the President. Only when someone does not agree. /shrug. But note that I did not say that THIS was why I like Biden and will vote for him again. I'm not here to argue all that...as that WOULD be political. I just note that I approve of him (despite this particular idea, not because of it) more than I expected to.
Only way this whole subject could have been completely divorced from the political though, is if it had been private banks that lent all the money and that were offering the relief. But it wasn't and they wouldn't, so... Here we are.
I like a lot of things that Biden has done, but explaining them WOULD be political and off topic. This particular thing? I honestly don't know what he was thinking. I can speculate, but I don't have an answer. I have said repeatedly that I think this idea was a dud. I don't think he expected it to be, but what do I know for what he was thinking. Maybe he did believe he could buy people's votes. Damned if I know. For all I know, it was some member of his campaign or some other politician who came up with the idea and he just gave it the thumb's up. I have no idea.
I don't think that it's a great soap box to climb up on, if one is going to be trying to make partisan points for the right, making bigly emphasis on the word, "ILLEGAL." But again, to avoid getting too political I'll tuck my "whatabouts" back in my pocket.
You really should cut out all the fluff - your posts are really too long and not to the point. But the main issue is that this is an economic forum - not about the politics - yet almost every word was about YOUR political view. It is very easy to seperate from politics because it should be a discussion about the economic impact, individually and the economy, not the politics. It is also not constitutional which you seem to want to ignore and was done to influence voters which is illegal - no matter which side does it.
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Originally Posted by Sonic_Spork
Who has an Ivy League Women's Studies Degree?
Not me.
But by all means, keep throwing darts, it's very amusing to hear what kind of person you think I am.
And the plumber would not be paying anyone's loans. There were no tax hikes associated with this. And the government's deficit is getting wrangled under control and would be even more so if they just enforce the existing tax codes on the wealthiest taxpayers.
Don't even try to tell me that the rich don't cheat on their taxes. As an accounting nerd (oops, I'm giving away the game, shucks now you know I did not go to college to learn about weaving the genders of ethnic baskets or something) I know damn well that a lot of effort is put into how to avoid paying taxes, by the even moderately wealthy.
I mean I've attended a series of webinars recently on how trusts can be used to stiff one's creditors and dodge taxes. This ain't about Joe the Plumber.
And I am ALL FOR the trades...but you need training to get into the trades, too. My son is close to finishing his program to become a carpenter. You know where he got that training? Job Corps. Which is a GOVERNMENT program, funded by our tax dollars. Why are you not furious about that? He has been fed, housed, and educated on your dime and mine for almost a year now.
I don't have an issue with the government getting involved in some capacity where it can be shown to be a "good of society" or a "need of society" thing. For instance if we have a profession...say, teaching...that requires a degree, and should require education beyond high school to do it properly...then either it needs to be appropriately compensated in ways that it presently is not, or else somehow incentivized to get that need met.... PSLF was a good idea in my opinion, certain kinds of people who are urgently needed by society and work for the public good should have their education comped by a grateful population, once they have proven their dedication to the field by sticking with the career for a time. That is not crazy, in my opinion. Like military getting college paid for does not bug me either.
This forgiveness was not a good idea, though. It was too broad. I am plenty critical of it. Even if I would have taken it if it had been offered, and slept just fine at night.
If I personally had been given a choice, either to have MY loans wiped, or select an option on the website to have my relief applied to the loans of someone who has lower income, more mouths to feed, medical issues, poverty...more of a real need for help than I have... Yeah, I would have given it over to someone who needed it more. But that's not how it worked.
I'd rather see more relief for fewer borrowers with narrower eligibility criteria....and/or programs to incentivize going to college for careers badly needed in society if we have a shortage...nurses, first responders, teachers...useful, practical things.
Again, not about you - the idea is why should the average Joe be paying for anyone else's legal debt, no matter what the degree is in. And it IS about Joe the plumber because that is who would be paying YOUR and others like your's debt. This is not about Job programs, those are a good thing, this about paying the debt of those who assumed the debt and now seemed to demand this "free money" - that is wrong way to think about this because this will have an adverse economic impact to many.
This is also about fairness, essentially treating those who got student loans as a privaliged class, those that did not go. those who paid everything off or those who worked are not given any relief. There are many more who deserve relief over this group, this relief seems to be focused on the wrong people that is more about their votes than actual needs. Again, your entire post really doesn't address the economics - the reality is that this would be inflationary and create more economic problems. Try sticking to the economics and take the political stuff to the proper forum.
Cancelling loans is just political noise. No loans have been cancelled or even reduced. In all likelihood, none will be.
The freeze on payments and interest has allowed a lot of consumer spending that is propping up the economy, but that hiatus will eventually end. Whomever ends it will lose their political career. Yet there is no money to sustain it.
Cancelling loans is just political noise. No loans have been cancelled or even reduced. In all likelihood, none will be.
The freeze on payments and interest has allowed a lot of consumer spending that is propping up the economy, but that hiatus will eventually end. Whomever ends it will lose their political career. Yet there is no money to sustain it.
The hiatus is ending this summer, part of the debt deal was it couldn’t be extended.
I still do not see how it's average Joe paying anybody's bills. Joe's taxes are not going up. The government is not saying, "since we aren't getting the repayments that we counted on, that were included in the budget, from people repaying their loans...that money has to come from somewhere, so we will increase Joe's taxes." I believe that the expectation is, that the Dept of Ed, is meant to -write off- these loan balances.
It's not the government sending out checks to borrowers to pay off their loans with. There is no "where is the money coming from." It's not coming from anywhere. It's being written off.
So how did Biden figure that the government could do this without driving up the deficit or the debt? Only plan I ever heard was that they wanted to find ways to first enforce existing tax law, to collect taxes that cheats have been getting away with not paying, that they actually owe. After that, he did want to increase taxes on people who make more than $400K/year.
Furthermore about other people paying it for folks like me? I pay more in federal income taxes in under 3 years than the balance of my loans that would have been eliminated.
And while I hate to get all "what about"... But how can ya not?... When it comes to what MY tax dollars get used for, have been used for? That no one asked my consent or opinion on?
So they can take my tax dollars, and Joe Plumber's tax dollars, and everybody else's tax dollars, and hand them out by the millions or more to companies and rich people and ya'll don't blink.
But give relief to Americans who make under $150K a year who have student loans? Oh and how do you know that's not Joe plumber by the way? College is not just for elites. They teach trades at some of the community colleges and he might have loans for his kids' college, too.
Ya'll keep painting college as just frivolous nonsense, that real hard working Americans don't do. But most people who go to college are trying to get themselves qualified to do a job.
I worked the whole time I was in college, too, I don't know what you're talking about. And yet I still needed loans, yes, because I was also trying to feed two small children on top of full time work and part time college, and my job did not pay enough to cover supporting my family AND paying for my education.
Thing is politics does keep getting dragged back in because that's the part you're mad about, that I am not all hateful towards Democrats or Biden about this. And because so many American conservatives support their political leanings by saying it's about economic principle, even though that's about as solid as a liberal claiming that they truly believe that elected Democratic politicians deeply care in their hearts about the rights of minorities. I mean...if you have not yet figured out that politicians lie to get votes, I have a bridge to sell you. The right is not more "fiscally responsible" than the left is truly "compassionate" at the end of the day. It's all just a means to make themselves look good and the other team look bad.
And if you are dead certain that I'm out of line when I mention it (but those who are critical of this Administration are somehow not "being political") then go ahead and report my posts. But don't be surprised, if my posts get removed or chopped, when I come back and report those other ones.
Anyways.
I'll worry about the "illegal attempt to buy votes" when they do something about corporations, wealthy donors and special interests being able to buy whole-azz elected leaders.
But I disagree with Coldjensens though, about anyone's career being over for anything to do with this. Republican voters are going to say that it was a stupid or illegal idea and they're glad it got stopped. Those who may have hoped for the loan relief because of their own personal situations, may be mad at Biden for dangling it. Democratic voters will be, if anything, upset with the Republicans for killing it. But the point is that I don't see anyone being shifted left or right by this.
And I suspect that plenty of people who were doing OK paying their loans previously, like me, will go right on when the pause ends and be fine and shrug about it. And those who were NOT OK...well, they weren't OK before and they are still not OK now, and I doubt if they're all that much worse off. Maybe, if they are lucky and/or smart, they were able to use the break to get ahead a little.
What I think, "economically", will happen after the pause ends...I think that some borrowers will go into default, some will make payments but fall behind on the balances of other debt accounts (like credit cards) and possibly start getting hit with high interest charges (I will watch my stocks in these companies!) Some will resume their payments with no real pain or problems, like me. My approx $15K in remaining loans, the monthly payment is about $100. In my budget that's pocket change. Hell, I just quit smoking, so I'll save that much right there.
Why do people keep comparing the student loan forgiveness with the PPP loan forgiveness? Completely separate programs put in place for separate reasons.
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