***Official Political Discussion Thread***

[rexanglorum]

^ I don’t think he meant you can *only* incur that much debt from an Ivy League school. He just used it as an example b/c it sounds kinda wild to the average person that someone from those schools would need help (we’ve been conditioned to think everyone comes out of there rich as hell).

But yeah, he indeed does need to rethink things. 10k is cool and all but that’s a drop in the bucket for most.

I know what he was trying to express and sure, Harvard is good as shorthand for a bunch of very pricey, very prestigious but less famous liberal arts colleges and private non Ivies. But he really seems to think that state school cannot cost 50k over four years of undergrad. That’s the rub.

And of course, he’s also glossing over the fact that truly wealthy, tend to just pay for their kids’ elite education out of pocket.

 

[mr s j king]

Not sure how much yall understand about whats happening in Texas but here's some info
My power has been rolling off and on since 2am Monday morning, with the longest period being 12hrs from 3:30am-3:30pm Monday

A friend of mine lives less than a mile from me and he's only been without power for about 6hrs max since early Monday

My wife's friend has never lost power and she's about maybe 10 miles from us

I have another friend that lives about 6 miles from me and he's never lost power

There's other people I know that live about 15-20 miles from us and they've been without power for 24+ hrs

The Dallas skyline has been on every night and all of downtown lit up until tonight because so many people complained

The Dallas Stars hockey team was going to play a pro hockey game Monday night until people complained, and the mayor stepped in and told them to cancel an hour before the game was supposed to start

So think about that for a second. The powers that be were going to let a pro hockey team use scarce electricity resources to play a hockey game, but the citizens would be at home without electricity and no heat in 10 degree weather

These aren't rolling blackouts. They are selecting who gets power.

These devils have been pocketing the money to upgrade our energy sourcees, and the asswipes got caught red handed by mother nature

 

[rexanglorum]

Biden's position is that...

-He feels he can cancel up to 10K by EO
-Anything higher he wants Congress to pass it. Which they can do it through reconciliation, it just that it will cost like a trillion dollars
-Everyone gets free community college
-Every family making 125K below gets free tuition at public school

Biden is not where I want him to be on student debt. But I am not gonna act like he is some enemy to people with it.

As always, better than what we have now but if you graduated in like 2015, your parents made less than 125k, you went to community college, then finished at a state school, there’s a good chance that you still have student debt maybe 10’s of thousands. Basically, you did the things that Biden would consider makes you worthy of a post college life free of debt. But because you were born in the wrong year, you have to be burdened by debt for years and years and your prospects in life are considerably diminished. In the aggregate, Biden is not the enemy but he’s the enemy to that person who is burdened with a diminished life all to satisfy these baseless elite fear of deficits.

I try to always keep in mind that while expanding the social safety net, even modestly in the aggregate, can be life changing for certain people. Eg. Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion was life changing for those who became eligible. Every Republican Governor who blocked it, may not have ruined everyone’s life but they did ruin the lives of people at the margin in that State.

So with Biden and education debt relief, him forgoing what he has the resources and legal authority to do may not be a categorical attack on all students but it’s a vicious foreclosing on thousands and thousands of people’s lives and futures.

 

[Nike Jordan]

 

[RustyShackleford]

^ I don’t think he meant you can *only* incur that much debt from an Ivy League school. He just used it as an example b/c it sounds kinda wild to the average person that someone from those schools would need help (we’ve been conditioned to think everyone comes out of there rich as hell).

But yeah, he indeed does need to rethink things. 10k is cool and all but that’s a drop in the bucket for most.

I think the point he was trying to make is that if he goes as high as 50K, that a lot of the benefit will go to affluent people. And he talks about the optics of doing that

The most progressive forgiveness plan is that you forgive a high dollar amount but cut off the benefit for affluent people. But that is bad politics because there will be a backlash

So we stuck with progressives pushing for an EO to hide the cost and not mentioning that a disproportionate chunk does to high earners. They think that is better politics

Biden thinks that doing a lower number is better politics.

I think I had to pick the two I think 50K is better, but I think Biden had a point about how much of the benefit will go to high earners.

 

[rexanglorum]

It’s still bad policy because high earners usually are not super wealthy. The super wealthy collect returns, they either don’t work or income from their job is a small part of their income. The average Joe (no pun intended) is trained to think that a rich person is a well paid worker but people in president Joe’s policy team ought to know better since they likely spend a lot of time with the truly wealthy.

It’s also bad politics because it stabs crucial parts of your coalition in the back. Black women tend to have more debt than black men or white women. Moreover, those coveted suburbanites who also helped put Democrats over the top are the people who earn 80k-200k a year but they likely have a ton of education debt from law school or their MBA program. Increasingly, if you did go to graduate school, you won’t be a suburban homeowner and it’s educated, sort of upwardly mobile homeowners who are under 50 who made the suburbs flip not their less educated old, conservative boomer neighbors who bought in ‘77 for 7k and have voted straight ticket GOP ever since.

We’ll see how reconciliation and EOs play out o et the next year or two but thus far, the senior most Democrats in DC really look like they did not want a trifecta and expectations that rank and file voters justifiably have as a result.

 

[RustyShackleford]

As always, better than what we have now but if you graduated in like 2015, your parents made less than 125k, you went to community college, then finished at a state school, there’s a good chance that you still have student debt maybe 10’s of thousands. Basically, you did the things that Biden would consider makes you worthy of a post college life free of debt. But because you were born in the wrong year, you have to be burdened by debt for years and years and your prospects in life are considerably diminished. In the aggregate, Biden is not the enemy but he’s the enemy to that person who is burdened with a diminished life all to satisfy these baseless elite fear of deficits.

I try to always keep in mind that while expanding the social safety net, even modestly in the aggregate, can be life changing for certain people. Eg. Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion was life changing for those who became eligible. Every Republican Governor who blocked it, may not have ruined everyone’s life but they did ruin the lives of people at the margin in that State.

So with Biden and education debt relief, him forgoing what he has the resources and legal authority to do may not be a categorical attack on all students but it’s a vicious foreclosing on thousands and thousands of people’s lives and futures.

Not buying this comparison

Please tell me what alternatives did all those GOP governors do to help the healthcare situation of the poor people they denied Medicaid? Because I missed them

Joe Biden also wants to allow people to refinance their loan at a lower interest rate, he wants to cut the payment for income-based plans in half, he wants to make right off the balance after twenty years tax-free, people making under 25K pay nothing, he wants to greatly expand pell grants, wants to expand ways public employee or service can discharge part of the loans,

Like I said, Biden is not where I want to be on student loans, not that close, but I am not gonna get carried away with a false equivalency. I have lived much of my life on those margins, Biden is not acting in the same manner as those Republican governors.

And if we are talking about people on the margin, Warren and Schumer's proposal also excludes some people struggling.

Joe Biden on student loans is the equivalent to cruel petty *******s that wanted to screw over poor people just to stick it to the black guy in the White House.

 

[Nike Jordan]

 

[RustyShackleford]

It’s still bad policy because high earners usually are not super wealthy. The super wealthy collect returns, they either don’t work or income from their job is a small part of their income. The average Joe (no pun intended) is trained to think that a rich person is a well paid worker but people in president Joe’s policy team ought to know better since they likely spend a lot of time with the truly wealthy.

It’s also bad politics because it stabs crucial parts of your coalition in the back. Black women tend to have more debt than black men or white women. Moreover, those coveted suburbanites who also helped put Democrats over the top are the people who earn 80k-200k a year but they likely have a ton of education debt from law school or their MBA program. Increasingly, if you did go to graduate school, you won’t be a suburban homeowner and it’s educated, sort of upwardly mobile homeowners who are under 50 who made the suburbs flip not their less educated old, conservative boomer neighbors who bought in ‘77 for 7k and have voted straight ticket GOP ever since.

We’ll see how reconciliation and EOs play out o et the next year or two but thus far, the senior most Democrats in DC really look like they did not want a trifecta and expectations that rank and file voters justifiably have as a result.

This is where you want to split hairs? That high earners are but multi-millionaires. The benefit will still go to them, and the politics of that will play out. I have no major hang-up about them getting it too, but let us be honest, 50K in forgiveness will mean more to the lower and middle-income person than the high earner. Yet they will take a disproportionate chunk of the benefit.

Like I said, America for a lot of reasons doesn't want to do the truly progressive thing on student loans. Forgive lower-income and middle-income people, and help high earners through favorable re-financing options. I hate this use of black women as a shield because people that use it think it comes off as "yeah black women have more debt" so we have to have the higher amount to help them. When in reality we know white men earn way more than black women so it is actually "for black women to get the full benefit, white guys gotta get it too". The truly progressive thing, both on class and race is off the table.

I prefer the 50K over the 10K, because it does more good for people who need it and it all things considered better politics. But if we are caring about the politics of financial prospects of high-income suburbanites then I look forward to what you have to say when the Dems look out for these people then it comes to SALT.

And I am not buying the senior-most Democrats don't want the trifecta. Chuck Schumer proposed this. The Dems will lose their trifecta because the system is rigged against them. So we are talking about have trifectas, the HR.1 and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act will do the most to maintaining them. Not 50K student loan forgiveness. But that is ignored because the senior Democrat leadership is unified in their desire to pass it.

 

[rexanglorum]

Not buying this comparison

Please tell me what alternatives did all those GOP governors do to help the healthcare situation of the poor people they denied Medicaid? Because I missed them

Joe Biden also wants to allow people to refinance their loan at a lower interest rate, he wants to cut the payment for income-based plans in half, he wants to make right off the balance after twenty years tax-free, people making under 25K pay nothing, he wants to greatly expand pell grants, wants to expand ways public employee or service can discharge part of the loans,

Like I said, Biden is not where I want to be on student loans, not that close, but I am not gonna get carried away with a false equivalency. I have lived much of my life on those margins, Biden is not acting in the same manner as those Republican governors.

And if we are talking about people on the margin, Warren and Schumer's proposal also excludes some people struggling.

Joe Biden on student loans is the equivalent to cruel petty *******s that wanted to screw over poor people just to stick it to the black guy in the White House.

I’m not comparing all of Biden’s policies to a generic Republic Governor from the 2010’s. However, when you consign thousands of your residences to a lifetime of medical debt even when the feds offered to pay for most of it, there’s a major parallel to Biden’s choice to unilaterally refuse to, at no real financial cost, remove thousands of people from a lifetime of debt peonage. At that point, the only real difference between Biden and the Republican governors, who refused Medicaid. The former probably is making the unilateral choice to leave people behind out of genuine concern over the deficit. The latter are obviously full of **** and never cared about deficits when they unilaterally left thousands behind.

More broadly I mentioned Obamacare to defend your defense of it. You’re right to rebuke those who would reject a good program in favor of nothing because said good program doesn’t solve every problem. Those lives at the margin, now helped tremendously by a good program, are real and ought to be celebrated. At the same time, anyone, who could have unilaterally done an even better program and could have changed more lives but opted not to, for whatever reason, should be harshly criticized for leaving people when the financial and political capital was right in that person’s hands.

This situation with federal student debt is unique and it’s hard to defend any self restraint on Biden’s part. Now with other things that are less popular, more costly and have to go through Congress, then the moral calculation changes. But for an EO wiping out student debt , get ride of it, all of it. The worst case scenario is a Republican president comes along and tries to enforce all of that federal student loan debt. It would be bad materially but no worse than now AND Biden will have made it clear to generation which party wants them in debt and which does not. As it stands, Biden is telling voters, for whom student debt is their primary issue, that both parties are pretty much the same on this specific issue.

 

[rexanglorum]

This is where you want to split hairs? That high earners are but multi-millionaires. The benefit will still go to them, and the politics of that will play out. I have no major hang-up about them getting it too, but let us be honest, 50K in forgiveness will mean more to the lower and middle-income person than the high earner. Yet they will take a disproportionate chunk of the benefit.

Like I said, America for a lot of reasons doesn't want to do the truly progressive thing on student loans. Forgive lower-income and middle-income people, and help high earners through favorable re-financing options. I hate this use of black women as a shield because people that use it think it comes off as "yeah black women have more debt" so we have to have the higher amount to help them. When in reality we know white men earn way more than black women so it is actually "for black women to get the full benefit, white guys gotta get it too".

I prefer the 50K over the 10K, because it does more good for people who need it and it all things considered better politics. But if we are caring about the politics of financial prospects of high-income suburbanites then I look forward to what you have to say when the Dems lookout for these people then it comes to SALT.

And I am not buying the senior-most Democrats don't want the trifecta. Chuck Schumer proposed this. The Dems will lose their trifecta because the system is rigged against them. So we are talking about have trifectas, the HR.1 and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act will do the most to maintaining them. Not student loan forgiveness. But that is ignore because the senior Democrat leadership is unified in their desire to pass it.

Then tax really high earners more. Create a new bracket for 300k and 400k earners.

The ones splitting hairs are the ones so into means testing. Give stuff to everyone and tax the truly privileged a lot more.

Edit: student debt forgiveness is not the only move to solidify governing coalitions forward but it would help on balance. There’s nothing wrong with improving ballot access as well as quickly, simply and materially improving the lives of the voting blocs that supported your campaigns

 

[RustyShackleford]

Then tax really high earners more. Create a new bracket for 300k and 400k earners.

The ones splitting hairs are the ones so into means testing. Give stuff to everyone and tax the truly privileged a lot more.

Oh, so one hand we should consider the political fall out of excluding high earners. But we should just tax them more like there won't be political fallout from that. Oh, ok.

Please tell me who the **** is so into means-testing. Because I missed it

 

[rexanglorum]

Oh, so one hand we should consider the political fall out of excluding high earners. But we should just tax them more like there won't be political fallout from that. Oh, ok.

Please tell me who the **** is so into means-testing. Because I missed it

I’m not saying that you love means testing.

The people around Biden and the policy consensus of both parties is to means test programs. The Republicans and conservative Democrats do it as a means of turning the middle/upper middle class against the lower middle class and poor people in order to defund, destabilize and then later either eliminate or privatize the program.

As far as raising taxes go, then don’t if it’s a major issue politically at the moment. Print the money and liberate households from the burden of education debt in exchange a very small amount of additional inflation.

 

[mplsdunk]

I don’t see what’s the problem with giving the kids of high earners student debt forgiveness. Who says their parents are even paying for their school?

at the end of the day it’s student loan forgiveness for the people. I think that’s kind of petty considering most people aren’t making 300k anyways.

 

[RustyShackleford]

I’m not comparing all of Biden’s policies to a generic Republic Governor from the 2010’s. However, when you consign thousands of your residences to a lifetime of medical debt even when the feds offered to pay for most of it, there’s a major parallel to Biden’s choice to unilaterally refuse to, at no real financial cost, remove thousands of people from a lifetime of debt peonage. At that point, the only real difference between Biden and the Republican governors, who refused Medicaid. The former probably is making the unilateral choice to leave people behind out of genuine concern over the deficit. The latter are obviously full of **** and never cared about deficits when they unilaterally left thousands behind.

More broadly I mentioned Obamacare to defend your defense of it. You’re right to rebuke those who would reject a good program in favor of nothing because said good program doesn’t solve every problem. Those lives at the margin, now helped tremendously by a good program, are real and ought to be celebrated. At the same time, anyone, who could have unilaterally done an even better program and could have changed more lives but opted not to, for whatever reason, should be harshly criticized for leaving people when the financial and political capital was right in that person’s hands.

This situation with federal student debt is unique and it’s hard to defend any self restraint on Biden’s part. Now with other things that are less popular, more costly and have to go through Congress, then the moral calculation changes. But for an EO wiping out student debt , get ride of it, all of it. The worst case scenario is a Republican president comes along and tries to enforce all of that federal student loan debt. It would be bad materially but no worse than now AND Biden will have made it clear to generation which party wants them in debt and which does not. As it stands, Biden is telling voters, for whom student debt is their primary issue, that both parties are pretty much the same on this specific issue.

-Joe Biden wants at most people to 5% of the discretionary income for 20 years at most.
-Biden said that if it passed Congress he would sign a bill to cancel above 10K
-Biden wants to provide tons of ways for payers to get help. None of which the GOP comes close to.

So I repeat my question. Please tell me what did those Republican governors did to help the situation of all those people they who denied Medicaid?

I really don't see Biden as a deficit hawk on this.

Because this just seems like some both sidesism that handwaves a ton of ****.

 

[RustyShackleford]

I don’t see what’s the problem with giving the kids of high earners student debt forgiveness. Who says their parents are even paying for their school?

at the end of the day it’s student loan forgiveness for the people. I think that’s kind of petty considering most people aren’t making 300k anyways.

What are you talking about?

 

[mplsdunk]

What are you talking about?

no idea, I read what you guys are talking about wrong.

I didn’t realize it was tax high earners to pay for it.

I read it as it doesn’t apply to them.

k bye

 

[RustyShackleford]

I’m not saying that you love means testing.

The people around Biden and the policy consensus of both parties is to means test programs. The Republicans and conservative Democrats do it as a means of turning the middle/upper middle class against the lower middle class and poor people in order to defund, destabilize and then later either eliminate or privatize the program.

As far as raising taxes go, then don’t if it’s a major issue politically at the moment. Print the money and liberate households from the burden of education debt in exchange a very small amount of additional inflation.

What people around Biden? What conservatives Democratic coalition even exist anymore?

Biden hired mainly a bunch of progressives that are running around saying don't worry about the deficits we need to pass large bills to help people.

Like I said, Biden should do 50K over 10K. But you are reaching with all this extra stuff you are trying put on him

 

[dwalk31]

Biden: I Will Not Forgive $50,000 Of Student Loans

Biden: I Will Not Cancel $50,000 Of Student Loans

President Joe Biden says he won’t forgive $50,000 of student loans.

www.forbes.com

 

[TooOlfForThisIsh]

This is where you want to split hairs? That high earners are but multi-millionaires. The benefit will still go to them, and the politics of that will play out. I have no major hang-up about them getting it too, but let us be honest, 50K in forgiveness will mean more to the lower and middle-income person than the high earner. Yet they will take a disproportionate chunk of the benefit.

How are you defining high earner?

My intuition is that the upper middle class would be the primary beneficiaries of blanket forgiveness, but I haven’t seen any data. In my mind that upper middle class is a young professional whose paying off their own debt. So while they may be on the path to wealth, they likely haven’t accumulated much yet. I don’t think this is particularly meaningful to even the “mass affluent” who likely didn’t qualify for government guaranteed debt to begin with - much less to ultra high net worth. But again, I haven’t seen great data.

I think people are more sympathetic to a 25 year old law associate living with two roommates in Murray Hill with $200k in debt than to her parents in Orange County. if the politics are tough it’s partially because, as usual, the democrats haven’t been awesome on the messaging.

-Anything higher he wants Congress to pass it. Which they can do it through reconciliation, it just that it will cost like a trillion dollars

I wonder how much comes back given this is essentially a massive Keynesian stimulus package. I suspect a lot of that trillion gets spent or applied to starter homes.

 

[had pants]

 

[had pants]

 

[had pants]

 

[Cashflow]

 

[Methodical Management]

Old news. Trump Plaza stopped supporting itself minutes ago.

But, for anyone curious, here's the video:

Former Trump casino on Atlantic City Boardwalk imploded

The former president's former Atlantic City casino operated for 30 years before being closed in 2014.

www.khou.com

I'll give it this: it held up better than its namesake.