|
Trevorrrrrrrrrrrrr posted:
My student loans were small because I used GI bill benefits to pay for school and what little loans I had were easy to pay off, so I would get nothing from student loan forgiveness but yes I would be happy if other people get theirs forgiven because I believe education should be free for all and that forcing people to go into debt to take it is morally wrong. I also feel cheated when rich assholes get bailouts, not because somebody is getting something and I'm not, but because I think bailouts and tax cuts for the rich are not sound economic policy and are immoral besides. So it seems that it's possible to hold both these opinions at once, almost like universal education is a completely different policy than bailouts and tax breaks for billionaires
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2022 16:28
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 25, 2024 06:29 |
|
|
If there are people who just get mad when someone gets something they don't regardless of what or why, I think the better course would be make arguments to persuade people on policy grounds rather than refusing to ever do anything to help anyone because someone who already suffered might feel spiteful about it. Was it bad to invent a covid vaccine because it's unfair that people who caught covid before the vaccine came out didn't benefit as much?
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2022 16:32
|
|
|
Primary is in two weeks. Fetterman is still running away with the Dem nomination. Trump's endorsement doesn't seem to have helped Dr. Oz at all and most Republicans still have no opinion or idea on who they would vote for. Dems also say they are just as motivated as Republicans to vote in the midterms, but those questions are always bunk. You consistently get 70+% of people saying they plan on voting in polls and then midterm turnout is always around 30%. https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/1519337836629135360
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2022 16:35
|
|
|
AsInHowe posted:When I used to visit my grandpa, he had a friendly cat that was generally outside, because my aunt hated the cat being inside. As soon as that aunt left, Grandpa brought the cat in, and everyone was really happy and had a great time. I don't think Kamala Harris is holding Joe Biden back from truly progressive policies because she is the Vice President, and seems to be being kept away from any tangible responsibility. Nonetheless, your analogy is a good reminder that people should keep their cats indoors, for their safety and your continued happiness.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2022 16:39
|
|
|
Professor Beetus posted:I don't think Kamala Harris is holding Joe Biden back from truly progressive policies because she is the Vice President, and seems to be being kept away from any tangible responsibility. Nonetheless, your analogy is a good reminder that people should keep their cats indoors, for their safety and your continued happiness. the cat loved walking on the couch, and flopping between Grandpa and the armrest, it was a wonderful thing to see, everyone loved it the cat also loved watching baseball
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2022 16:41
|
|
|
LorneReams posted:Does polling bear this out? I hear a lot of pushback from local polling and through conversations with people that unless they have loans, they are meh on average with a small but vocal population bitching about fairness. I would love to be wrong about this as my family is deep in the student debt hole, but I always feel unless everyone gets something, it never goes anywhere. This is at least why the unilateral 10k wipe seems so attractive to me, I’m looking for something, anything. (Fever dream, like I said.)
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2022 16:41
|
|
|
Trevorrrrrrrrrrrrr posted:Your last two paragraphs are directly contradicting each other. No negative consequences of forgiving loans but *just pausing* loan payments created a bubble and a cause of inflation? I'm going to assume you didn't read what I said very carefully and are not arguing in bad faith... Not paying for two years causes a bubble because once you restart payments, you suddenly create a new economic burden on college-educated people under 40. My payments, for instance, would be $350/mo under the absolute lowest-payment IBR plan (which I'm only willing to do because I'm on the PSLF track). This would preclude me from doing things like paying for my daughter's childcare. No, it is not a cause of inflation, what I said is that this would be an expense in addition to inflation, as monthly costs for food for my family, among other things, have gone up significantly. Forgiving loans doesn't "pop" this bubble. It makes it go away. quote:To them it isn't a good thing to do. To put it in a different perspective for you, are you happy when the wealthy get tax cuts? Do you feel good when corporations and the rich get big government payouts because its helping somebody and doing something good for them? Or do you feel maybe a little cheated and think that its unfair? The way that our government is structured, tax cuts have to be paid for with spending decreases or other revenue sources. That is not true for Federal Student Aid. I am not of the opinion that we should increase taxes on the rich to "punish" them for being rich or that I "feel cheated" when they get tax cuts. When the rich get tax cuts, it's at the direct expense of government programs that benefit people. Xombie fucked around with this message at 16:47 on Apr 27, 2022 |
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2022 16:41
|
|
|
AsInHowe posted:When I used to visit my grandpa, he had a friendly cat that was generally outside, because my aunt hated the cat being inside. As soon as that aunt left, Grandpa brought the cat in, and everyone was really happy and had a great time. If you look at anything Joe's ever said or done during his career, you could make an argument that they're both the aunt. And the DNC had the cat put down years ago.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2022 16:42
|
|
|
Bishyaler posted:If you look at anything Joe's ever said or done during his career, you could make an argument that they're both the aunt. And the DNC had the cat put down years ago. Is the DNC one of the cloned lesbian aunts in this scenario or some third party who euthanized their cat without them noticing?
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2022 16:44
|
|
|
Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:Is the DNC one of the cloned lesbian aunts in this scenario or some third party who euthanized their cat without them noticing? HOA representative that called animal control because cats running around the neighborhood lowered property values.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2022 16:46
|
|
|
Hell, let's get really unscientific with our polling. Let's use a really bad sample. Is there anyone here that would be made substantially more likely to vote for a Democratic Rep or Senator (or Biden in '24) if they forgave some loans? How much would it take? LALD made it clear it wouldn't change how he votes, wondering if other people feel differently. Remember, if you were already going to vote for Democrats no matter what, because you just hate Republicans that much (raises hand), then forgiveness can't make your vote more likely than 100%.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2022 16:48
|
|
|
It's about credibility and its probably not going to move anyone here an inch, but the general public might see Biden fulfilling a promise and be more inclined to believe him about other promises. If he doesn't do it he becomes less credible and that's not something he can afford.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2022 16:52
|
|
|
Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:
Like exactly how dumb are we assuming people are here, is mobilization and excitement just going to continue forever no matter how many times politicians say "you know what, no" as the problem gets worse? Especially with people saying the quiet part out loud that we're just dangling that carrot and have no intention of ever letting the donkey reach it or else it will stop working for us? This particular point even if true seems self-limiting. Yeah excitement might fall off if the problem gets fixed, but if the problem never gets fixed excitement is definitely going to fall off eventually anyway as people figure out the game so eh VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 16:55 on Apr 27, 2022 |
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2022 16:53
|
|
|
Mellow Seas posted:Is there anyone here that would be made substantially more likely to vote for a Democratic Rep or Senator (or Biden in '24) if they forgave some loans? How much would it take? Biden has to forgive a minimum of 10K of my student loans in order to get my vote in 2024, which is the base of his campaign promise. He'd have to do half for me to be at all enthused about it. If he wipes it all out, allowing me to move on from my public service job 3 years early, I'll campaign for him. But I'm also of the opinion that restarting student debt repayment without forgiveness will contribute to an economic recession, so it won't matter anyway because he'd get run out anyway in that case.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2022 16:53
|
|
|
I wonder if the response would be any better if they just retroactively wiped away the interest and set the rate to 0% moving forward. Seems “fairer” in my mind, in that people still need to pay for what they took out, but aren’t going to be infinitely burdened with an ever growing balance they can never hope to pay back
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2022 16:54
|
|
|
Mellow Seas posted:Hell, let's get really unscientific with our polling. Let's use a really bad sample. i won't vote in the midterms or the 2024 elections if student loan forgiveness or healthcare reform does not happen because why the gently caress would i lift a single fuckin finger to help people who won't do the same for me if they only forgive 10k that is also not enough because i have 60k in loans and make 17 an hour, 10k is effectively meaningless to me
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2022 16:56
|
|
|
As someone who by fortune of fate and a childhood of being raised poor and having drummed into me from birth that debt=bad and so was able to leverage a dot.com job into paying off my student loans a few years after I graduated, and whose husband had his college paid for his parents who scrimped and saved to do so, forgive it all, idk. College should be free anyway, drat the 99c ramen market.GlobalMegaCorp posted:I wonder if the response would be any better if they just retroactively wiped away the interest and set the rate to 0% moving forward. Seems “fairer” in my mind, in that people still need to pay for what they took out, but aren’t going to be infinitely burdened with an ever growing balance they can never hope to pay back
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2022 16:56
|
|
|
Nobody really knows the electoral impact of the student loan forgiveness plan (or even what amount and how the forgiveness would be structured under whatever Biden's plan is, or if it survives a court challenge, or if Biden reverses himself and decides to back out of it, or a lot of other variables), but there is a lot of data that says that people don't switch parties or get politically mobilized because someone else gets something and it didn't cost them anything. There is also evidence that people (specifically white people from the 40's through right this second) do get mobilized when they feel someone undeserving is getting something; even if it doesn't cost them directly. So, the most likely scenario is that is wouldn't change a lot electorally. It's not going to activate or energize voters as part of a backlash, it probably won't energize a massive amount of the beneficiaries who would have otherwise not voted, and it probably won't activate some new class of voters. It will definitely annoy a group of people and may have some minor impact, but it would most likely fall into the category of "Democrats always giving our tax dollars to undeserving and raising taxes to pay for it" mindset and reinforce some people's pre-existing beliefs rather than creating them whole cloth over this issue. Same thing for the opposite end of the coin. VitalSigns posted:This seems like it would cut both ways. Yes there are examples of political mobilization around an issue collapsing after it's achieved (of course there are also examples of political mobilization being energized with success and going on to feed that mobilization into other goals), but there are also examples of mobilization and support collapsing when the leaders betray the movement and refuse to carry out their promises once in power. I agree with you. I'm just pointing out that there is evidence both ways of the electoral impact and anyone saying it will be a gamechanger (in either a positive or negative way) is just guessing. There's evidence for both sides of the argument. Leon Trotsky 2012 fucked around with this message at 16:59 on Apr 27, 2022 |
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2022 16:57
|
|
|
GlobalMegaCorp posted:I wonder if the response would be any better if they just retroactively wiped away the interest and set the rate to 0% moving forward. Seems “fairer” in my mind, in that people still need to pay for what they took out, but aren’t going to be infinitely burdened with an ever growing balance they can never hope to pay back There's ultimately no difference between this and blanket forgiveness. Grinding the cost down to the principal and giving no incentive to ever pay it back. All you'd have to do is explain to people why it's still good enough instead of having the easy messaging win of "forgiveness".
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2022 16:59
|
|
|
Mellow Seas posted:Hell, let's get really unscientific with our polling. Let's use a really bad sample. If Democrats did leftist things that would improve material conditions like we've been screaming at them to do, yes, more people would likely vote for them. Especially people under 40 who have been financially turbofucked since they entered the job market and think owning a house is a dream that died with Gen X.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2022 16:59
|
|
|
Mellow Seas posted:Hell, let's get really unscientific with our polling. Let's use a really bad sample. If you're asking if you're going to find anyone that didn't vote for him the first time around if they've softened or would soften based on student loan debt forgiveness your result set is going to be, literally, just single-issue voters - and I could be entirely wrong here, but I don't think that's a very representative portion of Biden's nonvoters here on SA. Hell, if it were within his power to wipe out all individual personal debt with a pen stroke and the $14k we've managed to get our down to disappeared overnight, I still wouldn't vote for him because whether or not I'm carrying around that financial cross, Joe Biden is still the Joe Biden responsible for the '84 crime bill, and still the Joe Biden that's responsible for debtors not being able to discharge student loans through bankruptcy, and still the Joe Biden that proudly tells racist stories about confronting a black guy at the community pool with a length of chain, and still the Joe Biden that has - if not daming, then troublesome personal space issues with (especially younger) women, the same Joe Biden who made a man the victim of suicide because he was framed as the killer of a Senator's family. If there's to be any change from the terminally online left or whatever the pejorative of the day is in how they feel about, and whether they'd consider changing a vote, Biden would have to have a major "come to Jesus" moment about his past legislative and personal history and then take action on it - on all of it - his window of opportunity to do anything started half closed, and he's got I figure until 3/4/2023 to have his moment and make his moves, because The Democrats are Going To Be Ethered in 2022. And I know you already heard from me, but I wanted to be a little more thorough and a lot less flippant about it.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2022 16:59
|
|
|
People will always be spiteful about policies they perceive are helping others but not themselves. Last year when the child care package was on the table for BBB but student loans weren't, there were no shortage of people with loans but no kids who were dismissive of how it would really help either Americans themselves or Democratic midterm chances. And since that failed we've seen how letting the child tax credit lapse led right to dropping polls in the groups that would have been helped. I'm sure there's plenty of people with plenty of debt that isn't college related that will be mad at forgiveness too. Shouldn't be allowed to change good policy, especially when it's likely to mean a lot more for those helped than for those left behind. If Dems are going to worry about something, it's how they campaign on tying their policies to people who were helped. That's a big past failing, like the people I know who would have ended up bankrupt or dead without some of the Obamacare protections but absolutely never connected the dots and are still sure that things were so much better before.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2022 16:59
|
|
|
Oracle posted:
Yeah that’s kind of how I imagine it working. You took an 80k loan but already paid back 85k in interest, you’re done and get a tax write off for the year on the overage
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2022 17:00
|
|
|
Mellow Seas posted:Hell, let's get really unscientific with our polling. Let's use a really bad sample.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2022 17:01
|
|
|
Xombie posted:There's ultimately no difference between this and blanket forgiveness. Grinding the cost down to the principal and giving no incentive to ever pay it back. All you'd have to do is explain to people why it's still good enough instead of having the easy messaging win of "forgiveness". Well none of this forgiveness helps the kid that takes out a loan the day after the forgiveness. Forgiveness should be attached to some sort of long term plan
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2022 17:03
|
|
|
Mellow Seas posted:Is there anyone here that would be made substantially more likely to vote for a Democratic Rep or Senator (or Biden in '24) if they forgave some loans? How much would it take? Forgiving at least $10k of student loans is enough for me to change that inclination. I have no student debt. $10k is not nearly as much as I' want to see. But to me, it would be a better than administration talking points since 2021 which has been "Hell yeah we're going to start them back up after COVID is over!"
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2022 17:03
|
|
|
GlobalMegaCorp posted:Well none of this forgiveness helps the kid that takes out a loan the day after the forgiveness. Forgiveness should be attached to some sort of long term plan This should really be discussed more. If I was a high school student, I would definitely be spiteful if current student loan debt owners got forgiveness but my future debt probably wouldn’t. And that’s on top of college getting more and more expensive.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2022 17:05
|
|
|
Xombie posted:There's ultimately no difference between this and blanket forgiveness. Grinding the cost down to the principal and giving no incentive to ever pay it back. All you'd have to do is explain to people why it's still good enough instead of having the easy messaging win of "forgiveness". I mean there's still incentive to pay it back in this case, even 0% loans have payment schedules and penalties. When car dealerships offer 0% financing they aren't giving you a car for free, you still have to make payments.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2022 17:06
|
|
|
Xombie posted:I'm going to assume you didn't read what I said very carefully and are not arguing in bad faith... Pausing student loan payments makes more money available for spending. And especially when the supply side is already having issues, more money available causes more demand and is absolutely one of the factors causing inflation. quote:The way that our government is structured, tax cuts have to be paid for with spending decreases or other revenue sources. That is not true for Federal Student Aid. I am not of the opinion that we should increase taxes on the rich to "punish" them for being rich or that I "feel cheated" when they get tax cuts. When the rich get tax cuts, it's at the direct expense of government programs that benefit people. We both know that's not really true with budgeting shenanigans. The end result is still the government just takes on more debt, its all the same just numbers in an accounting book somewhere.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2022 17:08
|
|
|
Kalit posted:This should really be discussed more. If I was a high school student, I would definitely be spiteful if current student loan debt owners got forgiveness but my future debt probably wouldn’t. And that’s on top of college getting more and more expensive. Forgiveness was attached to a long-term plan in the original Biden proposal. It capped student loan payments at 5% of your discretionary income above $25k and you got it all forgiven after X amount of monthly payments no matter what the remaining balance was, expanded pell grants, and gave people two years of university or community college for free. But, it all died. So, forgiveness is something they can (possibly) do without congress and do quickly. Plus, it already had an existing movement and advocacy base. It doesn't solve college costs, but it is the closest and easiest hammer to reach for, so they are reaching for it.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2022 17:10
|
|
|
GlobalMegaCorp posted:Well none of this forgiveness helps the kid that takes out a loan the day after the forgiveness. Forgiveness should be attached to some sort of long term plan Not going to happen with this congress. It's executive forgiveness or nothing. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good, sometimes it's better to get half a loaf than nothing at all. In a choice between a lesser or a greater evil we prefer the lesser evil. Politics is about the art of the possible. We can help that 18 year old eventually but you have to VOTE (although a precedent of forgiving loans would probably be a better prospect for that kid than a precedent of 'no gently caress youuuu pay up bitch' so it's not true that setting a precedent of loan forgiveness does nothing for anyone who comes after)
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2022 17:11
|
|
|
Trevorrrrrrrrrrrrr posted:Pausing student loan payments makes more money available for spending. And especially when the supply side is already having issues, more money available causes more demand and is absolutely one of the factors causing inflation. Why does this reasoning not apply to Biden's YUGE military spending increases Is Raytheon profits really a better use of money than education? E: wait are you trying to argue that collapsing consumer spending is a good thing in a capitalist economy
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2022 17:13
|
|
|
VitalSigns posted:Not going to happen with this congress. It's executive forgiveness or nothing. A case for incrementalism, I love it! I hope everyone who supports this also keeps this tactic in mind in the future!
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2022 17:15
|
|
|
Mellow Seas posted:Hell, let's get really unscientific with our polling. Let's use a really bad sample. Eh, I'll bite. There's very strong chance I will leave the top of the ballot blank in '24 if Biden doesn't do anything at all on loans. I already don't give a poo poo about the midterms because I live in a place where my vote won't make a difference. And I'm not counting any bullshit PSLF reforms or extending payment moratoria as "anything". $10k forgiveness would have me considering a vote, $25k I probably would, $50k I would vote and maybe even donate. Above that I might even try encouraging others to vote as well. He still sucks and can huff my sweaty taint otherwise, but if he does something meaningful to materially improve people's lives, maybe that offsets the other stuff a bit.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2022 17:26
|
|
|
Mellow Seas posted:Hell, let's get really unscientific with our polling. Let's use a really bad sample. I will not vote for Democrats who don't even put a bill for student loan forgiveness on the floor for a vote, friend, much less the ability of the executive to delay loans indefinitely. That's also true for M4A, legalization, voting rights, climate change literally anything else of what they campaigned on and have completely failed to accomplish in over 16 months. Put bill after bill that would accomplish these things to a recorded floor vote, let the cowards vote no and then go scorched earth on them. Build a cohesive party organized around something, rather than the empty loving nothing that is neoliberalism. Forgiving federal student loans, immediately and fully, through the executive, would get me to pause and consider that maybe they do want to do something to address helping millions of Americans with crushing debt. But they don't. ex post facho fucked around with this message at 17:46 on Apr 27, 2022 |
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2022 17:40
|
|
|
I think being concerned about electoral actually represents the whole problem the Democrats have really well. It doesn't seem like they want to do this because it's the right thing to do but they have to test the waters for perfect electoral impact which makes them seem insincere
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2022 17:40
|
|
|
Harold Fjord posted:I think being concerned about electoral actually represents the whole problem the Democrats have really well. I'd still take $10,000 from someone even if they were giving it insincerely because they just wanted me to think they were cool.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2022 17:43
|
|
|
Harold Fjord posted:I think being concerned about electoral actually represents the whole problem the Democrats have really well. It also makes the whole thing baffling* because there are of course policies that poll very well across the whole political spectrum but they don't do those either. *Well, not really since the reasons tend to get tied into what capital wants so I suppose I should say it makes them appear inconsistent instead?
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2022 17:43
|
|
|
Trevorrrrrrrrrrrrr posted:Pausing student loan payments makes more money available for spending. And especially when the supply side is already having issues, more money available causes more demand and is absolutely one of the factors causing inflation. If it is, it's at best a minor one. We've been dumping huge amounts of cash into the system for years before covid, and not only did it not spike inflation, we had lower than expected inflation. Inflation is coming some from supply price increases, and mostly the rest from either passing those increases, gouging, or both. You don't get to ignore all the money dumped into the economy in the preceding years and then say it's the cause of inflation when a supply shock happens.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2022 17:46
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 25, 2024 06:29 |
|
|
The inflationary impact has already happened by not having to pay them for two years. Forgiveness would contribute to long-term inflation, but it wouldn't really impact short-term inflation because you aren't injecting any additional money or creating additional demand when they aren't currently making payments.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2022 17:49
|
|