US Politics: The Republicans problem with small packages

[Martell Spy]

I'm guessing people that have loans forgiven will have an enormous tax bill. That's how it works when you get a special deal on student loans to pay a lower amount, the amount you save gets taxed on income. Unless that is addressed in the same action that clears the debt. 

Also we forgive debts all the time in chapter 7 bankruptcy. Anyone outraged that this goes on?

[Fury Resurrected]

I’m really surprised at people who are bitching that they paid off their loans and others may have loan forgiveness. Other people getting help does not put you in a worse position. Would it be better if we could retroactively make college free for everyone? Of course. But a lot of people with huge debt outstanding are now unemployed and sinking into long term poverty. We can help many of them and we should not hold that up because not everyone will be helped.

[Fragile Bird]

I assume if I link Larry Summer's opinion piece you won't be able to see it because it's behind a paywall?

I'll link it, tell me if you can't see it and I'll post more paragraphs.

Quote

President Biden’s $1.9 trillion covid-19 relief plan, added to the stimulus measure Congress passed in December with the incoming administration’s strong support, would represent the boldest act of macroeconomic stabilization policy in U.S. history. Its ambition, its rejection of austerity orthodoxy and its commitment to reducing economic inequality are all admirable. It is imperative that safety-net measures for those suffering and investments in vaccination and testing be undertaken rapidly after the indefensible delays of the last months of the Trump administration.

Yet bold measures need to be accompanied by careful consideration of risks and how they can be mitigated. While the arguments for providing relief to those hurt by the economic fallout of the pandemic, investing in controlling the virus and supporting consumer demand are compelling, much of the policy discussion has not fully reckoned with the magnitude of what is being debated.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/02/04/larry-summers-biden-covid-stimulus/

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

10 minutes ago, Fury Resurrected said:

I’m really surprised at people who are bitching that they paid off their loans and others may have loan forgiveness. Other people getting help does not put you in a worse position. Would it be better if we could retroactively make college free for everyone? Of course. But a lot of people with huge debt outstanding are now unemployed and sinking into long term poverty. We can help many of them and we should not hold that up because not everyone will be helped.

I don’t think many people will argue against helping people who are in debt in part because of BS system, be it how the loans work or just the absurd cost of an education is. But that doesn’t address the point I brought up. You should be surprised people would be off put by it, and whether it’s true or not, many will feel like the net effect is they’re worse off. We have to keep in mind that 2/3s of the country didn’t go to college, are becoming increasingly resentful of those that did and will see this as a liberal giveaway to bratty college kids. It would be a mistake to ignore the political ramifications of that.

[Ran]

Those who rankle at loan forgiveness are probably not dissimilar to those who rankled at banks being bailed out. Just food for thought.

In reality, it's all about the structure. If loan forgiveness is structured in such a way that taxes have to be hiked at some point to make up the debt, then it literally is just transferring money from one group to another, and one sub-section of that group being transferred from are people who worked to pay their debts in the first place.

As other argue, with negative interest rates on government borrowing, it does not seem an insurmountable problem to structure it in such a way that it just gets covered over time by increasing economic gains without having to fiddle with tax rates or what have you.

 

[Fury Resurrected]

4 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I don’t think many people will argue against helping people who are in debt in part because of BS system, be it how the loans work or just the absurd cost of an education is. But that doesn’t address the point I brought up. You should be surprised people would be off put by it, and whether it’s true or not, many will feel like the net effect is they’re worse off. We have to keep in mind that 2/3s of the country didn’t go to college, are becoming increasingly resentful of those that did and will see this as a liberal giveaway to bratty college kids. It would be a mistake to ignore the political ramifications of that.

Yeah, you do not need to explain to me- a person in a trade- that some people did not go to college. I am one of those people and if I was going to try and make this about me instead of the thousands of people struggling to feed their children, I guess by your logic I’d have plenty to cry about. But I want to see these people out from under those debts.

[Fez]

4 minutes ago, Fury Resurrected said:

I’m really surprised at people who are bitching that they paid off their loans and others may have loan forgiveness. Other people getting help does not put you in a worse position. Would it be better if we could retroactively make college free for everyone? Of course. But a lot of people with huge debt outstanding are now unemployed and sinking into long term poverty. We can help many of them and we should not hold that up because not everyone will be helped.

The problem is not that other people getting help puts me in a worse position. It's that my own decision to pay down my loans as quickly as possible puts me in a worse position than if I paid the bare minimum each month. And I do believe that if the government is changing the facts on the ground in such a way, they should provide reimbursement to those who are retroactively being worsened.

Now I do recognize that it was my own decision to increase my payments each month, and I was making the most informed decision I could at the time, which is why I'm not too put out about it. I wouldn't have some insane reaction like vote for a Republican. However, other things being equal, I'd probably support a primary challenge against my Democratic representative and senators if they don't at least make the effort to include people like me in the final bill.

[DireWolfSpirit]

1 hour ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

Not everyone is getting the kind of work, let alone the type of pay necessary for that work, to pay off debt like gangbusters. 

This is the great oft unspoken tragedy in all of it, that the economics were so poor that a good portion of a generation didn't benefit much from the kind of job generation that would allow them to payoff these debts. 

That the debts became a crushing burden for so many is the rather pathetic indictment on our economy  not the legions who were only following the decades long tradition of pursuing higher ed to try for a better life.

That's the tragedy that bothers me. It's like a great slide in our collective prosperity, like we cannot aspire to accomplish what was once a mere after thought.

[Cas Stark]

If you paid off your loans then you don't have access to those tens of thousands of dollars you repaid.  If you hadn't done the responsible thing and paid your loans back, then you could have either saved or spent that money, either way, you would have used it yourself, and therefore are worse off financially as a result.  Loan forgiveness absolutely punishes the people who abided by the terms of their loans and paid the money back and rewards those who didn't.   

[Zorral]

2 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

I also wonder how people who are in my position will react. I went gangbusters the first five years out of college to pay off nearly my entire debt. People who did the same thing are going to be put off by others just having their debts forgiven.

O.  You mean jerkwaddies, i.e. those who think anything that someone receives is a take-away from them.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

32 minutes ago, Fury Resurrected said:

Yeah, you do not need to explain to me- a person in a trade- that some people did not go to college. I am one of those people and if I was going to try and make this about me instead of the thousands of people struggling to feed their children, I guess by your logic I’d have plenty to cry about. But I want to see these people out from under those debts.

Oh please. You and your business will make millions from all those kids spending their new found riches on Student Loan Forgiveness tats. You better start learning the right kanji now.

[Week]

So ... Those who are chafed at having paid off their student loans already believe that it's only fair that they get some of their previous payments back. You'd want some form of reparations? Hm, interesting. 

[DireWolfSpirit]

4 acres and a Mazda!!

[S John]

1 hour ago, GrimTuesday said:

I had polio, so it bothers me that we are going to stop other people from having polio.

Sorry, but I don't care about those who paid off their loans already. It fucking sucks, and while I would support a measure to reimburse people for some or all of what they have paid back in loans, removing the existing burden of student debt from those being crushed by it is more important than your feelings.

Remind me, when did people sign up to get polio? Taking on a student loan is an entirely voluntary action. Everyone who has one signed their name to it. I agree that the system needs reform and that the costs are out of control and that having 17 and 18 year olds make these major financial decisions that they probably don’t fully understand is complete garbage. But everyone who took on a loan weighed the options and made the decision. If some aren’t going to have to fulfill their obligation then others deserve a refund, no?
 

 

[Zorral]

Anti-vaxxers screaming for vaccinations now!  Nearly a half million have died!  Where's mine?

[Liffguard]

13 minutes ago, S John said:

If some aren’t going to have to fulfill their obligation then others deserve a refund, no?
 

 

Yes, there should be some kind of reinbursement program as well. But in the meantime, as many Democrat supporters so frequently remind us, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

[Jaxom 1974]

1 hour ago, Fez said:

 

Now I do recognize that it was my own decision to increase my payments each month, and I was making the most informed decision I could at the time, which is why I'm not too put out about it. I wouldn't have some insane reaction like vote for a Republican. However, other things being equal, I'd probably support a primary challenge against my Democratic representative and senators if they don't at least make the effort to include people like me in the final bill.

Interesting. But how does it work? Where's the cut off?  

I graduated from college 25 years ago.  I have been out from under any loans I had (and they were fewer even though I went to an out of state, private university), because things were a hell of a lot different in the early 90s...would I qualify for participation in this bill? 

 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

11 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Anti-vaxxers screaming for vaccinations now!  Nearly a half million have died!  Where's mine?

Well, at my dad's nursery some of the staff passed upon the chance to get vaccinated. So not all vax sceptics, and anti-vaxxers are the same there. And yes, it was the good stuff (BionTech-Pfizer). My dad got his second shot this week (at least I think that was the schedule).

As for the forgiveness envy. I really don't get that bit, that people should be mad at some people being lucky to escape their financial purgatory a bit sooner. Without the millstone around their neck, there's a fair chance, they'll be able to spend some more on other things. Be it a Fury tattoo (with or without Kanji), some new washing machine, a new car or whatever. As a plus size. Some of the better college grads might not even be forced to sell their souls to wallstreet jobs to get rid of their loans.

[GrimTuesday]

50 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

I assume if I link Larry Summer's opinion piece you won't be able to see it because it's behind a paywall?

I'll link it, tell me if you can't see it and I'll post more paragraphs.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/02/04/larry-summers-biden-covid-stimulus/

I can't wait to one day dance on Larry Summer's grave one day. His entire argument boils down to "What if we give the poors too much money?" Giving people on the lower end of the economic spectrum leads to increased consumer spending, because suddenly they have disposable income, but it also means they don't have to play the game of corporate serfdom and accept a crap job where they just get exploited. This is all about propping up the system of exploitation that has benefited them.

1 minute ago, S John said:

Remind me, when did people sign up to get polio? Taking on a student loan is an entirely voluntary action. Everyone who has one signed their name to it. I agree that the system needs reform and that the costs are out of control and that having 17 and 18 year olds make these major financial decisions that they probably don’t fully understand is complete garbage. But everyone who took on a loan weighed the options and made the decision. If some aren’t going to have to fulfill their obligation then others deserve a refund, no?
 

 

Yeah, because it's not like almost every single job that isn't a trade or "low skill" requires a college degree or anything like that. I didn't go to college because I wanted to (though I did), I went to college because I had to if I wanted to have a future that didn't involve living paycheck to paycheck for the rest of my life or going into a trade which offers its own hurdles. To be clear, I am extremely lucky, I only have about 15k in student debt, I am not one of those people who is drowning here, but I understand the crushing burden it has become, and I think we should remove that weight from these people.

As I said I'm cool with reimbursing those who paid back their loans already, because I don't think that you should have had to take out loans in the first place, but I'm not going let people drown because someone else who was drowning managed get themselves out of the water.

 

[Ormond]

In terms of student loan debt, I hope people remember that those who need debt forgiveness the most are the huge number of people who have such debt but who do NOT have a degree. According to the article I will link to below, 57% of all students who take on debt do NOT graduate. They of course have a harder time paying off their loans since they don't have the level of increased income that usually comes with having a college degree in the USA. And college dropouts start off coming from less affluent backgrounds than those who graduate, with dropouts actually being more likely to take out loans than those who go on to graduation.

Quote

Department of Education data showed that 12 years after starting college, those who graduated had on average 58% of their loan balance yet. But those who never graduated had 84% of their loan balance left. The median amount that group still owed: $24,400 (compared to $11,700 for those how had obtained a bachelor’s degree or higher).

It often frustrates me that so much of the discussion about this is only from the perspective of those who do have a degree, forgetting about the non-graduates, who for the most part could use loan forgiveness much more than the graduates. 

https://universitybusiness.com/new-analysis-student-loan-borrowers-with-no-degree/