US Politics: The Republicans problem with small packages

[Fury Resurrected]

48 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

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.

Sadly, that’s not even my clientele. I work in a bougie shop in an affluent suburb largely tattooing rich housewives and other tattoo artists. It’s a nice setup for being recession proof, but it’s a lot less “outlaw” than people picture my profession. Tons of tattooers have that kind of clientele, I just don’t. I’ve been *more* busy since Covid, because the brunch moms are bored and this is an outing you still get to have.

[Ran]

Again, if you worked hard to fulfill your obligation (or, indeed, never entered an obligation to begin with) and then are being asked to pay more in taxes -- now or later -- to cancel the obligation of others, this is a wealth transfer that people reasonably have a hard time wrapping their heads around. You played by the rules and then are getting dinged by others who did not play by the rules.

How it's structured for payment, and what the benefits are to those who may be asked to foot the bill, needs to be articulated.

My issue with the $50,000-forgiveness-for-all-borrowers plan Schumer has put forward is that it's clumsy as a stimulus (most of the people who need the most financial help don't have student debt to begin with!) ... and more importantly, it's terribly regressive, fiscally speaking, while also not being particularly helpful for things like reducing wealth gaps, racial or otherwise. The only reason this is being considered is to do an end-run around Congress, since there's reasonable concern Manchin, Sinema, et. al. will bulk at more stimulus at this time, and so people are demanding a dopey frittering away of cash because the president seems to have the power to do it, rather than being reasonable and finding the best way to target it as progressively and effectively as possible.

We talk about not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, but Biden's plan is much nearer perfect than Schumer's, so...

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour 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.

More like "trying to make this about people like me." You're altruistic. Many people aren't, and a lot of them would react negatively to such a move.

26 minutes ago, Liffguard said:

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.

In this case you kind of do, and I'm not even discussing reimbursements. Forgiving a lot of debt without fixing the many systemic problems within the system doesn't address the real underlying problem: affordable education.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

4 minutes ago, Fury Resurrected said:

Sadly, that’s not even my clientele. I work in a bougie shop in an affluent suburb largely tattooing rich housewives and other tattoo artists. It’s a nice setup for being recession proof, but it’s a lot less “outlaw” than people picture my profession. Tons of tattooers have that kind of clientele, I just don’t. I’ve been *more* busy since Covid, because the brunch moms are bored and this is an outing you still get to have.

HUm, don't think some kids getting their Loan Free kanjis are that ganster. And the days of the smokey backroom tattoo shops are long gone anyway. Tats have become so mainstream at least since the 2000s (I'd argue mid 1990s). I mean the dream catcher on the neck of a former flatmate was arguably the least gangster I've ever seen. Basically your type of client, I guess (altho, I just assume your execution would've been better). I just used your profession as something non-essential people will blow their new found riches on. So with everybody getting a refund and their loans forgiven, you'll be richer than Jeff Bezos. For sure.

Anyway, describing your clientele that way, makes it sounds like a like really good at what you do.

[Kalbear]

I am pissed off that my kids will never experience the pain of having to wait to watch a specific show at a specific time

therefore, ban netflix

[Martell Spy]

11 minutes ago, Ran said:

Again, if you worked hard to fulfill your obligation (or, indeed, never entered an obligation to begin with) and then are being asked to pay more in taxes -- now or later -- to cancel the obligation of others, this is a wealth transfer that people reasonably have a hard time wrapping their heads around. You played by the rules and then are getting dinged by others who did not play by the rules.

How it's structured for payment, and what the benefits are to those who may be asked to foot the bill, needs to be articulated.

My issue with the $50,000-forgiveness-for-all-borrowers plan Schumer has put forward is that it's clumsy as a stimulus (most of the people who need the most financial help don't have student debt to begin with!) ... and more importantly, it's terribly regressive, fiscally speaking, while also not being particularly helpful for things like reducing wealth gaps, racial or otherwise. The only reason this is being considered is to do an end-run around Congress, since there's reasonable concern Manchin, Sinema, et. al. will bulk at more stimulus at this time, and so people are demanding a dopey frittering away of cash because the president seems to have the power to do it, rather than being reasonable and finding the best way to target it as progressively and effectively as possible.

We talk about not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, but Biden's plan is much nearer perfect than Schumer's, so...

 

Well, it's ridiculous to rely on Congress to pass anything these days. Relying on Congress is code for I want this policy to not be passed. If Congress could actually act they could simply allow student loan debtors access to chapter 7 bankruptcy and we wouldn't have any of these problems. People could get forgiven and have their credit ruined and get punished that way. Congress can't act.

[Martell Spy]

1 minute ago, KalbearAnon said:

I am pissed off that my kids will never experience the pain of having to wait to watch a specific show at a specific time

therefore, ban netflix

Oh shit, man, 80's television. It was really bad, with a few exceptions like Knight Rider.

[GrimTuesday]

19 minutes ago, Ran said:

Again, if you worked hard to fulfill your obligation and then are being asked to pay more in taxes -- now or later -- to cancel the obligation of others, this is a wealth transfer that people reasonably have a hard time wrapping their heads around. You played by the rules and then are getting dinged by others who did not play by the rules.

How it's structured for payment, and what the benefits are to those who may be asked to foot the bill, needs to be articulated.

I think the $50,000 plan Schumer has put forward is that it's clumsy as a stimulus (most of the people who need the most financial help don't have student debt to begin with!) ... and more importantly, it's terribly regressive, fiscally speaking. The only reason this is being considered is to do an end-run around Congress, since there's reasonable concern Manchin, Sinema, et. al. will bulk at more stimulus at this time, and so people are demanding a dopey frittering away of cash because the president seems to have the power to do it, rather than being reasonable and finding the best way to target it as progressively and effectively as possible.

 

You don't have to raise taxes, this is money that is already spent, it doesn't exist except on balance sheets. This is money owed to the government. Means testing this shit is what leads to toothless programs that allows the Democrats to pat themselves on the back while not making significant changes.

 

[Fury Resurrected]

13 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

HUm, don't think some kids getting their Loan Free kanjis are that ganster. And the days of the smokey backroom tattoo shops are long gone anyway. Tats have become so mainstream at least since the 2000s (I'd argue mid 1990s). I mean the dream catcher on the neck of a former flatmate was arguably the least gangster I've ever seen. Basically your type of client, I guess (altho, I just assume your execution would've been better). I just used your profession as something non-essential people will blow their new found riches on. So with everybody getting a refund and their loans forgiven, you'll be richer than Jeff Bezos. For sure.

Anyway, describing your clientele that way, makes it sounds like a like really good at what you do.

As a tattooer, the people you wanna tattoo the most are restaurant workers and hairstylists. They get the coolest most fun stuff, they tip well, and they are cool and understanding of service work. We really miss those people right now.

There 100% still are tons of shady corners of the tattoo industry. I have worked with and on so many hardened criminals in past shops. Those types still get tattooed, just everyone else does now too. At the last shop I worked with one of my colleagues did 12 years for attempted murder.

[mormont]

I'm not well enough versed in the US system , so all I'm going to say on the student loan forgiveness issue is, there is a lot of unexamined class privilege being exhibited here by people who generally consider themselves to be fairly liberal.

[DMC]

One political note about the student debt discussion (which doesn't impact the policy discussion at all, but still) - the reason Schumer is pressuring Biden on this is part of his attempt to preempt a primary challenge from the left, namely AOC.  If does seem a bit feckless to me that the majority leader is calling on the president to issue a legally murky EO rather than uniting his caucus to craft legislation.

[Fury Resurrected]

19 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

Well, it's ridiculous to rely on Congress to pass anything these days. Relying on Congress is code for I want this policy to not be passed. If Congress could actually act they could simply allow student loan debtors access to chapter 7 bankruptcy and we wouldn't have any of these problems. People could get forgiven and have their credit ruined and get punished that way. Congress can't act.

Why should we be punishing workers who were promised a living wage if they got an education and are not getting a wage that pays for the education they were required to get in order to be employable? This is a failure in labor protection and providing an entry level education, which previous generations have had access to.

[IheartIheartTesla]

7 minutes ago, mormont said:

I'm not well enough versed in the US system , so all I'm going to say on the student loan forgiveness issue is, there is a lot of unexamined class privilege being exhibited here by people who generally consider themselves to be fairly liberal.

To me it also underscores the fact that the Democrats will have a framing/messaging problem if they do decide to roll out some form of a debt forgiveness program. The one thing they absolutely should not do is let the Republicans gain control of the messaging and use it as a cudgel to hammer them in the midterms (i.e., ACA 2.0). I can see this and some other items on the progressive agenda lead to significant losses in 2022 unless they also do some publicity beforehand.

[Larry of the Lawn]

4 minutes ago, Fury Resurrected said:

Why should we be punishing workers who were promised a living wage if they got an education and are not getting a wage that pays for the education they were required to get in order to be employable? This is a failure in labor protection and providing an entry level education, which previous generations have had access to.

Thank you - yeah a lot of people who did graduate found themselves with massive debts, and low paying jobs.  All those jobs are redistributing wealth from workers to the wealthy on surplus labor.

The only time I was able to regularly make loan payments the first 10 years after dropping out of college was when I lived in a van.

[ThinkerX]

28 minutes ago, KalbearAnon said:

I am pissed off that my kids will never experience the pain of having to wait to watch a specific show at a specific time

therefore, ban netflix

fond memories of setting the VCR before leaving for work - and being able to fast forward through the commercials when I watched the show.

that said, I have not watched television in years, unless visiting one relative or another who happens to have it turned on.  

flip side of the student loan thing is the predatory for profit educational institutions

also, I knew a few people who got much of their student loan debt waived by accepting...government jobs?...way out in the middle of nowhere.  One spent a couple years as a teacher on an indian reservation

 

[GrimTuesday]

4 minutes ago, mormont said:

I'm not well enough versed in the US system , so all I'm going to say on the student loan forgiveness issue is, there is a lot of unexamined class privilege being exhibited here by people who generally consider themselves to be fairly liberal.

Unexamined class privilege is one of the defining features of American liberalism. While some of the references are a bit dated, Phil Ochs' song Love me I'm a Liberal hits closer to home than I think a lot of folks would want to acknowledge.

 

[Liffguard]

22 minutes ago, Ran said:

The only reason this is being considered is to do an end-run around Congress, since there's reasonable concern Manchin, Sinema, et. al. will bulk at more stimulus at this time

I mean... that's a pretty good reason, no? Isn't that the primary impetus for student loan forgiveness specifically, that Biden can wipe it out (or at least take a major chunk out of it) with the stroke of a pen? No horse trading with conservative democrats or bad faith republicans. No obscure procedural rules that hold things up until the original proposal is watered-down to near pointlessness. There's a clear problem, millions of people with debt they can't possibly afford to repay, that can be wiped away in a single order. Does it solve all problems with higher education funding in the US? God no, not even close. But it can be done now. Today, if Biden wants to.

And look, I'm not unsympathetic to people who would feel put out if they miss out on this. If you spent years scraping by to pay off your own loans then of course it's an understandable human reaction to have extremely mixed feelings about millions of others getting a substantial benefit that you may never see yourself. But I would request - or implore - that you look at the bigger picture here.

One, the simple human element; millions of people can have a major burden erased overnight, at no loss to yourself. Be angry about the burdens you had to endure with no alleviation, but don't direct that anger at people who do have theirs alleviated. Their gain is not your loss.

Two, the broader downstream effects. How many people stay trapped in shitty underpaid jobs they can't afford to quit because of their debt? Think of the downward pressure on wages this represents, and the subsequent upward pressure if this debt disappears. How many potential new businesses never see the light of day because people can't afford the risk? In general, how much potential economic activity never happens because of all the income getting sucked away into an unfillable debt black hole? Even if you yourself receive no direct debt forgiveness, there are broader societal benefits that you will experience.

Finally, if a huge chunk of student debt does get wiped out, then the conversation around student fee reinbursement, and free university more generally, suddenly stops being theoretical and becomes much more real. Right now the conversation is "it's not fair to cancel student debt without reinbursing people who already paid it off." All this means is that student debt will be neither forgiven nor reinbursed. What if the conversation was "student debt has been forgiven, to be fair we must now push reinbursement too." If you stop debt cancellation you'll never get reibursement, push it and you might.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

Thank you - yeah a lot of people who did graduate found themselves with massive debts, and low paying jobs.  All those jobs are redistributing wealth from workers to the wealthy on surplus labor.

And that's why targeted debt relief is like slapping a Band-Aid on a giant gapping wound. It helps so at the micro level, but does fuck all on the macro level and it will cost political capital to do it that would better spent on overhauling the entire system.  

[IheartIheartTesla]

By the way, the situation is similar to immigration where the wedge argument was "why did I have to spend 10+ years trying to legally immigrate while some undocumented could just gain amnesty and cut the line?". As a somewhat newly minted immigrant my philosophy always has been that I'm glad others didnt have to navigate the tortuous US immigration system the same as I did, and more power to them. It will also help, IMO, if debt forgiveness isnt framed as a penalty to those who were good about their loan repayments but as a benefit.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

7 minutes ago, DMC said:

One political note about the student debt discussion (which doesn't impact the policy discussion at all, but still) - the reason Schumer is pressuring Biden on this is part of his attempt to preempt a primary challenge from the left, namely AOC.  If does seem a bit feckless to me that the majority leader is calling on the president to issue a legally murky EO rather than uniting his caucus to craft legislation.

So is AOC really considering ousting Schumer? I mean, I am all for it, and have said so in the past, however isn't Gillibrand an easier target?