I’m old enough to remember when the neocons were all in on executive power. Spend trillions of dollars to invade another country because we don’t like the guy in charge? CHECK!
Spend a fraction of that amount to release millions of Americans from indentured servitude to a predatory student loan system? TYRANNY!
I’m old enough to remember when the neocons were all in on executive power. Spend trillions of dollars to invade another country because we don’t like the guy in charge? CHECK!
Spend a fraction of that amount to release millions of Americans from indentured servitude to a predatory student loan system? TYRANNY!
This is my now almost weekly reminder that the one tide that is historically proven to lift all boats is education (not trickle-down economics, despite the GOP’s long-suffering devotion to that turd of a theory). The student loans people took out to get a college education were invested in local communities (restaurants, clothing stores, mechanic shops, etc.)… and the spillover effects of having more dentists, and doctors and even (gasp!) philosophy majors in a community are also well documented.
But, HEAVEN FORBID we try to do anything about the crushing debt these folks took on to give those benefits to their communities! SOCIALISM!!! Why, if we let these folks off the hook it might even incentivize more people to get educated! An educated populace? National disaster! I mean, just look at the dystopian wastelands of Canada, Sweden, Norway and every other country that provides a free university education to citizens. What would happen to us if we emulated their happier citizens and better healthcare systems?! Better the vagaries of the free market and for-profit lending in education, I say!
Gimme a break… Charlie, we agree on a lot, but you’re dead wrong on student loans. (And this is coming from a guy who gets no direct benefit out of the program.)
Only we're not spending money to increase education, we're spending money to bail kids who are already high-income out of their education bills. A lot of those kids attended college in the first place because they came from households of economic privilege to begin with. What's next? Bail out all the doctors and attorneys because they have grad school debt?
Please don't assume attorneys clear the $125,000 threshold. I have been an attorney since 1987 and know the legal job market in and out. The number of attorneys making $125,000 straight out of law school might be 1 out of 25. The number making more than $125,000 after 20 years might be 5 out of 25. Many attorneys make $40,000 to $50,000 with very little in the way of benefits. And that is if they're lucky to get a job. The most sought after legal jobs today are public sector jobs b/c their pay has gone up much more than the private sector. Plus, you get benefits in the public sector you will never get as a private law firm attorney. People need to stop putting lawyers in the same class as doctors when it comes to compensation.
Yea, that limit is *$125k/year for individuals and $250k/year for households*. That upper limit is very much "high-income," do you disagree?
And how many households with college debt regardless of income threshold *aren't* going to take advantage of this rich kid bailout ya figure? What's your ballpark guesstimate on that one?
There are millions of folks who do not make $125,000 as an individual or $250,000 per year that will benefit correct? Would you support this effort if it was say $60,000 individual and $120,000 for a family? In your opinion, is there a category of income that would be more acceptable?? Again the " rich kid bailout" you state seems Iike a pre conceived notion you will cling too.
Please take a look at the chart here, specifically where it says "Household Income Per Earner" and the corresponding quintile values per average household in that quintile. Then when you're done looking at those numbers you can tell me this isn't a rich kid bailout with caps set at $125k/individual and $250k/household if you still feel that way.
YES!!! I would 1000% support a bailout of people at lower income brackets who actually need it rather than people who live decadently and are whining about bills that they voluntarily took on that they 1000% can afford to pay back. Why is this so hard of a position for people to get?
It comes down to household income once you talk about married individuals. For example, an individual making $85k/year married to someone making $35k/year is a $120k/year household, but an individual making $85k/year married to an individual making $75k/year is now an in an $160k/year household.
On the household side, the cap should have been lowered to something like households making $140k and on the individual side probably closer to individuals making $65k in today's economy. Going up to $250k/household and $125k/individual was just a bonkers cash-for-rich-kids bailout program. When you mix the bailout for the working class in with the bailout for the rich kids, you water down the notion that this isn't about bailing out the nation's most privileged children. In fact, you're making it look like it *is* about bailing out the rich kids out with that kind of upper limit, and everyone else who came in below them was just riding onto the coat tails of the rich kids getting bailed out.
How about just NOT spending the money on post-college rich kids so that they turn out in November at the expense of more inflation and more government-funded wealth inequality?
Just to put it in a bit of context, I guess I would count as a rich kid, which meant that I didn't have any student loans at all, because my parents just wrote checks for the bill. I'm assuming that is the case for most rich kids. I had a roommate whose parents were trying to find out if they could pay his tuition, room, and board with a credit card so they could get the miles. I am going to guess that most of the rich kids are going to vote R in November because lower taxes are going to benefit them much more in the long run than a singe $10,000 payment. Personally, I'm happy to see people who are struggling to pay off their student debt get some relief.
Where on earth are you getting the idea that it's rich kids getting a freebie? The people getting the most benefit will be the lower income/middle income folks. If they're rich, $10,000 is nothing.
If they're rich and $10k is nothing, then just don't give it to the fucking rich kids! Stop bailing out people who can afford the debt they hold! And stop defending this kind of thing! You're only making your indifference to the working class stick out worse. Stop bootlicking the rich kids!
Then why were the bailout caps set to individuals making under *$125k*???
If this weren't about bailing out rich kids, then the bailout caps would have been set much lower. Thank Biden for fucking that one up. Don't get mad at me for calling out the Biden admin for putting its stamp of endorsement on the government fostering wealth inequality.
If you think working class people should pay for rich parents to send their children to college, you're in for a blowback that will make that Florida hurricane look like a light breeze.
No, I think the rich should pay higher taxes, as they used, to pay for poorer/middle class kids go to college, like they used do to in the 19th and 20th centuries. We, as a country, used to value education for children via state colleges with NO tuition, GI Bills, etc. They knew the country needed more doctors, scientists, teacher, etc. Now many Rs are saying public schools should be eliminated.
Socialism: a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.
THAT is what socialism is.
State funded post secondary education is NOT that. Neither is universal health care, or social security.
One of the things that REALLY pisses me off is how the GoP has managed to shift the definition of socialism over the years and how many people unthinkingly buy into that shift to a greater or lesser degree.
You are so right. The people who run for office should be forced to pass a test in civics and political social theory, because if they believe the nonsense they are spouting they are clueless.
I get your point, but the highest paid state employee in my state works for a university. I fully grant that state schools aren't socialism under the current system, but if the education was provided for a state set price, how do we define a state run institution that is producing and distributing that education? How do we define current public schools for K-12 in this country?
I am willing to bet that that highest paid employee is a football coach. Which says something about our value systems. I could be wrong, but from I have seen the odds are in my favor.
Education is a public good. It is in the interest of the state to provide public goods at reasonable cost (including taxation as part of that reasonable cost). It is about as pragmatic as you get.
This is an expansive view of what governments should do, but it is based on what were once the values of the Whig (and then Republican) government.
There are a number of things that are public goods that the government provides--a court system, law enforcement, a military, interstate highways, dams, bridges, water/flood control.. and so on. This is (these days, it was not always so) seen as both right and proper.
Public schools are a public good... because it is cheaper on a per capita basis to provide it through taxation than for individual families to pay for it... and the benefits resound through the nation and national economy.
Public schools are not the only schools.
State universities are not the only universities.
If you REALLY want to get down to brass tacks, then EVERY state is a socialist state as all states (even pre-state societies) regulate. Although, to be SUPER precise, only democratic states (paying attention to the word community) qualify.
People tend to ignore that part as regulation is ubiquitous--and thus the definition collapses most cogently into the ownership of the means of production and distribution. Which we are, in most cases VERY far from.
Oh, I know it is a football coach. It's that way in almost all of the states with even remotely serious college football.
And yeah, it speaks very poorly to our value system. Hell, the fact that we've let athletics and education continue so entwined in this country is a problem in my book. One we have about zero chance of solving, but a problem nonetheless. And I say that as someone who devotes all of his fall Saturdays to college football (well, now that the kids don't have their own sports on Saturdays much).
I really doubt that the farmers in North Dakota, etc., who had free state schools cared that some 21st century pol would call free college socialism. They saw it as an investment in the future of their children and their state - something most current Rs are against.
I’m old enough to remember when the neocons were all in on executive power. Spend trillions of dollars to invade another country because we don’t like the guy in charge? CHECK!
Spend a fraction of that amount to release millions of Americans from indentured servitude to a predatory student loan system? TYRANNY!
This is my now almost weekly reminder that the one tide that is historically proven to lift all boats is education (not trickle-down economics, despite the GOP’s long-suffering devotion to that turd of a theory). The student loans people took out to get a college education were invested in local communities (restaurants, clothing stores, mechanic shops, etc.)… and the spillover effects of having more dentists, and doctors and even (gasp!) philosophy majors in a community are also well documented.
But, HEAVEN FORBID we try to do anything about the crushing debt these folks took on to give those benefits to their communities! SOCIALISM!!! Why, if we let these folks off the hook it might even incentivize more people to get educated! An educated populace? National disaster! I mean, just look at the dystopian wastelands of Canada, Sweden, Norway and every other country that provides a free university education to citizens. What would happen to us if we emulated their happier citizens and better healthcare systems?! Better the vagaries of the free market and for-profit lending in education, I say!
Gimme a break… Charlie, we agree on a lot, but you’re dead wrong on student loans. (And this is coming from a guy who gets no direct benefit out of the program.)
For the record, Canada doesn’t provide free university education. Many here wish it did.
Only we're not spending money to increase education, we're spending money to bail kids who are already high-income out of their education bills. A lot of those kids attended college in the first place because they came from households of economic privilege to begin with. What's next? Bail out all the doctors and attorneys because they have grad school debt?
Please don't assume attorneys clear the $125,000 threshold. I have been an attorney since 1987 and know the legal job market in and out. The number of attorneys making $125,000 straight out of law school might be 1 out of 25. The number making more than $125,000 after 20 years might be 5 out of 25. Many attorneys make $40,000 to $50,000 with very little in the way of benefits. And that is if they're lucky to get a job. The most sought after legal jobs today are public sector jobs b/c their pay has gone up much more than the private sector. Plus, you get benefits in the public sector you will never get as a private law firm attorney. People need to stop putting lawyers in the same class as doctors when it comes to compensation.
Now do doctors.
You assume it's "high income"...isn't there an income limit on who can take advantage? And, let's be clear, it's optional..not mandatory
Yea, that limit is *$125k/year for individuals and $250k/year for households*. That upper limit is very much "high-income," do you disagree?
And how many households with college debt regardless of income threshold *aren't* going to take advantage of this rich kid bailout ya figure? What's your ballpark guesstimate on that one?
There are millions of folks who do not make $125,000 as an individual or $250,000 per year that will benefit correct? Would you support this effort if it was say $60,000 individual and $120,000 for a family? In your opinion, is there a category of income that would be more acceptable?? Again the " rich kid bailout" you state seems Iike a pre conceived notion you will cling too.
Please take a look at the chart here, specifically where it says "Household Income Per Earner" and the corresponding quintile values per average household in that quintile. Then when you're done looking at those numbers you can tell me this isn't a rich kid bailout with caps set at $125k/individual and $250k/household if you still feel that way.
https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/explaining-us-income-inequality-by-household-demographics-2020-update/
I get your point. You don't object to the debt relief, it appears it's the income limits are too high...fair enough
YES!!! I would 1000% support a bailout of people at lower income brackets who actually need it rather than people who live decadently and are whining about bills that they voluntarily took on that they 1000% can afford to pay back. Why is this so hard of a position for people to get?
Is there someone specific you are thinking of who "live decadently" and are whiners?? Who are these people you are referring to?
It comes down to household income once you talk about married individuals. For example, an individual making $85k/year married to someone making $35k/year is a $120k/year household, but an individual making $85k/year married to an individual making $75k/year is now an in an $160k/year household.
On the household side, the cap should have been lowered to something like households making $140k and on the individual side probably closer to individuals making $65k in today's economy. Going up to $250k/household and $125k/individual was just a bonkers cash-for-rich-kids bailout program. When you mix the bailout for the working class in with the bailout for the rich kids, you water down the notion that this isn't about bailing out the nation's most privileged children. In fact, you're making it look like it *is* about bailing out the rich kids out with that kind of upper limit, and everyone else who came in below them was just riding onto the coat tails of the rich kids getting bailed out.
Very good sir. We'll see how it all shakes out as a lawsuit has been filed by someone in Indiana I believe.
The way the money is spread over the electorate, with only scant reference to need or the ability to pay, reminds me of free drinks on election day.
It reminds me how PPP loans were spread around our monied classes… and then forgiven by the federal government.
Socialism for me but not for thee though, right? ;)
The amount is capped as are income limitations. You want to audit each person who qualifies under both? Talk about costing billions!
How about just NOT spending the money on post-college rich kids so that they turn out in November at the expense of more inflation and more government-funded wealth inequality?
Just to put it in a bit of context, I guess I would count as a rich kid, which meant that I didn't have any student loans at all, because my parents just wrote checks for the bill. I'm assuming that is the case for most rich kids. I had a roommate whose parents were trying to find out if they could pay his tuition, room, and board with a credit card so they could get the miles. I am going to guess that most of the rich kids are going to vote R in November because lower taxes are going to benefit them much more in the long run than a singe $10,000 payment. Personally, I'm happy to see people who are struggling to pay off their student debt get some relief.
Where on earth are you getting the idea that it's rich kids getting a freebie? The people getting the most benefit will be the lower income/middle income folks. If they're rich, $10,000 is nothing.
That it's nothing (but a gesture) to the rich or well off is exactly why it's badly handled.
If they're rich and $10k is nothing, then just don't give it to the fucking rich kids! Stop bailing out people who can afford the debt they hold! And stop defending this kind of thing! You're only making your indifference to the working class stick out worse. Stop bootlicking the rich kids!
Then why were the bailout caps set to individuals making under *$125k*???
If this weren't about bailing out rich kids, then the bailout caps would have been set much lower. Thank Biden for fucking that one up. Don't get mad at me for calling out the Biden admin for putting its stamp of endorsement on the government fostering wealth inequality.
As leaky buckets go for the transfer of funds, I've seen worse.
Though to Travis' point, we should want better.
And to the larger point, this does nothing to fix the systemic problem.
No, I would have set a universal repayment plan based on some percentage x of their IRS modified gross incomes.
Many (most?) states used to have FREE college education for their citizens - until the Rs sold a bill of goods that it was SOCIALISM.
If you think working class people should pay for rich parents to send their children to college, you're in for a blowback that will make that Florida hurricane look like a light breeze.
No, I think the rich should pay higher taxes, as they used, to pay for poorer/middle class kids go to college, like they used do to in the 19th and 20th centuries. We, as a country, used to value education for children via state colleges with NO tuition, GI Bills, etc. They knew the country needed more doctors, scientists, teacher, etc. Now many Rs are saying public schools should be eliminated.
Well, it is socialistic. Thing is, that isn't some absolute evil. There are things in our society that hyper capitalism isn't the best solution for.
Well, actually, it isn't socialistic.
Socialism: a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.
THAT is what socialism is.
State funded post secondary education is NOT that. Neither is universal health care, or social security.
One of the things that REALLY pisses me off is how the GoP has managed to shift the definition of socialism over the years and how many people unthinkingly buy into that shift to a greater or lesser degree.
You are so right. The people who run for office should be forced to pass a test in civics and political social theory, because if they believe the nonsense they are spouting they are clueless.
I get your point, but the highest paid state employee in my state works for a university. I fully grant that state schools aren't socialism under the current system, but if the education was provided for a state set price, how do we define a state run institution that is producing and distributing that education? How do we define current public schools for K-12 in this country?
I am willing to bet that that highest paid employee is a football coach. Which says something about our value systems. I could be wrong, but from I have seen the odds are in my favor.
Education is a public good. It is in the interest of the state to provide public goods at reasonable cost (including taxation as part of that reasonable cost). It is about as pragmatic as you get.
This is an expansive view of what governments should do, but it is based on what were once the values of the Whig (and then Republican) government.
There are a number of things that are public goods that the government provides--a court system, law enforcement, a military, interstate highways, dams, bridges, water/flood control.. and so on. This is (these days, it was not always so) seen as both right and proper.
Public schools are a public good... because it is cheaper on a per capita basis to provide it through taxation than for individual families to pay for it... and the benefits resound through the nation and national economy.
Public schools are not the only schools.
State universities are not the only universities.
If you REALLY want to get down to brass tacks, then EVERY state is a socialist state as all states (even pre-state societies) regulate. Although, to be SUPER precise, only democratic states (paying attention to the word community) qualify.
People tend to ignore that part as regulation is ubiquitous--and thus the definition collapses most cogently into the ownership of the means of production and distribution. Which we are, in most cases VERY far from.
Oh, I know it is a football coach. It's that way in almost all of the states with even remotely serious college football.
And yeah, it speaks very poorly to our value system. Hell, the fact that we've let athletics and education continue so entwined in this country is a problem in my book. One we have about zero chance of solving, but a problem nonetheless. And I say that as someone who devotes all of his fall Saturdays to college football (well, now that the kids don't have their own sports on Saturdays much).
I really doubt that the farmers in North Dakota, etc., who had free state schools cared that some 21st century pol would call free college socialism. They saw it as an investment in the future of their children and their state - something most current Rs are against.
Well comrade, you can see it in this very thread with that troll who just views college as a way of producing communists. ;)
Love it! Right on!