3 ms·

Money is fungible. Saying that the expenditure is funded by a tax on Wall Street is just clever bullshit to make it look like the taxpayers aren't on the hook f

Money is fungible. Saying that the expenditure is funded by a tax on Wall Street is just clever bullshit to make it look like the taxpayers aren't on the hook for this absurdly expensive amnesty. The truth is those are two entirely orthogonal issues that affect the federal budget. If not this amnesty, the tax could fund something else. If this tax isn't enough, the money for this bill will come from somewhere else.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
toomuchtodo 7y ago
If it's clever messaging and it works, it works. Some cohort in the country is going to be on the hook; it's up to democracy to pick which cohort that is (congressional representation, all that jazz). Right now, Millennials are on the hook (carrying the debt). They're also now the largest voting cohort [1], having edged out Boomers this year [1]. Do you think they're going to stay on the hook? It's unlikely (~1.6 million Boomers die each year, about 1.3 percent of the Boomer cohort); Millennials will continue to reshape state and federal government each election cycle. I imagine the cohort of voters who took on large amounts of student loan debt and successfully paid it off in a short duration of time is exceedingly small (but vocal!). Life isn't fair. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/03/01/millennials-overtake-baby-boomers/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/03/01/millennials...
jonahbenton 7y ago
Money is a lot of things. It is fungible. It is also an asset. The amount of wealth- assets- outside of their houses that taxpayers who are not in the .1% hold has become an increasingly tiny fraction of the overall total asset base- which VASTLY exceeds the tax base that people are accustomed to thinking about (taxes on their income). Taxing the trading of these assets between one huge asset holder and another involves flows of money that generally speaking have nothing to do with most people. An analogy is- you're here in a nearly empty swimming pool a block from the beach and Bernie is talking about bringing in a pipe and a desalination plant to refill it, because there's a lot of water in the ocean. Regarding the budget, to a first approximation, these loans do not have an impact at all. Where the Govt actually holds the asset, it is merely a fiction on the balance sheet. There is no "student loan interest payments" line item on the Treasury's income statement (https://www.fiscal.treasury.gov/files/reports-statements/mts/mts0519.pdf https://www.fiscal.treasury.gov/files/reports-statements/mts...). Where the govt is a guarantor, then there are private entities that do expect to be paid, and it would be good for the govt to not be put in the position to have to pay them without another source of revenue. And it is absolutely true that from a particular perspective a transaction tax can provide an extremely useful source of revenue in the future, perhaps even offsetting personal income taxes.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

toomuchtodo 7y ago

If it's clever messaging and it works, it works. Some cohort in the country is going to be on the hook; it's up to democracy to pick which cohort that is (congressional representation, all that jazz). Right now, Millennials are on the hook (carrying the debt). They're also now the largest voting cohort [1], having edged out Boomers this year [1]. Do you think they're going to stay on the hook? It's unlikely (~1.6 million Boomers die each year, about 1.3 percent of the Boomer cohort); Millennials will continue to reshape state and federal government each election cycle. I imagine the cohort of voters who took on large amounts of student loan debt and successfully paid it off in a short duration of time is exceedingly small (but vocal!). Life isn't fair. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/03/01/millennials-overtake-baby-boomers/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/03/01/millennials...

jonahbenton 7y ago

Money is a lot of things. It is fungible. It is also an asset. The amount of wealth- assets- outside of their houses that taxpayers who are not in the .1% hold has become an increasingly tiny fraction of the overall total asset base- which VASTLY exceeds the tax base that people are accustomed to thinking about (taxes on their income). Taxing the trading of these assets between one huge asset holder and another involves flows of money that generally speaking have nothing to do with most people. An analogy is- you're here in a nearly empty swimming pool a block from the beach and Bernie is talking about bringing in a pipe and a desalination plant to refill it, because there's a lot of water in the ocean. Regarding the budget, to a first approximation, these loans do not have an impact at all. Where the Govt actually holds the asset, it is merely a fiction on the balance sheet. There is no "student loan interest payments" line item on the Treasury's income statement (https://www.fiscal.treasury.gov/files/reports-statements/mts/mts0519.pdf https://www.fiscal.treasury.gov/files/reports-statements/mts...). Where the govt is a guarantor, then there are private entities that do expect to be paid, and it would be good for the govt to not be put in the position to have to pay them without another source of revenue. And it is absolutely true that from a particular perspective a transaction tax can provide an extremely useful source of revenue in the future, perhaps even offsetting personal income taxes.