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I’m sorry, but this has to be one of the dumbest things the Biden administration has ever done. He needs to pull a George H. W. Bush and just say he over promis

I’m sorry, but this has to be one of the dumbest things the Biden administration has ever done. He needs to pull a George H. W. Bush and just say he over promised and not go through with this. The intention is great and all. Helping out students that were affected by the pandemic. But the execution of this is horrible.

bko 4y ago
My biggest issue that it's effects are hidden. If he wanted to just send everyone 10k i would be more okay with that as it would have to go to Congress and come from somewhere. Not to mention that it's going to relatively well off college educated students that made poor decisions. And it doesn't change the underlying problem with higher ed prices. If anything, it'll build the expectation of debt forgiveness, allow people to borrow more and schools could charge more. This is just the worst of all scenarios
- mikeyouse 4y ago
  Unfortunately anything addressing the underlying problems is going to take congressional action and our politics are completely broken at the moment so only executive action is possible. This dramatically limits the levers that can be pulled.
  - weej 4y ago
    > This dramatically limits the levers that can be pulled. I don't disagree, but this feels like slapping a bandaid on a bullet wound. It's unclear to me how this will fundamentally make improvements at the source of the problem vs. temporary forgiveness. What do you think it would take to gain some majority alignment to actually move the needle effectively?
  - wszfahwbwbaha 4y ago
    > at the moment Sorry pal, but they won't be getting any better. You're seeing the slow decline of a country.
qqqwerty 4y ago
Well the only lasting legislative achievement of the Trump administration was to pass a tax cut for the rich, which was almost assuredly counter to the populist platform that he ran on. Politics are about promising everything to everybody and then once in office, figuring out which promises you can break, and which you can't. Biden (and the Democrats more broadly) have a fairly diverse base with a variety of key interests. And the lesson from the Obama years was that slow playing policy changes in the name of bipartisanship was a great way to get destroyed at the ballot box in the midterms. I would certainly prefer that an action like this was implemented after we got inflation under control, but I am also not living pay check to pay check with a load of student debt. And if something like this, on balance, keeps hope alive for the midterms then I guess I am onboard.
- Group_B 4y ago
  It's funny because I worked my ass off to pay back my federal loans. I paid those off first because the interest is higher. Will I retroactively get a refund? Why can't they just give every student 10K in cash? That would definitely help with paying off my private loans. So many questions that need to be answered. Maybe I'm overreacting, but the whole thing is ridiculous.
  - qqqwerty 4y ago
    I understand where your frustrations are coming from, but I think you need to put this in perspective. $10k isn't that much money. For example, we give an order of magnitude more in tax breaks to middle class homeowners. And let's not even get started about the deprecation shell game that real estate investors can exploit. As a renter who has been on the home ownership sidelines for about a decade at this point, I get super frustrated about these types of things. Why should my taxes subsidize home owners, while those very same NIMBY home owners make it harder to for me to eventually afford a house by restricting supply. Housing is just one example. Our tax laws and spending programs are littered with benefits for the wealthy and powerful. And there are factions in our political system and media that want to distract you from that fact by directing your anger and frustrations at student debt relief and pandemic stimulus check recipients. These one time payments to people in need will in the long run be a rounding error on your lifetime tax burden. If you really can't stand the "inequity" of this program, I recommend that you go out and take some debt financed extension classes. Then make sure you are making under $120k. And then sit on that debt until the next round of relief. Hopefully that will make you feel better. In a perfect world, we would fix higher education. But that would take a political consensus that does not seem remotely possible in the near future. And in the meantime, we have a pro-democracy political party that is desperately trying to keep a coalition together in order to stave off an opposition party with authoritarian impulses. I think throwing the coalition a few bones is well worth the cost.
pessimizer 4y ago
> The intention is great and all. Helping out students that were affected by the pandemic. I think the intention is trash, and just a cynical way of getting young Bernie Democrats on board before the midterms. I'm a believer in forgiving student debt when making community/state college free, not before. Otherwise, it's really just a transfer payment made to millenials/zoomers. The reason you forgive student debt is the same reason you let people out of prison for drug possession after you legalize drugs. You've raised the standards of what people have a right to do, and you're going back in time to correct your mistakes. They don't have a lot of choices, though. When your base is Occupy Wall Street and Wall Street, it's going to look like a lot of your choices are arbitrary. edit: also, a bailout hazard like this will inevitably raise the price of college.

bko 4y ago

My biggest issue that it's effects are hidden. If he wanted to just send everyone 10k i would be more okay with that as it would have to go to Congress and come from somewhere. Not to mention that it's going to relatively well off college educated students that made poor decisions. And it doesn't change the underlying problem with higher ed prices. If anything, it'll build the expectation of debt forgiveness, allow people to borrow more and schools could charge more. This is just the worst of all scenarios

mikeyouse 4y ago
Unfortunately anything addressing the underlying problems is going to take congressional action and our politics are completely broken at the moment so only executive action is possible. This dramatically limits the levers that can be pulled.
- weej 4y ago
  > This dramatically limits the levers that can be pulled. I don't disagree, but this feels like slapping a bandaid on a bullet wound. It's unclear to me how this will fundamentally make improvements at the source of the problem vs. temporary forgiveness. What do you think it would take to gain some majority alignment to actually move the needle effectively?
- wszfahwbwbaha 4y ago
  > at the moment Sorry pal, but they won't be getting any better. You're seeing the slow decline of a country.

qqqwerty 4y ago

Well the only lasting legislative achievement of the Trump administration was to pass a tax cut for the rich, which was almost assuredly counter to the populist platform that he ran on. Politics are about promising everything to everybody and then once in office, figuring out which promises you can break, and which you can't. Biden (and the Democrats more broadly) have a fairly diverse base with a variety of key interests. And the lesson from the Obama years was that slow playing policy changes in the name of bipartisanship was a great way to get destroyed at the ballot box in the midterms. I would certainly prefer that an action like this was implemented after we got inflation under control, but I am also not living pay check to pay check with a load of student debt. And if something like this, on balance, keeps hope alive for the midterms then I guess I am onboard.

Group_B 4y ago
It's funny because I worked my ass off to pay back my federal loans. I paid those off first because the interest is higher. Will I retroactively get a refund? Why can't they just give every student 10K in cash? That would definitely help with paying off my private loans. So many questions that need to be answered. Maybe I'm overreacting, but the whole thing is ridiculous.
- qqqwerty 4y ago
  I understand where your frustrations are coming from, but I think you need to put this in perspective. $10k isn't that much money. For example, we give an order of magnitude more in tax breaks to middle class homeowners. And let's not even get started about the deprecation shell game that real estate investors can exploit. As a renter who has been on the home ownership sidelines for about a decade at this point, I get super frustrated about these types of things. Why should my taxes subsidize home owners, while those very same NIMBY home owners make it harder to for me to eventually afford a house by restricting supply. Housing is just one example. Our tax laws and spending programs are littered with benefits for the wealthy and powerful. And there are factions in our political system and media that want to distract you from that fact by directing your anger and frustrations at student debt relief and pandemic stimulus check recipients. These one time payments to people in need will in the long run be a rounding error on your lifetime tax burden. If you really can't stand the "inequity" of this program, I recommend that you go out and take some debt financed extension classes. Then make sure you are making under $120k. And then sit on that debt until the next round of relief. Hopefully that will make you feel better. In a perfect world, we would fix higher education. But that would take a political consensus that does not seem remotely possible in the near future. And in the meantime, we have a pro-democracy political party that is desperately trying to keep a coalition together in order to stave off an opposition party with authoritarian impulses. I think throwing the coalition a few bones is well worth the cost.

pessimizer 4y ago

> The intention is great and all. Helping out students that were affected by the pandemic. I think the intention is trash, and just a cynical way of getting young Bernie Democrats on board before the midterms. I'm a believer in forgiving student debt when making community/state college free, not before. Otherwise, it's really just a transfer payment made to millenials/zoomers. The reason you forgive student debt is the same reason you let people out of prison for drug possession after you legalize drugs. You've raised the standards of what people have a right to do, and you're going back in time to correct your mistakes. They don't have a lot of choices, though. When your base is Occupy Wall Street and Wall Street, it's going to look like a lot of your choices are arbitrary. edit: also, a bailout hazard like this will inevitably raise the price of college.