4 ms·

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

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
https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/21/politics/surprise-medical-billing-congress/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/21/politics/surprise-medical-bil... > Stopping unexpected billing nightmares is among the few issues to enjoy broad cross-party support on Capitol Hill and in the White House. President Donald Trump, who called on lawmakers to end the practice in May 2019 and in his State of the Union address in February, issued an executive order in September directing Congress to act before the end of the year.

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

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/21/politics/surprise-medical-billing-congress/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/21/politics/surprise-medical-bil... > Stopping unexpected billing nightmares is among the few issues to enjoy broad cross-party support on Capitol Hill and in the White House. President Donald Trump, who called on lawmakers to end the practice in May 2019 and in his State of the Union address in February, issued an executive order in September directing Congress to act before the end of the year.