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I think one of the things you're saying is that "whatever legislation ends up passed was the best legislation that anybody was capable of passing in the current

I think one of the things you're saying is that "whatever legislation ends up passed was the best legislation that anybody was capable of passing in the current political environment", which is sort of a truism. Could these exact politicians, in this portion of their election cycles, and with this opposition, etc, etc, have passed something better? Almost by definition no, because those are all the parameters of the system. A different result would imply a different upstream. You're also misrepresenting "B. Nothing happens. Everyone's debt stays the same." That's not an accurate description. Every expensive program that gets rejected alleviates a little pressure on all the other programs that might be put in place, and the ones that get accepted put pressure on everything else to get rejected. It's not easy to say what those 400 billion would have been spent on if it weren't this, so answering the question of whether I'd pick A or B isn't easy. I personally don't think that a modified version getting passed instead that gives out less money but to a broader set of people (broader in some ways, narrower in others; the income threshold should definitely be lower) is all that unlikely. Frankly I think the version we got is surprising. So I suppose that I would pick B, fully expecting the federal government to spend 400 billion on something else that I probably won't be 100% happy with either, but which I think is more likely than not to be an improvement over what we got.

braingenious 4y ago
This is a binary situation. A year ago, nobody’s debt was getting forgiven. Today, some people’s debt is being forgiven. You are making the argument that the situation a year ago is preferable because of your desire for stricter means testing. I am glad that you were honest about picking B. To my earlier point of “fuck Walmart and McDonald’s employees with student debt because some engineers might have a slightly reduced monthly payment” is in fact your stance. By your own admission you actually do not care about the burden that student debt has on poor people, your position is solely about the “wrong” type of person getting help. I cannot fathom pretending that I care about poor people while also saying they should have crippling debt to suit my feelings.
- rcoveson 4y ago
  I feel like I could literally copy and paste my reply to your earlier comment and it would work as a response to this one, but I guess I'll just try explaining it in a different way. The way you're talking about this policy could be used to justify literally any wealth redistrubtion to the needy, no matter the amount or criteria. How would you feel if instead a policy were enacted that spent 400 billion to pay of 10k from everybody's mortage, so long as their income was less than 125k/250k (single/household)? I think that would also be a bad policy, because while it would absolutely help people, the selection criteria excludes very similar people who we have reason to believe are more in need (same demographic and same income but rent instead of own). It also includes people who are clearly not in need (high end of that income range is very low on the heirarchy of needy in this country). Even if you're in favor of that policy as well, I'm sure we could come up with one that you'd oppose, even if it did help a lot of people in need. Maybe the mortgage policy doesn't include a restriction to "primary residence", so a bunch of landlords get to benefit from it as well as long as they're not making >125k. So, by opposing that policy's enactment, are you saying "fuck you" to the people it would have benefited that were actually in need? Or are you just holding your leaders accountable for doing their job better? > By your own admission you actually do not care about the burden that student debt has on poor people, your position is solely about the “wrong” type of person getting help. My position--and I think I've been extremely clear about this--is that help should be distributed according to well-justified critiria. Both exclusion and inclusion criteria need to be carefully considered to minimize the degree to which we help people with less need more than we help people with more need. I think everybody probably agrees with that, so it feels silly to state it. I think you're just confused by the way I'm modeling the hypothetical world where this policy is not enacted. By all means, let there be 400 billion dollars allocated to social welfare. I just think this particular policy is bad spending. Also let me just say that if you're going to frame a reply using the assumption that I am just some evil scrooge who is conspiring to undermine all welfare programs to deprive the needy, and that I'm lying through my teeth when I say I'm fine with the money being spent I just want it to be spent better, then please just don't reply at all. I'm here for discussions, not flame wars.

braingenious 4y ago

This is a binary situation. A year ago, nobody’s debt was getting forgiven. Today, some people’s debt is being forgiven. You are making the argument that the situation a year ago is preferable because of your desire for stricter means testing. I am glad that you were honest about picking B. To my earlier point of “fuck Walmart and McDonald’s employees with student debt because some engineers might have a slightly reduced monthly payment” is in fact your stance. By your own admission you actually do not care about the burden that student debt has on poor people, your position is solely about the “wrong” type of person getting help. I cannot fathom pretending that I care about poor people while also saying they should have crippling debt to suit my feelings.

rcoveson 4y ago
I feel like I could literally copy and paste my reply to your earlier comment and it would work as a response to this one, but I guess I'll just try explaining it in a different way. The way you're talking about this policy could be used to justify literally any wealth redistrubtion to the needy, no matter the amount or criteria. How would you feel if instead a policy were enacted that spent 400 billion to pay of 10k from everybody's mortage, so long as their income was less than 125k/250k (single/household)? I think that would also be a bad policy, because while it would absolutely help people, the selection criteria excludes very similar people who we have reason to believe are more in need (same demographic and same income but rent instead of own). It also includes people who are clearly not in need (high end of that income range is very low on the heirarchy of needy in this country). Even if you're in favor of that policy as well, I'm sure we could come up with one that you'd oppose, even if it did help a lot of people in need. Maybe the mortgage policy doesn't include a restriction to "primary residence", so a bunch of landlords get to benefit from it as well as long as they're not making >125k. So, by opposing that policy's enactment, are you saying "fuck you" to the people it would have benefited that were actually in need? Or are you just holding your leaders accountable for doing their job better? > By your own admission you actually do not care about the burden that student debt has on poor people, your position is solely about the “wrong” type of person getting help. My position--and I think I've been extremely clear about this--is that help should be distributed according to well-justified critiria. Both exclusion and inclusion criteria need to be carefully considered to minimize the degree to which we help people with less need more than we help people with more need. I think everybody probably agrees with that, so it feels silly to state it. I think you're just confused by the way I'm modeling the hypothetical world where this policy is not enacted. By all means, let there be 400 billion dollars allocated to social welfare. I just think this particular policy is bad spending. Also let me just say that if you're going to frame a reply using the assumption that I am just some evil scrooge who is conspiring to undermine all welfare programs to deprive the needy, and that I'm lying through my teeth when I say I'm fine with the money being spent I just want it to be spent better, then please just don't reply at all. I'm here for discussions, not flame wars.