President Joe Biden vowed Friday to push ahead with a new plan providing student loan relief for millions of borrowers while blaming Republican “hypocrisy” for triggering the day’s Supreme Court decision that wiped out his original effort.
What really bugs me most about the student loan forgiveness issue is that the same people who support corporate welfare, tax cuts to ultra-wealthy, and other “economic boosting” policies aren’t supporting student loan debt forgiveness.
So you can give estate taxes more room, literally creating generation after generation of family dynasties of people that have yachts, multiple mega-mansions, and quite often never work a day of true labor in their life… BUT you can’t give the “elites” who are in DEBT for going to school a break? These aren’t the ones who graduated from Yale and went to work at daddy’s law firm. They’re neighbors, people who struggle to pay bills, part of the class that is trying to achieve the American dream by better themselves and shooting for the stars. Betting on themselves and creating a more powerful workforce, true labor, the true economic support. Because they went to go get additional training for advanced jobs, and they didn’t have the wealthy family to pay for it. And THOSE are the people that do not deserve help? What the fuck?
Call it what you want, but the only reason US students have loan debt is because it’s not covered by tax revenue, just like it is for K-12 (one of US’s ground-breaking strategies for positioning itself as an advanced world power) and like almost every other developed nation does. Punishing the poor by keeping them as indentured servants is the only truth about student loans that matters. Yet your neighbors will vote against you, support this nonsense, and then turn around and send money off to the likes of someone with a private jet. It’s so unbelievably idiotic.
What happens when 43 million people have to start paying a good chunk of their income to this expense? Will that not take away the money they could spend at other actual businesses? People who say taxes are too much will then say this is acceptable? Meanwhile supporting military spending that far outweighs student loan forgiveness? Supporting corporate tax breaks, the entities that get the actual benefit from all this additional education spending anyway? Does increased knowledge and labor not serve as one of the largest bases to our entire economy? If something is worth supporting with taxes in the name of the economy, it’s this training - which is what school is. Training for the workforce.
I’m so sick of this. I know it’s not the only illogical part of many people’s economic “beliefs” but it’s just so frustrating. The anti-intellectual movement in the US is a serious roadblock toward progress of many types, and this is one of the most severe. The US is far from the most knowledgable nation, and that’s going to make a difference. It already has. And it’s simply sickening how much some people wish pain and suffering on people in debt but will willingly support those who will never feel the pain of financial stress.
Trying to waive the balances on student loans via executive action was a fool’s gambit. It was destined to fail. Even Elizabeth Warren said Biden couldn’t do it before she changed her tune. He’s trying to abuse the HEROES act 22 years post 9/11 for a clearly unintended purpose.
A congressional act was the way to get this done from the beginning. The Democrats will just have to find a way to get Manchin, Sinema, and +1 on board without losing anyone like AOC or Talib by watering it down.
I agree it should be done via Congress, and what he did wasn’t what the HEROES act was for, but I don’t think it was a doegine conclusion that executive action would fail. I mean, 3 supreme court justices said it was fine.
Trying to eliminate that much student loan debt using an executive order was such a fool's errand doomed for failure I doubt it was ever done in good faith. It's easy to do something you know won't fly and then say "hey, I tried!"
Want to give the middle class of America a break? Cut their taxes. Eliminate them entirely. Will you have to cut spending to avoid snowballing debt? Yes, probably, but at least that will actually work.
I think it’s time to try a new tactic. Since clearly this court is only interested in hearing cases and issuing rulings for Christian evangelicals, someone needs to bring a suit arguing that their religious liberties were violated when they were forced to take a loan with interest to pay for education. Usury is a sin, both the old and new testaments speak against it, Luke writes that lenders should give with no expectation of profit or return. Paying back this loan would violate closely held religious beliefs, clearly.
On the one hand: blaming the GOP directly for this is a bit of a stretch. They stacked and influenced the court, true, but I doubt this kind of reversal was specifically something that party leadership wanted on their 2024 bingo card.
On the other hand: getting lit up like this in press releases is just desserts for what happened. Maybe next time the GOP will actually try and reign in red states when dumb no-win lawsuits like this get bandied about. Seriously: what the hell were they even thinking other than “let’s kick this hornet nest and see what happens”?
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