The intention is great and all. Helping out students that were affected by the pandemic. But the execution of this is horrible.
This is just the worst of all scenarios
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?
Sorry pal, but they won't be getting any better. You're seeing the slow decline of a country.
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.
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.
So many questions that need to be answered. Maybe I'm overreacting, but the whole thing is ridiculous.
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.
> 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.