***Official Political Discussion Thread***

[mplsdunk]

aepps20 will bring more unity that any politician.

 

[Zainjal26]

If people want to be upset he didn't use executive action to forgive 10K students loans, go-ahead. That is fair

Using him not extending to payment freeze (like he said he would), as a data point he is doing the opposite of what he said makes no sense

One of his main talking points in the primaries and his campaign was student loan debt. He did none of the things he promised regarding student loans

 

[mplsdunk]

To be fair his term is far from over so he might have something in the pipeline which is doubtful but yeah…

He also kept talking how he was pro labor so I’m curious what he is going to do about people getting locked at work and dying in tornados and Kelloggs.

Twitter posts don’t count.

 

[RustyShackleford]

One of his main talking points in the primaries and his campaign was student loan debt. He did none of the things he promised regarding student loans

-Student loans was not one of his main talking points during the primary

-He has canceled billions in student debt for specific payers

-Him restarting payments in February is actually keeping his word. He literally said this would be the last forbearance when extended the freeze.

-If he said him wiping out 10K off everyone's student debt, guess what, that does nothing for repayment restarting for the vast majority of loan payers. Because the two are not typed

 

[elpablo21]

To be fair his term is far from over so he might have something in the pipeline which is doubtful but yeah…

He also kept talking how he was pro labor so I’m curious what he is going to do about people getting locked at work and dying in tornados and Kelloggs.

Twitter posts don’t count.

That 10k is done. He already mentioned leaning on the legislative body to do it (when we know it's not happening there ever)

 

[mplsdunk]

That’s all he ever does is hide behind them and manchin.

 

[aepps20]

aepps20 will bring more unity that any politician.

If you ask my coworkers I'm a lib and MAGA depending on who you ask.

 

[elpablo21]

That’s all he ever does is hide behind them and manchin.

To be fair alot of this **** is on them. Infrastructure and the BBB getting gutted. He cant force Manchin and Sinema to not be scumbags anymore. I'm not putting every Republican being scumbags on him either. Bernie, Liz, Pete, ect would be all facing the same thing on these bills

This one thing though he could have legally got done without them and he ran away from it (well he didn't say he would sign a executive order but still). Joint was a layup

 

[mplsdunk]

If you ask my coworkers I'm a lib and MAGA depending on who you ask.

unity

 

[mplsdunk]

To be fair alot of this **** is on them. Infrastructure and the BBB getting gutted. He cant force Manchin and Sinema to not be scumbags anymore. I'm not putting every Republican being scumbags on him either. Bernie, Liz, Pete, ect would be all facing the same thing on these bills

This one thing though he could have legally get done without them and he ran away from it. Joint was a layup

nah I know, I’m just doing what we do here and blame the president for everything.

bruh all he had to do was pass voting rights laws, 10k student loans and legalize some weed or something and people would be happy.

 

[aepps20]

unity

I remember back last year a senior partner was telling me how liberals were destroying America and I instinctively said, "liberal conjecture and innuendo ruined this country". He nodded in agreement like this

I went back to my office and shook my head.

 

[mplsdunk]

This is why I don’t speak when I’m in the office. I’d let some qanon **** fly as a joke and next thing you know I got a new best friend I never wanted.

 

[Wargames]

**** Elon Musk. He’s a self absorbed flim flam man.

 

[elpablo21]

nah I know, I’m just doing what we do here and blame the president for everything.

bruh all he had to do was pass voting rights laws, 10k student loans and legalize some weed or something and people would be happy.

Got you

 

[Wargames]

If people want to be upset he didn't use executive action to forgive 10K students loans, go-ahead. That is fair

Using him not extending to payment freeze (like he said he would), as a data point he is doing the opposite of what he said makes no sense

Idk … it’s like one version implied “I want to help you” and the other version implies “**** you”…. The sentiments contradict each other. Usually it’s the Republicans who pitch “we help you by ****ing you”.

 

[mplsdunk]

We won’t tax you more if you make under 400k.

we’ll just f you over in the middle of the worst inflation we’ve seen in 40 years.

 

[elpablo21]

This one looks better

 

[RustyShackleford]

To be fair alot of this **** is on them. Infrastructure and the BBB getting gutted. He cant force Manchin and Sinema to not be scumbags anymore. I'm not putting every Republican being scumbags on him either. Bernie, Liz, Pete, ect would be all facing the same thing on these bills

This one thing though he could have legally got done without them and he ran away from it (well he didn't say he would sign a executive order but still). Joint was a layup

People think it is a layup, but it actually isn't.

Let me walk through the politics of this thing to show while I wish Biden does eventually try the executive order, the situation is not like online progressives make it out to be.

Biden actual plan, the one he laid out on the campaign trial was actually this...

Forgiving student debt for low-income and middle class individuals who have attended public colleges and universities

I’ve also directed my team to develop a plan to forgive federal student debt relating to the cost of tuition currently held by low-income and middle-class people for undergraduate public colleges and universities, as well as private Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and private, underfunded Minority-Serving Institution (MSIs).

The concept I’m announcing today will align my student debt relief proposal with my forward-looking college tuition proposal. Under this plan, I propose to forgive all undergraduate tuition-related federal student debt from two- and four-year public colleges and universities for debt-holders earning up to $125,000, with appropriate phase-outs to avoid a cliff. The federal government would pay the monthly payment in lieu of the borrower until the forgivable portion of the loan was paid off. This benefit would also apply to individuals holding federal student loans for tuition from private HBCUs and MSIs.

This proposal would be in addition to my existing student debt proposals:

• Immediately cancel a minimum of $10,000 of student debt per person, as proposed by Senator Warren in the midst of the coronavirus crisis.
• Those earning less than $25,000 per year will not have to make monthly payments and will accrue no interest
• Those earning more than $25,000 per year will pay no more than 5% of discretionary income toward payments
• After 20 years, the remainder of federal student loans will be forgiven without any tax burden
• Those who participate in public service will be eligible for additional federal loan forgiveness, including $10,000 per year of forgiveness for up to five years.

I would finance this new student debt proposal by repealing the high-income “excess business losses” tax cut in the CARES Act. That tax cut overwhelmingly benefits the richest Americans and is unnecessary for addressing the current COVID-19 economic relief efforts.

The Warren part is was part of the first Covid Relief bill. It was not included for a lot of reasons (price and objections from Republicans). The Dems instead thought checks were a more important demand.

This needs an act of Congress and is not just forgiving 10K. It is means-tested.

-The Dems still have one budget reconciliation to use next year. That is where it was speculated they would do student loan reform. The first BBB proposal was 6 trillion and was specualted to include student loans. Manchin, Sinema, and others said **** no and that is when the original deal was cut for the dual-track BIF (around 1-1.5 trillion, to be mostly paid for) and BBB (3.5 Trillion. to which 2 trillion should be paid for). We know now how much Manchin and Sinema been ****ing over the Dems since then by going back on their word.

To forgive 10K for every would cost like 300 billion on a CBO score (30 billion a year for 10 years), or around 1 trillion for 50K for everyone. That is before you get into reform loan repayment programs.

The CBO already said they won't accept IRS collection to offset the cost fro any reconciliation bill. So they have to raise it through taxes. And this is before BBB exposed Sinema's ****ery on taxes.

-Biden asked for the Dept. of Education memo on if he had the legal authority to do mass student loan forgiveness because it is a legal question as to if the courts would accept it. A right-wing court at that. This is the legal question at hand...

Can student loan debt be canceled by executive order?

Can President Joe Biden cancel student loan debt with an executive order? Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.,

www.politifact.com

The Higher Education Act
The key provision that advocates of cancellation cite comes from the Higher Education Act, which was originally signed in 1965 and has been updated since.

Specifically, the law grants a presidential administration, via the Education Secretary, authority to "enforce, pay, compromise, waive, or release" government-held federal student loans. Indeed, the Higher Education Act provided the authority for President Donald Trump and Biden to pause student loan debt payments during the coronavirus pandemic.

However, experts disagree on whether the president can authorize widespread debt cancellation through an executive order. There’s enough of a legal question that any move by the president would likely prompt litigation, experts said.

"There are instances of presidents' executive orders being thrown out in the courts because they take actions that were not authorized by laws in the past," said Jason MacDonald, a political scientist at West Virginia University.

The Trump administration saw this kind of judicial pushback with its initial travel ban for people from Muslim-majority countries, MacDonald said.

While modest efforts to roll back student debt might not prompt legal obstacles, "the more ambitiously this authority is used, the greater the possibility of a legal challenge," said Judith Scott-Clayton, a professor of economics and education at Columbia University.

One of the contested issues could be Congress’ past changes to the Higher Education Act that cited narrow conditions under which student debt may be forgiven. Past federal legislation has addressed debt relief for teachers and workers in the public sector, cases in which schools close before a student earns a degree, and cases of a student’s death or disability. It’s not as clear whether blanket forgiveness would pass legal muster, experts said.

Similarly, the Higher Education Act’s authority to "compromise, waive, or release" has typically been used in the past for loans only in unusual circumstances, on a case-by-case basis, and for loans that are not expected to be repaid. Despite many recent graduates’ heavy debt loans, it’s not clear that all of their loans would be deemed unpayable.

A president wiping out hundreds of billions in government debt by executive order, for reasons beyond what it has usually done for student loans, is kinda unprecedented

Now the memo probably has already been prepared. If it says he can, then that just puts political pressure on him to do a fiscal stimulus when it is ill-advised to do so. If he says he can't, he probably doesn't want out there to piss off progressive when he is trying to get both sides to play nice to pass BBB. Besides Biden trying, he has not been able to protect progressive demands from catching Ls. Progressives (frankly me included) would be inclined to say "**** it" do it anyway

The issue is, that if Biden tries it and gets swatted down, people might get have to pay a large lump sum upfront, for an amount people thought was forgiven. Especially if he structures it like Warren's plan (he definitely can't do it like Warren's plan though, that might get thrown out by a liberal judge).

So it is not as simple as just "sign the order Joe". But of course, people don't want to hear that.

 

[RustyShackleford]

We won’t tax you more if you make under 400k.

we’ll just f you over in the middle of the worst inflation we’ve seen in 40 years.

Who promised this? It certainly wasn't Biden

 

[mplsdunk]

Who promised this? It certainly wasn't Biden

he said that over and over.

 

[RustyShackleford]

he said that over and over.

He said he would raise taxes on people making under that, not over

He marked "middle class" as people under 400K

He has literally been proposing tax increases on the rich all damn year.

He supported the original BBB framework that Bernie wrote that was supposed to be financed by tax increases on the rich and stronger IRS enforcement on them

 

[elpablo21]

People think it is a layup, but it actually isn't.

Let me walk through the politics of this thing to show while I wish Biden does eventually try the executive order, the situation is not like online progressives make it out to be.

Biden actual plan, the one he laid out on the campaign trial was actually this...


The Warren part is was part of the first Covid Relief bill. It was not included for a lot of reasons (price and objections from Republicans). The Dems instead thought checks were a more important demand.

This needs an act of Congress and is not just forgiving 10K. It is means-tested.

-The Dems still have one budget reconciliation to use next year. That is where it was speculated they would do student loan reform. The first BBB proposal was 6 trillion and was specualted to include student loans. Manchin, Sinema, and others said **** no and that is when the original deal was cut for the dual-track BIF (around 1-1.5 trillion, to be mostly paid for) and BBB (3.5 Trillion. to which 2 trillion should be paid for). We know now how much Manchin and Sinema been ****ing over the Dems since then by going back on their word.

To forgive 10K for every would cost like 300 billion on a CBO score (30 billion a year for 10 years), or around 1 trillion for 50K for everyone. That is before you get into reform loan repayment programs.

The CBO already said they won't accept IRS collection to offset the cost fro any reconciliation bill. So they have to raise it through taxes. And this is before BBB exposed Sinema's ****ery on taxes.

-Biden asked for the Dept. of Education memo on if he had the legal authority to do mass student loan forgiveness because it is a legal question as to if the courts would accept it. A right-wing court at that. This is the legal question at hand...

Can student loan debt be canceled by executive order?

Can President Joe Biden cancel student loan debt with an executive order? Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.,

www.politifact.com

A president wiping out hundreds of billions in government debt by executive order, for reasons beyond what it has usually done for student loans is kinda unprecedented

Now the memo probably has already been prepared. If it says he can, then that just puts political pressure on him to do a fiscal stimulus when it is ill-advised to do so. If he says he can't, he probably doesn't want out there to piss off progressive when he is trying to get both sides to play nice to pass BBB. Besides Biden trying, he has not been able to protect progressive demands from catching Ls. Progressives (frankly me included) would be inclined to say "**** it" do it anyway

The issue is, that if Biden tries it and gets swatted down, people might get have to pay a large lump sum upfront for all the unpaid student loans. Especially if he structures it like Warren's plan (he definitely can't do it like Warren's plan though, that might get thrown out by a liberal judge).

So it is not as simple as just "sign the order Joe". But of course, people don't want to hear that.

Ok so there's definitely some layers to it I see now. Still disappointed but understand the maneuvering it would have required

So it's a PJ Tucker layup. Possible but success rate unknown

 

[mplsdunk]

He said he would raise taxes on people making under that, not over

He marked "middle class" as people under 400K

He has literally been proposing tax increases on the rich all damn year.

He supported the original BBB framework that Bernie wrote that was supposed to be financed by tax increases on the rich and stronger IRS enforcement on them

thats what I said he said under 400k he wouldn’t increase taxes and tax over 400k more.

 

[RustyShackleford]

thats what I said he said under 400k he wouldn’t increase taxes and tax over 400k more.

My bad, I misread your post. Apologies famb

 

[mplsdunk]

My bad, I misread your post. Apologies famb

i was hella confused.

Like I give af about someone paying student loans a or higher taxes if they make over 400k.