Damn... I think I can hear the conservatives and right wingers screeching from here...
Inb4 the "WHeRes mY REliEf?" Dickheads come out of the woodwork.
Don't forget all the pretend left wingers screaming to just sign away all debts with the waive of a pen then name dropping genocide and BernieBro like they're helping. Oh wait, they're already here lol.
CANCEL CULTURE HAS GONE TOO FAR 😡🤬🤬 /s
$5b out of $1.5T
He's doing what he can. The Supreme Court is not letting him forgive all of it. He tried.
Blame the SC
Or all the Republican states' attorney generals.
Weird way to spell constitution. Get congress to do their job, and Biden wouldn't have to violate the separation of powers to unilaterally try and do things he's not permitted to do.
Honestly an interesting take. The executive has steadily ballooned in its power over the years. Personally I'm glad Biden has the power to at least do this, but would I be happy with Trump or another bad actor having similar latitude in other areas? Tough questions. Of course, these are the same tough questions of checks and balances and federalism that we have been debating since the founding.
That's exactly it. Everyone cheers it when it's their guy, without realizing that a relatively weak executive branch is one of the best safeguards we have against tyranny. Expanding that power sounds great for now, but if Trump takes office again, do we want him having the power to spend on whatever he wants without congressional approval?
Yes there's still a lot to go, but that's still better than $0 of $1.5T, and 74,000 lives have been improved.
What did the other presidents do?
Pump oil and kill brown children. Same as every other president.
Who has the oil barons?
Also new student debts being created ever day..
It's an amazing thing for those individuals it helped, but unless you stop the system, you're just shifting the debt on to other people, and the problems it causes on to a future society, not actually fixing anything or improving society in any substantial way.
Well I'd rather the doctor drill a hole in my head to relieve brain swelling than have them wait for a MRSA vaccine/cure while I suffer and die
False equivalence much?
They aren't even giving people money which they could use, they are deleting debt - an imaginary number on a computer there to hold poor people hostage to benefit the rich.
Is not having the debt loom over you a huge relief? Of course it is, I've been in debt, I know the stress it creates.
Is it equivalent in urgency or impact to a life threatening medical condition? No. Especially when your solution is to just shift that life threatening condition on to someone else.
Unless you're also happy to shift a life threatening condition on to someone else too?
Either way, it's the epitome of the "fuck you got mine" mentality, and demonstrates why it's so fucking easy to placate you people - you only care about your own comfort, not the wellbeing of society.
I thought it was an apt metaphor, if an imperfect one. We can issue relief while also working to address the root of the issue, which is also what I was getting at with the analogy. The doctor treats the dangerous symptoms but that doesn't mean they aren't also prescribing antibiotics or that other doctors aren't working for cures etc.
That is to say, Biden is pulling the emergency release here with his hands tied. Real reform has to come via legislation, but relieving immediate debt is a good thing for those it impacts.
Also, it shifts the burden onto "someone else"? Don't these former students pay taxes? I'll happily relieve their debt with my tax dollars, but again that does not mean I think this is the final solution. It's merely a band aid
That’d only be true if people would have otherwise not taken out their new student loans, which seems highly unlikely.
Unless you’re worried about the poor wittle loan agencies.
I guess we should just do nothing then.
The "argument" that something should be absolutely perfect to warrant taking any kind of action on it, has to be one of the dumbest possible ways of thinking about things.
Just forgive it all, for fucks sake.
Pretty sure he was about to do that, only to have republicans take it to the supreme court where it was struck down. I don't get why there's still this narrative of Biden being the bad guy because he can't just wipe out all student debt, and why some people keep framing that as his choice. I thought we all watched that SCOTUS case play out in real time.
There was never an attempt to cancel all the student debt. If he had done that from the jump, the court case would have been a lot weaker.
Wut
Here’s the fact sheet for the first cancellation move: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/08/24/fact-sheet-president-biden-announces-student-loan-relief-for-borrowers-who-need-it-most/
$5-10k for lower- and middle-income borrowers. The legal challenge was that this was discriminatory (and it was.)
If the first action the Biden administration took was to cancel all the student debt the federal government guaranteed, the legal challenge would have fallen flat because the “injured parties” would not have been injured. Instead we’ve gotten this piecemeal bullshit designed to appease voters who are justifiably angry with the Biden administration but will have minimal impact on the actual problem of student debt or availability of higher education.
I see. So do you think it was intentional?
I do. One of Biden’s longest-running bases of support is the financial industry, and any move that might suggest debt shouldn’t be a fact of life will scare the banks. In a more general sense, Biden is as much a machine democrat as Hillary Clinton, and for them anything that might disrupt the status quo is an absolute no-go. Student debt forgiveness for all would be a massive shock to the status quo.
That's too conspiratorial for me. I'd have to see evidence of some kind other than past associations.
Thats the problem with politics pretty much anywhere. You rarely get anyone spelling out their actual motives. For an example of what it sounds like when a political strategist speaks openly, google “Lee Atwater southern strategy.”
All politicians talk and think like that, it’s just they’re usually really good about hiding it.
he would if the supreme court didnt strike it down...
The case before the Supreme Court was based on the exclusion of some borrowers. The first action was to forgive $5-10k for low- and middle-income borrowers. The people who sued were well-off enough that they weren’t included. If his first move had been to cancel all student debt guaranteed by the federal government, the plaintiffs would have lacked standing to sue and the case would likely not have gone to the Supreme Court. If it had it would have been a much weaker case because there would be no group of borrowers who were excluded.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
WASHINGTON — In a new wave of student loan forgiveness, the Biden administration is canceling $5 billion in debt for 74,000 borrowers, many of whom worked in public sector jobs for more than a decade.
Since the ruling, the White House has launched a series of smaller relief programs.
“My Administration is able to deliver relief to these borrowers — and millions more — because of fixes we made to broken student loan programs that were preventing borrowers from getting relief they were entitled to under the law,” Biden said on Friday.
In December, Biden approved about $4.8 billion in student debt cancelation for more than 80,000 borrowers.
The Supreme Court struck down Biden's student loan relief plan in June, arguing that the program was unlawful because it was not explicitly approved by Congress.
Biden said in Friday's statement that "we are continuing to pursue an alternative path to deliver student debt relief to as many borrowers as possible as quickly as possible" in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision.
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