This seems like a pretty consequential decision https://t.co/DiyNjlygtt pic.twitter.com/ghlsYyvdl8

— John P. Collins (@prof_jpc) May 18, 2022

Worth noting that the 5th circuit shuts down regular plaintiffs all the time if they happen to sue a big company. Just a bunch of judges legislating from the bench to prevent a company from ever having to face consequences for anything they do.

This is clearly an attempt to get to SCOTUS and repeal the administrative state. It will basically kill the government to have every single regulation passed by Congress and signed by the President.

We had a good run, but it's hard to see us getting out of the next decade still intact.

It tells you all you need to know about the GOP, and their right-wing allies on the SCOTUS, that they're hunky-dory with delegating policing action to individual citizens for suspected abortions but not OK with a government agency exercising clearly defined powers delegated to it by a co-equal branch of government.

Nah, it will inly apply to the rich and big companies. Try not paying a late fee in your taxes and see how it goes.

The SEC is also given the power by Congress. Few judges just don't think it should apply to the wealthy.

A throwback to the good ol' days

George W. Bush mistakenly condemned Putin's 'brutal, unjustified invasion of Iraq' instead of Ukraine, then blamed the slip-up on age

No statute of limitations on war crimes.

Bush also called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a "cool little guy."



He's such a goober.

House just passed a bill to stop price gouging on gas 217-207. Every single Republican voted against it, so yes lets keep blaming Joe Biden for it...

In a world where Democrats were competent at elections, this vote would be front-and-center of every campaign in the fall.

Good news mostly out the Georgia primaries. Trump backed candidates are mostly getting beat. Walker did get his win, but Kemp win big over Perdue. It looks like Raffensperger might win without runoff for SOS. Also the AG Carr is winning big.
Sadly, Margie three names won her nomination.

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If you are in a safe seat, you can be as crazy as you want, and the Party will let you be.

The difference between MTG and Madison Cawthorn is that he crossed the Party. *That* is the unforgivable sin.

I am forced to watch Fox News while I am at work due to having no control over the TV channel in the rooms I have to go in. The official Fox News stance on this is that high prices are the solution to high prices due to supply and demand. High prices reduces demand which in turn reduces price. This is after months of non stop programs bitching about Biden doing nothing about high gas prices. Classic!

I feel like this SBC thing will make Warnock very easy to beat. Enough people who don’t already hate the Dems will have no interest in figuring out what the difference in Baptists are.

I don't think there are very many Georgian's that confuse members of the SBC and Dr. Warnock.

Warnock is going to lose because we live in a society where voters value celebrity and party loyalty over decency, integrity, and ability to do the job.

That is closer to likely. I believe it will more a Red wave than anything that will allow him along with all Republicans once again to win every statewide election.

Biden soon to announce $10k of student loan debts are going to be forgiven for anyone making less than $150k a year (though some are saying it might be $125k).

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Another reason why I will not be voting Democrat this fall.

Democrats, man. When crime started going up they ran on defunding the police. Now populisms is the name of the game so they’re going to run on giving free money to college graduates.

I oppose pretty much every form of government-initiated college debt relief/forgiveness, including what is apparently on the table right now.

And when I place my feelings about that, and other current misgivings about the current majority party, alongside the other major party, that is in the main effectively anti-democracy and anti-truth... this is not a close call.

Yeah, if in this very moment, someone else's debt is a deciding factor in your vote I think your priorities are absolutely fucked.

Absolutely, I’ll be voting strait ticket D this fall for sure, same as I have for a decade now. It’s just beyond frustrating watching how the party functions. They are busy arguing over what the perfect shade of paint would be for the walls while the entire house is burning down around them.

So this is just a golden group that gets a free $10k knocked off? Nothing for the next batch or any changes to student loans or college costs? Brilliant.

Leaving the policy merits of the decision aside, this seems like the worst possible political decision for the administration.

They could forgive nothing, which comes with political upsides and downsides.
They could forgive a lot, which comes with political upsides and downsides.

But they are choosing to forgive a little, which seems designed to piss off the "don't forgive" crowd AND piss off the "forgive a lot" crowd.

A lose/lose comprimise.

dola:

Though the politically fallout may not be that big of a deal in the long run. It gives people who were going to support the GOP (either by voting for them or by not voting for the Democrats) something to point to to explain their vote. But it probably does not change how they were going to vote anyway.

If you sat through COVID and January 6 and are still like "Yeah, this sure is a close one," then student loan relief probably isn't going to be the issue that sways you one way or another.

Currently it’s someone else’s debt, if this passed it would be our debt.

And shouldn’t your argument be asked of the party? What are their priorities? They are losing working class voters, being the party that’s known as hostile to big corporations and the working class isn’t going to win you much.

basically the same here


I know lefties cry foul when people like Nancy Pelosi make public calls for a "good Republican party" (or words like that) but our two party system really, really depends on both parties putting forth a legitimate set of ideas for the non-committed to assess

Shit, we were totally counting on your vote!

I will one again vote for Democrats in November but will do so in the spirit of a man throwing a sandbag in front of an oncoming flood.

if the alternative is Doug Mastriano and Dr. Oz, I'm voting D for sure. But realistically here there's no plan at all to address college costs. Expand the service forgiveness programs, and make debt dischargeable in bankruptcy.

I'd also tell Universities that if they want to accept federal money then annual tuition and fee increases cannot exceed [Some measure of inflation] -.05%

That won't solve the immediate problem. But can you imagine if we had put something like that in place in, say, 1980? We wouldn't be where we are today.

I have to vote D because I'm afraid the R's will eventually try to undermine the entirety of our democracy.

This seems like a pretty crucial misunderstanding of debt forgiveness. The debt is not passed on to anybody, it's gone. Yes that means less money will be potentially coming into the government, no that doesn't mean we somehow have to make up the difference.

So then it's kind of like a tax cut for those who have negative money instead of a tax cut for the rich?

I don’t know, I guess we’ll have to wait for specifics to be sure. According to this Brookings article, Biden’s plan would cost 373 billion, it’s from a year ago but should still be close I would think.

But to your broader point, that’s kind of ridiculous unless you are arguing that this should be a pay go proposal. If it’s not coupled with actual cuts, then it is indeed spending.

I think the sweet spot here is interest, but it's probably harder to do something through EO. Cut the interest owed by X and lower the interest rates and have them only apply for X years. I do think people would be much more sympathetic to the idea that people shouldn't owe multiple times their original balance or have higher interest payments due years after they started than when they began.

Also, politically, cutting/reducing interest in a ongoing way is an ongoing benefit to people who you hope want to keep you in office.

You give everyone a $10,000 one-time payment, then the political benefit of that is gone in 1 news cycle.

I have no idea if that could be done via EO or not.

That's not how the budget works. They/we have less to spend, so the cuts are intrinsic.

Maybe it’s time to just admit that the current Dem party sucks at this, and look forward to the next time we might have a competent opposition in 10-15 years?

For all the people who thought Trump was a plant and could be the death of the Republican Party, it’s kinda morbidly funny to see the same was actually true of Biden eight years later.

Then they couldn't afford to operate. Most of the problem is that we used to fund schools and then once boomers got their degrees, they said "fuck y'all".

The school thing is weird to me. We just sent $40 billion to Ukraine no questions asked. A tax cut for the rich from a few years back sets us nearly $300 billion in debt each year. If some banks have a rough quarter, we can't hand them money fast enough. Just a weird set of priorities.

Maybe I’m just getting stuck on semantics, but that is how the budget works. The vast majority of federal spending is already committed, the discretionary piece is tiny; so unless we increase taxes to cover the income shortfall, highly unlikely, then we will have to borrow to cover it. And that’s still preferable to the only other scenario, which I fear would ultimately boil down to giving benefits to college graduates by taking them away from the poor. Good luck being the Democrat who has to run on that.

Just say it'll trickle down to other people or something. That seems to work.

I will say it is more complex than "we just lose $200 billion of revenue". Especially when that amount would be spread over 10+ years. There is a cascading effect.

Debt like that produces nothing of value in this country. It's wasted money and a drain on economic growth. Now if people don't have that debt anymore, maybe they do something productive. It could be the catalyst to start your own business, buy a car, or have a child. Even a little excess money that can be put back into the economy toward goods and services.

It's really not much different than a targeted stimulus.

I have been saying this about student loan forgiveness for a while now. It would be the greatest stimulus we could have. Millions of 20-30 somethings suddenly having disposable income would do wonders for our economy. It would be a boom for virtually every sector. Sure, some would save it or invest it, but majority would put it right back in to the economy unlike people in their 40-60s who would save it.

I say this as someone who worked his butt off to pay 2 student loans off.

It also seems worth mentioning that the whole reason we're considering forgiving student loans is because a significant amount of people aren't paying them. That particular revenue is not coming in, whether you forgive it or not, yet still gets counted as lost by critics.

Probably for entirely different reaons, but this is me also. Depending on the race in question, there will likely be third-party candidates involved where available as well.

I like this. And colleges should be contributing to reducing debt load also.

I'm okay with some sort of debt forgiveness if there was something in exchange like volunteering for habitat for humanity, soup kitchens, more pro-bono work from lawyers, doctors/nurses helping out in rural areas, free plumbing repairs for the needy, cleaning up the parks etc. on weekends or whatever.

I like this idea also.

For the first time in my life as an independent (since 1994) I am actually going to register in a party for the primaries, just so I can vote against the loon Kari Lake in the governors race here. She is clueless, a Trump sycophant and will likely ruin this state if she is elected. I think Katie Hobbs is a viable democrat candidate and has the Dem nomination on lock, as well as my November vote.

It is sad that we have two Dem senators here, yet the state level GOP is full of so much Batshit crazy with Gosar, Ward, Rogers and Biggs. Lake would be the coup de grace if she gets elected, and I wish Ducey would grow some balls and endorse Taylor-Robson for governor on the GOP side, It's not like he is a Trump nation favorite, so go all in on sanity.

The reason the Democrats want to forgive loans is that they are trying to buy some votes.

Let's be honest, the votes of independents control the elections and I don't know that this moves the needle with that group.

Example myself, there are multiple things I want addressed before this, but the fact that so many in the GOP still embrace Trump and his BS pushes me towards Dems, not anything they are actually doing right now.

I consider myself independent and tbh this probably makes it a little less likely I would vote Dem assuming Reps come up with a candidate I can live it.

Go ahead and give refunds to those that saved up to send kids thru college without any loans. I’ll take that 2 x $10,000 tax credit now please. I promise to buy things with it that I deferred while saving 4-8 years ago

I’m really okay with some forgiveness but make the beneficiaries do volunteer work on weekends or something. Not a freebie handout

We're in the Obama 2nd term era of the Biden presidency, where he's looking for what he can do by executive order.

I see people in here saying stuff like "but apparently no plan to..." or suggesting he's not focusing on more important things. All those other college cost cutting ideas have no chance to get 60 votes, nor does anything else people deem important.

You mean the way the dumbass did with his trillion dollar a year tax cut that filled the pockets of the rich? Sort of funny how you can get angry with a lot of people getting a little help, but not that mad about a few very rich people getting tons of help. It ALL drives the economy and there's a fair bit of evidence that the lack of middle class cash fluidity is causing substantial economic damage.

That's quite a few words you put in my mouth.

ETA:

To clarify when did I ever support Trump's tax cut for the rich (other than SALT caps, and I think SALT should be eliminated entirely as it favors the rich).

Basically everything is buying votes and that's the way things should work.

Tax cuts? Buying votes.

Farm subsidies? Buying votes.

H1B visas? Buying votes.

Etc. Etc. Etc.

There's nothing wrong with voting for the people that provide the things that make your life better.

I guess that's true, the politician that robs Peter to pay Paul will always have Paul's support.

I guess I don't understand your complaints then. Dems don't deserve your votes because they are trying to come up with a solution to a problem. Is it the most pressing problem? Most certainly not, there are tons of things that need addressed, but that doesn't mean you ignore everything either. Is it the absolute best way to resolve said problem? Certainly not, but the best way is probably not possible given the current state of government. I don't know what that is, only that any sort of actual resolution seems near impossible. Is it popular? Hard to say, because the people opposed are the same ones who never went to college and resent the ones that did. But the ones that did aren't exactly on board either because they've tried their hardest to make good choices so they didn't get in these sorts of binds either. Is the status quo hurting the economy? 100% no question it is.

I haven't read this thread in months, so apologies if I missed this, but this is a factor that I haven't seen discussed about student loan forgiveness: is it for everyone???

I'm asking because I personally know literally dozens of folks who paid for law or medical school (including a significant portion of living expenses for 3 or 4 years) with student loans and of course were easily able to pay those off over time. Is there any sort of income cap on forgiveness proposals??? I'm not interested in our tax dollars going to make sure Francis Higginbotham IV is able to afford his first vacation home at age 30 instead of age 36.

Dola: Heck, my wife got a student loan for grad school. Her income more than tripled within less than a decade after completion. The folks who just happened to finish, say, an MBA last year and have 100K in debt, do they just hit the lottery?

From what I've read the income cap is 150k for individuals and 300k for married couples.

My main concern regarding is the national debt which stands at 30 trillion dollars and counting. I find it immoral and unwise to hand out money to wealthier Americans and hand the nation's youth the bill.

There are a multitude of arguments that go against that and a number of different methods of determining what is good debt and bad. Do you see it all as bad debt? What sort of policy is the best, in your opinion, for remedying the debt? Because it sort of sounds like nearly all money spent is bad.

So a couple of doctors meet in medical school, get married, are making 120K each in their first year, and we're gonna pay their >$400K in loans for them? Have they really thought this through?
Just found this by Googling a bit. Nearly half of student loan debt is for some form of grad school, so this just isn't my personal orbit of friends and acquaintances that we're talking about..

Average Graduate Student Loan Debt [2022]: for Master's & PhD


Some key numbers...

• The average undergraduate student loan debt balance is $36,635.
• The average debt among master’s degree holders is $71,287.
• The average debt among PhD holders is $159,625.
• 14.3% of the average graduate student debt is from the borrower’s undergraduate study.
• The average graduate student debt is 141.8% higher than the average debt balance among all student borrowers.

From another page on the same web site...
Student Loan Debt by Educational Attainment

• Graduate students borrow 37% of federal student loan dollars.
• 60% of undergraduate certificate recipients owe an average of $16,940 each in federal loans.
• 42% of associate’s degree recipients owe an average of $21,890 each in federal loans.
• 63% of bachelor’s degree holders owe an average of $31,790 in federal loans.
• 54% of master’s degree holders owe an average of $70,070 in federal loans.
• 45% of doctoral degree recipients owe an average of $118,360.
• 71% of professional degree holders owe an average of $199,540.

It's not often that you get to see an interesting political discussion in forums like these, it's usually disallowed. Very intriguing!

When the deficit is over one trillion dollars then I tend to see any additional spending as bad, as there is insufficient political will to increase revenue to offset the spending.

I think Biden is just forgiving $10k at the moment. I wouldn't be surprised if he forgives more in the future.

Amazon would have never made it with this business model.

Ahhh...ok. That's the piece I've been missing. It does seem clear from the data on that site I found that the higher the dollar amounts you forgive, the higher the percentage of it that end up going to help people who aren't remotely in need of help..

A lot of those undergraduates (including one of our own) don't end up getting a degree. Some quick searches indicate as many as 40% who start wind up dropping out.

(In our case, they weren't sure about continuing and dropped out in part not to accrue more debt -- for both them and us.)

We will be paying off our son's degree for a while, and it will essentially be like having another mortgage. Should be fun. If the 10k applies to us as well, I will welcome it. (We are still paying off my wife's Master's. Her salary did not triple from having it.)

Well jump on in!!!

We paid for most of our two recent graduate kids' college education but they both had some student loans to ensure they had some skin in the game (a bigger concern for one vs the other). They both did really well, graduated, and are mostly independent. The $10K would wipe out nearly all of their student loans and they'll be able to start their adult life without the additional expense. It took my wife and I 12 years to pay off her student loans.

The only caveat to this nice story is that my wife and I probably would have paid off their student loans anyway so this is probably more of a relief for us than them.

I paid off my student loan, and my wife's student loan. My daughter paid off hers. I think a 10k forgiveness based on income is a fantastic idea. It will make a real difference to many people. I also think the interest should be reduced to next to zero on loans, and they should be allowed to be discharged on bankruptcy.

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There's another part of the issue of student loan debt that I feel doesn't get talked about enough.

How about the future borrowers? It feels like we're trying to clean out the water when the pipe is still bursting.

I feel like any piece of legislation addressing students loans should address future students loans.

I'm drunk right now so don't give me shit about my prose.

Don't worry, there'll be another freebie in 10-15 years.

But good point. This is obviously targeted for here and now, and for a select group. Need to fix public college costs.

I did some work at a couple public universities. Yes, increased fees are to pay for quality teachers, but it's also to pay for amenities supposedly needed to compete better. Some truth to amenities but think they (public universities) have over done it.

Frak the list price of $40k and then grants/loans will be given to reduce the average price to $20k. Just make majority of public universities affordable upfront without all the paperwork BS which you don't know has been approved until it's too late to get into another school anyway.

Hard disagree. It a basic responsibility of citizenship to have the interests of society in mind, not just your own. Someone who is going to make my life better at the expense of others is not going to find it easier to get my vote if I have my head screwed on straight.


Absolutely so.

I'm going to assume you guys were all against Trump's tax cuts, right? And all the corporate tax loopholes which allow a huge number of companies to not pay any taxes in many years. And the corporate tax rate dropping to 20% anyway.

Right? I know I've been off the board for a few years, but I would imagine if you all felt so strongly about "handouts" you were all up in arms in the Trump Presidency thread, right?

I'm just asking questions.

I'm not 'up in arms' but my opinion on Trump is well known. I don't think he was qualified for a position as elevated as dog-catcher, I didn't vote for him at either opportunity, I was opposed to most of what he did, etc. Was I against the tax cuts while at the same time continuing to spend money like it grows on trees? Yes, yes I was.

Devil's always in the details but I'm against almost all of the 'corporate tax loopholes' I know about. I don't think raising corporate taxes tends to be particularly effective since what you want to target and what actually ends up resulting are often different things - but that's a separate issue.

100% on interest, student loans should not be a profit generating mechanism, or at least not to the degree they are now. If a single Mom works full time, goes to school, gets a degree to make her kids lives better, then has to defer the loan payments while she builds earning potential in her career, she should not see the balance of her loan damn near double at some point down the road.

In terms of forgiving a portion of loans, I also agree it should be solely based on income, not just a freebie for everyone.

Agreed entirely

We profit as a society when we educate our citizens. I'd be curious if creating a new loan type that instead of paying interest you perform community service from an approved list of options each year (I know something similar was suggested earlier) is something that's doable. Those within the financial resources can continue to use loans and skip the community service aspect by paying more while those that need the help can help their community not get overwhelmed by interest payments.

For loan forgiveness it should be as targeted as possible but at the same time I'd prefer them err on the side of being generous than not helping enough.

We also need more safety nets for people that are just so far behind on payments that it's becoming entirely unrealistic for them to pay off their loans.

I wish people had been this upset when the Fed pumped in like $10 trillion and now we have massive inflation all so the banks wouldn't have a down quarter.

Maybe the administration needs new terms. Don't call it loan forgiveness. Call it quantitative easing or something and the people complaining will ignore it.

We wouldn't benefit at all from loan forgiveness, but I'm all for it. It's weird to me that some people are against it simply because they paid their loan off. Are cancer survivors going to be pissed off if we ever find a cure for it?

I think cancer survivors that paid off their deductible and expenses that their insurance did not cover would be pissed off if current cancer patients get their deductible and expenses paid.

But Biden is proposing $10k so not equivalent because cancer survivors prob paid much more than that. There is the financial impact the older ones that paid off their medical expenses had to endure. They were not able to buy something for themselves, their kids, they did without "something" etc. because they used that money to pay off their cancer treatment.

That was me. As Mandy would say "this is the way".

The Libertarian party got taken over by racists. One of the first things they did was strike this from the party platform.

Where did you see this at? The phrase is still on their website

Platform | Libertarian Party

They just passed the change this afternoon. I'm sure it hasn't made the website yet.

They got taken over by something called the "Mises Caucus" who thinks that Hitler wasn't that bad

Yeah, I had a Libertarian on my FB list who I had to mute. He was always going on about how the Confederacy was great and all. (He grew up where I did outside Philly but claimed a relative. Whatever.)

Yeah that's a shame. From what little I've read about the group it sounds like they are bunch of Trumpians. Democrats should hope that they take votes from Republicans in upcoming elections.

I usually voted for Libertarians in the past but it sounds like I'll just be sitting home if this caucus is as bad as they seem.

Rand Paul already made me turn away from Libertarian with his BS antics the past few years. Then in 2020 we had a couple of local Libertarian candidates who were single issue, 2A candidates. It all comes off as a subset of the Trump sect of the GOP. It's like the Tea Party doesn't know which group to belong to.

This exchange reminds me of an exchange we had about the Libertarian's last real shot back in 2016: POTUS 2016 General Election Discussion Thread - Page 49 - Front Office Football Central


I've never really followed the Libertarian party too much, but if it's now another Trumpist party, I wonder if it moved to where its constituents are, or if it was always heading in that direction anyway.


As a case for following its constituents, I wrote the following about Maine in 2016 where I noted that a state that had long been pretty happy to support politicians that were fiscally conservative but socially moderate had now been split between a highly progessive south and raging populist north: POTUS 2016 General Election Discussion Thread - Page 38 - Front Office Football Central


But on the other hand even going back as far as Ron Paul, the party's been headed by folks willing to push some pretty conservative social views which I had always thought would have been out of bounds for true Libertarians (e.g. "fiscal conservative, social 'stay out of people's personal choices'").

Ron Paul, Rand Paul, and the Libertarian Party has the issue of, "take a some good ideas, grab them, and sprint off as far away from actual sanity as possible".

Of course, to be fair, that's pretty much both major parties these days, too. Way too much all or nothing in both parties.

Every time I have taken one of those surveys for political leaning, I always fall as a left leaning libertarian, small government, personal freedom, social equality. But, just like the GOP, there seems to be more extremes emerging in the that par5ty, and like the Dems, the left leaning faction of the wing is terrible at phrasing and planning. I would love a good libertarian candidate, that was not a Tea Party refugee, but then again, I would love a good candidate period regardless of party.

I almost started a new thread but also didn’t want to fracture the participants too much. Assuming trump wins the next election what are some of the first things he does? Pardons like Oprah giving away books… pull out of NATO? What else?


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He'll suspend all elections stating they're fraudulent and stay in power until death.

I think he’ll expand the supreme court by 4 and put a bunch of 32 year olds on it.

I honestly don't think it matters much. If Trump is elected again, it won't matter who else is or isn't elected, what he does or doesn't do. It'll all be rearranging seating for the End of the Republic at that point.

I don't think Rand Paul was ever a big 'L' Libertarian. He was just a Republican who invoked libertarian ideals when it suited him.