Bernie trying to buy some votes, but at the same time likely pissing off a larger voter base who is against this. I'm for increased tax breaks and refunds to help pay off student loans, but never to completely wipe them out. If you take out a loan you should be held accountable for some of it.
Nobody said that. I objected to your characterization of taxes as a "confiscation of your money at the point of a gun." I'd say it's more like a social contract in which you have society's consent to own whatever your after-tax earnings are. Tax money doesn't belong to you.
easy for you to say. Astrid Lindgren once owed 102% on her taxes. was none of that hers? https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/01/04/pippi-longstocking/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomperipossa_in_Monismania Spoiler https://everestlancaster.wordpress.com/2009/06/02/pomperipossa-in-monismania/
Lindgren remained a social democrat until her death in 2002, happily paying a tax rate of a mere 80 percent. In an ironic footnote, an image of Astrid Lindgren has been featured since 2015 on the 20-krona Swedish banknote.
Of course taxes are a confiscation of your money at the point of a gun. You go out into the world and earn an income, once you have established what that income is you are then forced to pay a percentage of that money to the government. It's not as if you never earned that money. If you choose not to pay that money the government will use its mechanisms to force it out of you, literally. Taxation is fine and necessary to a certain degree. If the government reduces the rate at which you are taxed though, you are not "given" anything. The government is not "giving" you anything. The government is simply taking less from you.
I can support that. If a person has to file bankruptcy student loan debt should not be treated any different than any other debt.
Write off the student loan debt or at the very least have the government charge no interest and they can just pay off the principal - it's a drag on the economy and we "spent" 3 trillion on Iraq with only ISIS and whatever other kook terrorist groups to show for it so just swallow the bitter pill. Anyone crowing about paying the tab - give me a break, you think that 22T of debt is ever getting paid back? The boomers are retiring en masse this decade and this debt pile is only going one way, and that is up. University grads not only help create jobs by using their skills to build companies, but they spend their income on things like houses, cars, etc., which creates more jobs. With that said, forgive the debt but do it with the condition that higher education bureaucracy is completely reformed. The college system has turned into a total racket. When you have the UofM paying a "Head of Diversity Engagement" (whatever that is) $430k a year, you have a system that is completely out of control fiscally. The number of university professors has grown something like 10% over the last 30 years, while administrative staff by 300%. A university education shouldn't cost anywhere near what it does today.
Per your article, she saw an injustice and participated in the political discourse and had the tax law changed. It doesn't say, but I'd guess it wouldn't apply to her own situation retroactively. So yeah, maybe a poor calibration of tax law but none of that was hers. It's probably not useful to just assert back and forth between us. But, I think it's important to recognize that you didn't "go out into the world and earn an income" all on your own. That income is possible because of the rule of law enforced by others, by infrastructure built by others, by markets established by others. The rest of society is your silent (or maybe not so silent) partner in your endeavor to create wealth. It is literally impossible for you to create wealth otherwise. You'd be a hunter-gatherer. Back to asserting. In my conception, your partner should get a cut for all the work its done to make your blessed existence possible. If you had literal investors in your business, you wouldn't complain that they were confiscating your money when they took their share of the dividends. You recognize that without their investment, your business wouldn't exist at all. Government, as the executor of society's estate, takes its dividend as taxes.
I, and pretty much everyone, recognizes the need for taxes and are happy to pay them to a certain extent. The idea that when the rate at which I am taxed is cut is "giving" me something is nonsense though. The government takes a percentage of your income and when it says, "I've decided I'm going to take less" - it is not "giving" you anything. No need for us to go back and forth on this forever though.
The bigger question is why you are flipping the F out about Semantics? Chill the hell out. Sounds like you are just trying to get all worked up about how entitled you feel to “your money”. The Trump tax cut was a clear GIVEAWAY.
If someone is taking something from you and then starts taking less, they aren't "giving" you anything.
A concept that might be more relevant to the destitute, exploited, and desperate than to people from well-to-do families who somehow make a good living despite the supposedly onerous taxes.
Lol.... are you bipolar.... you go from taxes “confiscated with a gun” and “happy to pay them to some extent”.
No, but if you're going to keep making arguments based on the assumption that taxes are a taking, then we'll never get anywhere. The conception that is very common (or does it only seem that way because of the Perception Gap?...) among conservatives that taxes "take money that belongs to people" is the crux of many of their arguments about how then we should govern ourselves. I see we won't agree about taxes, but because we won't we probably won't agree about anything else either.
I'm not bipolar... you can read everything I've written on the subject... it is true that taxes are collected by force if they are not paid... it is also true that I pay my taxes and am perfectly happy to pay them to a certain extent...
But sometimes you feel like you are staring down the barrel of a loaded gun? Laws are enforced with force, it’s how civilizations operate. Taxes aren’t theft, it’s a contract as explained to you.
This describes my experience as well you could get Pell grants and work and still graduate. If you did get a loan it was mainly for extra cash and it was less than a new car payment. I ended up getting a rotc scholarship so it was easy for me to get by.
