I have no desire to increase executive power either, I complained when GWB did it. I warned Democrats when Obama doubled down on it..... and I have watched as President Trump drove right over the separation of powers. Right now, the President is spending on projects without congressional approval, he is voluntarily taking money ear marked for something else, and spending it on what he wants to spend it on. No one is stopping him and neither party is saying much about it. So it CAN be done.
Sure, and what happens when it doesn't get congressional approval? What has happened to the wall the President has wanted to build at the border when he hasn't gotten the congressional money he wanted? The wall is still being built, because the President has decided to take the money from somewhere else. The reality is right now......... a strong argument can be made that a President can get around congressional budget approval to do what he wants. Also recent history shows that once a President is sworn into office, he doesn't usually walk back the increased powers from the prior administration.
I don't think it should be outright forgiven but anyone should be able to discharge it via bankruptcy, maybe that's the middle ground.
You're correct. There are other options (none that anyone is really championing, but whatever). However, you are dealing with people who will not even discuss the problem. Some of these people are even on your own side. Given that climate, you don't start the conversation/negotiations/debate with "here's my milque-toast proposal". This is what Republicans understand about power, politics, and government that Democrats (specifically neolibs) just don't. It will only hurt him if other high profile politicians start pushing more plausible and nuanced plans, but so far not many have. If the time comes and the solutions are "student debt forgiveness" and "lol same **** different day" you can reasonably expect option 1 to carry the day. As I said in my first post in this thread, this is Bernie moving the window of acceptable ideas to the left, which is badly needed after the last 40 years of neo-conservatism domination. I may not 100% agree with him, but he is performing a critical function.
I'd 100% be OK with this. There's no reason student debt should be treated differently than other debt.
Do you think this is a good thing for the GOP? They got power at all costs, but it meant becoming beholden to a small group of extremists (tea party), being unable to functionally govern, and ending up with a crazy person in Trump, which in turn means giving up on all the things they actually claimed to believe in - free trade, healthy immigration, etc. The last thing I want is for the Democratic Party to become a mirror image of the dysfunction on the right.
Who is "they"? Bottom line, in late 2008, regardless of how we got there, we had two choices: 1. Do nothing and create a new great depression, mass poverty, etc. 2. Do a bailout of some sort to save the economy. The bailout that was negotiated cost the taxpayers ZERO and saved the economy. Please explain why this was a bad option. Beyond that, comparing that to a bailout that would actually cost a ton of money - and not solve the problem going forward - is stupid. Again, I ask: what happens to the next generation of students? Do they accumulate debt again, and we just have a donut hole of a limited group of millennials who got a free bailout? Has the cost of college been addressed? What problem does this actually solve?
I get that this idea may be too far but a lot of replies in here sound like "These people in the past suffered...so people in the future should as well." or "I did it this way, they should to." Person #2 isn't affected by this at all, so I'm not sure why they would care. Person #4 suffered and just because someone had to do multiple jobs and go to school doesn't mean it should be that way. Just because that person had to suffer through that period of their life doesn't mean we have to be fair and make others in the future suffer. Otherwise nothing ever changes in the future. Right now we know our economy is suffering because of this debt and we know young people aren't starting families because of it as well. It's affecting how they vote and this is why they continue to go left and further left.
This proposal doesn't fix the cost of education. The people in the future would suffer either way. Sure they do. They missed out on $100,000+ of free education that would have let them have a better career and better life. They chose to put a ceiling on their life because it was an economically rational decision at the time. Again, this policy does nothing to help anyone in the future. They have to make the same tough decisions, except now there's hypothetical possibility than 20 or 30 years from now, there might be another random bailout.
I don't really see or agree with the parallel you're drawing. I think the main disconnect here is that when you hear Bernie Sanders say "forgive all student loan debt" you hear "forgive all student loan debt". When I hear Bernie Sanders say "forgive all student loan debt" I hear "definitely not going to forgive all student loan debt but we will end up with something that marginally addresses the problem, ramping up slowly until we find a sweet spot, or die, whichever comes first".
I paid off $130K in student loans over the course of a decade so I know the pain of student loans and the pain of seeing others not have to pay it off. Despite that, I think it's ridiculous that anyone graduating from a 4 year college has to deal with that kind of debt when starting a job.
It does fix the price for people in the future... "The proposal package also includes making public universities, community colleges and trade schools tuition-free." Who cares if they missed out on something they didn't need? People that go to trade schools never needed college in the first place. So they are missing out on something they already knew they did not need. That's part of the issue is that we drive everyone to go to college just to get into debt when trade school would have been more optimal. As for the ceiling on their life, that's their decision if they have given up on whatever dreams they had to become a car mechanic or something. It's not just a bailout, it's also a plan to make college in the future debt free.
Tax revenue is tax revenue. If you take $1.5 trillion from the 1% to give to student loan borrowers, that is $1.5 trillion that cannot be used to benefit other members of our society, including the blue collar. You will be giving, often times affluent, doctors,lawyers, dentists.. etc.. etc.. "free money" which will not go to programs to help the working poor.
Right. This is what the GOP does on a lot of issues, take the most extreme position and end up with something that favors them in the end. As someone mentioned earlier, it's pushing the overton window. I don't know if Bernie is though, I'm sure he really believes this can be done as he's a true social democrat and he sees other countries educating their youth without them collecting massive debt and thinks we should be able to do that too. In the end, he pushes the discussion leftward.
I'm with Major. I'm not a fan. The student loan debt problem is largely the fault of poor decisions by students (granted with the help of lenders and schools). You have to fix the problem for future students first and foremost, and then work on helping those currently saddled with debt. For current student loans, I like the idea of offering them 0% interest rate if they use autopay. It allows them a way out from under the mountain of constantly growing loans.
