Sure, but I don't think it is productive to think of every policy with economic consequences as a bribe. Most people think of bribery as avoidable bad behavior. If government is to function at all, then politicians can't avoid enacting policies with economic consequences. Thus, it doesn't make much sense to me to describe all such policies as bribes.

I mean that’s certainly possible. See how Obamacare vs the ACA vs individual provisions in Obamacare polled in 2010.

Silly question. Washington Post is your answer.

You are not distinguishing about how silly and empty the points you keep trying to make are. They are the definition of 'whatabout, talking points' that are almost exclusively echoed on the far right media or a few independent media shows like Breaking Points.

again I always say this to you but you have a unique, if we are to believe you, to never read these far right bad takes and to come to those same conclusions, or you are lying about it, or at best you do not realize how you are impacted by them and honestly think these are just your organic views.

I am inclined to believe the last. You generally just do not understand how the right leaning media and talking points impact you and you think you are making real good points in this forum until it is pointed out to you its yet ANOTHER empty far right talking point.

by design

by design

if you call a crumb a handout.

why would he do that?

again why would he do that?

a crumb to the young people (like I guess if 35+ is young but ok) while the entire industry siphons billions. who is benefiting from this?

it would cost a lot more votes to "reform the education system". no one is gonna give up that exploitation train.

The above is correct.

In a semantic way you can call any policy that gives citizens what they want a bribe but then the word has little meaning as almost all of politics is a bribe. The exceptions being things like 'tough medicine' stuff like 'we need to fix the New Orleans levees before they break' stuff that people are typically not excited to vote for and are fine pushing down the road.

A 'bribe' in gov't context should be restricted to when a politician votes against their constituent or own interests because some special interest is throwing money and support at them. Manchin and Sinema are the exemplars of being bribed, taking positions by looking at the cheques coming in and personal self interest.

Lozen, you really need to get with the program and understand the only true sources of information are the Democratic Party and Mainstream rightwing media outlets. well, not those rightwing ones. the Dem ones.

Your post was a whatabout bringing up Trumps Tax Cuts which you will never find a post that I support it.

If you think its only Republicans that think this student loan debt is a bad idea think again. There have been some prominent Democrats voicing that they do not support this.

MY point was I think this may hurt democrats in the midterms just as the abortion thing will hurt the GOP. Not sure how that is a Right wing media narrative

Building on the above, America is the country that it is because of investing in the MC and improving their life.

The gov't programs that that build MC wealth (including debt alleviation) pay back multiples more across generations, then the gov't invests. They create massive surpluses.

They also provide the best long term benefits to the uber rich. America is just in this tough time as a maturing nation, where the Wall Street financial wizards see these mass pots of MC wealth as easier to loot for short term gain, then investing long term in the MC for more gains, due to the pressures of globalization. Thus why they push things to now loot MC wealth, like all the Housing Bubble games, that ended up taking a mass amount of MC wealth and transferring it to Wall Street. Thus why they are focused on SS and Medicare as well to loot.

America has shifted more towards a Russia type Oligarch model which is the uber rich saying 'screw it, lets loot it all to the benefit of the Elite, even if harms the long term wealth we, and the country would enjoy'.

Those pressures are very real. You will always have an Oligarch class willing to take the short term looting over the long term building.

I can get behind most/all of your criticisms, but this point never made sense to me. Are we supposed to never change anything for the better because those who have already suffered won't be able to benefit?

The last 100 years have shown that right wing ruled countries were atrocious shitholes where only the 1% were truly happy. But we also knew that Communists, as well as Nazis , don't give a **** about ordinary people therefore: Dems baaaaaaaaaad!

Yes, you’re supposed to be bitter and angry at people, that’s how the modern Republican Party is. Just watch Tucker Carlson, it’s an hour of an extremely wealthy man raging over petty grievances. I paid off my loans, I can’t fathom being mad at future generations having an easier time with it. It’s supposed to be easier for them, that’s how progress works.

It’s basically a fairy tale. There’s no polling support for this notion but it spreads around by word of mouth among people who really want to believe in it.

Is it fair to say Biden helped create the Student Loan debt?

In 2005 the republican bill to make student loan debt unforgivable in Bankruptcy ( republican Bill) had the support of 18 democrats led by Joe Biden. Im not sure if the GOP had enough votes to pass it on their own


I was shocked the same rule applies in Canada though

I don't agree with this summary at all.

What happened is what always happens. The donor class has a reflexive response post election to eliminate and stop all of the 'citizen' based promises and initiatives, while pushing to enact and add Donor based, Elite Based promises and initiatives.

It is pretty akin to Corporate V Union battles now where there is almost no give and take and each side treats it like a zero sum game if the other side gets anything.

There really is no reason to believe Biden and the Dems generally would have suffered with the base at all had they been able to introduce a broad base of their election promises directed at relief or benefits to the MC. Perhaps you could argue if student debt relief wa the only thing that got thru that might have had SOME negative impact in a segment, but as part of a broad swath of delivered promises I think not.

To start with we must accept that gov't by definition is always pandering to segments of the voter base to gain votes. Seniors and Veterans have enjoyed that benefit for decades due to being reliable voters.

So this whole exercise of getting super critical when they pander to a groups like young people, is mostly silly, unless we are arguing for a complete change in gov't where such pandering to ANY GROUP would not exist. And i do not see how gov't would function in that reality.

That does not mean one can not nitpick specific programs such as student debt relief but I would argue almost every such targeted gov't largesse to any other group, could be similarly selectively criticised.




It is simply 'Middle Class relief', or an 'Investment in the Middle Class'. See my prior post why almost ALL MC investments are +EV long term.
They actually impact the Black emerging MC more than any other group.




Yes that was disgraceful IMO. Putting student debt into a class of debt that has very unique protections to escape bankruptcy filings was just a shameful thing for Dem's to vote for. Had young people voted in higher percentages there is no way that is pushed thru.

^^^ re the above, this discussion boils down to mostly those who have enjoyed being the focus of a stream of gov't benefits (mostly white, senior, Military, etc voters) are now seeing competition for that gov't largesse, with POC and Students (Progressives) demanding they also be considered for the flowing benefits.

Those in the traditional buckets are fighting to protect their privileged perch and see this shift as threatening how much they can get. It is mostly pettiness, driven by the MSM, funded by the Elite and Corporations.

Victor, if you consider $10,000 a mere "crumb" then I salute you and your very high-income status. $10,000 is almost two months worth of net income for me; I certainly don't consider it a crumb.

If you like, you can call anything that government does a bribe, but I certainly would not agree with that. I am calling this a bribe as it is literally a $10,000 tax-free gift to certain people in America, just a couple of months before the midterms. The reason he chose to do this now is clear. If this was just good policy, Biden could have done this two weeks after he came into office.

What is your evidence that the "donor class" pressured Biden to back away from loan forgiveness? Why would the donor class have thought that Biden faced a binary choice between loan forgiveness and enacting measures that benefitted them? I seem to remember that you have argued (and I mostly agree) that the pot of money isn't hard capped and thus there isn't necessarily a binary choice between doing X and doing Y.

In any case, I was talking about whether Biden perceived a risk in the midterms. You are talking about whether there is a risk, which isn't necessarily the same thing.

I am positive that Republicans will make loan forgiveness an issue in the midterms. It's easy enough to imagine an ad that shows students filing into Harvard Law School with a running tally on the side while some poor guy who is pruning the shrubbery looks up at the camera and shakes his head wistfully. The mere fact that Republicans will make something a campaign issue isn't a reason to avoid a policy, of course. But if you know a policy will blow back on the party in the midterm, then that fact has to be a consideration -- not the only consideration, by any means, but a consideration.

I honestly don't know what effect, if any, this policy will have on midterm results. I am not so much predicting a negative impact as expressing skepticism of people who claim to be certain that this issue will be neutral or helpful to Democrats.

Student loan debt should be forgivable in bankruptcy, and it is appropriate to criticize any Democrat, including Biden, who voted the wrong way on that issue. That said, access to bankruptcy laws is a poor long-term solution to spiraling education costs. Personal bankruptcy is a devastating solution to crippling debt. It is sometimes the best option, of course, but it completely ****s up your life for years.

No.

Bahbah was doing the usual Toothsayer routine of trying to spin it as if Dem POTUS inheriting terrible economies (Obama and Biden) get the easy task as 'there is no where to go but up' spin, which is not true. Bad policy when Obama and Biden took over could have easily sent the country into severe depression or recession. It is not a slam dunk. A Trump taking over in 2020 whose biggest priority was more tax cuts for the rich could have really harmed the country. Bahbahs spin re criticism of 'Dem debt' necessitated a reply of how non critical he is of 'GOp debt' and thus the mention of the Trump debt.

This by you below was the non sequitur stretch leap.
A mostly empty talking point as there is no value in trying to equate Trump tax cuts and this student loan stuff.

I mean what value do you think is in that point? What is to be discussed? Why equate the Mountain to the Mole hill other than to try and create the illusion in some peoples minds they are all equally bad and thus 'if you were critical of Trump tax cuts you should be critical of this student loan stuff'. That is why 'whatabout's' exist.

My take on this is that the Democrats were already seemingly doing better than expected these midterms because of Republican missteps. Even McConnell seemed to acknowledge that just a few days ago. Thanks to the Republicans, Roe v. Wade was just overturned, and we see that people have a very negative view on banning abortion.

Now the focus is going to be on handouts given to spoiled college kids. Inflation is sky-high, everybody is hurting, and what does Joe do? He makes it worse with $300 billion in free money that the rest of America, particularly people that did not benefit from this at all, will have to pay for one way or another. High inflation is already a losing issue for this administration, but doing nothing about it and giving away massive amounts of "crumbs" to a small segment of society is going to rub a lot of people the wrong way.

The ads just write themselves.

Whataboutism is exactly why the tax cuts keep getting brought up. If you have the nerve to criticize the student loan debt reduction, then the immediate retort is "BUT WHY DIDN'T YOU CRITICIZE THE TRUMP TAX CUTS!" It has already been done in this thread. You can also substitute the tax cuts with the great recession bailouts or with PPP loans, as those are also popular talking points on Reddit.

it is more than that actually.


Pressures are growing on the Dem's by POC, the MC and Young people to NOW focus on them and correct some of the negligence of the past and to reverse policies that specifically harmed them to the benefit of others. This is how voting works. Those who vote in large numbers get some of the share of benefits.

These arguments we see against this are the type of "The Perfect being the enemy of the Good'. A position of if we can nitpick how these are not perfectly fair across the board to everyone, then nothing should be done, ergo just protect the status quo which currently favours the prior groups.

So is student debt relief perfect? No. But it will disproportionately help two groups who have suffered prior due to lack of Political focus re voting patterns, in POC and Young adults. Will it wipe out the prior injustices done to them? No.

But it will help them and make some amends towards past injustice. POC specifically carry more student debt due in large part to past abuses by gov't and this will be a method to help address that. But again the screams of 'it is not perfect so do nothing' ring out. A talking point pushed by those who have power and got the bulk of past benefits and who are vested in not seeing this shift, any shift, take place.

lol, it’s amazing you think giving your constituents policies that help them is some kind of devious trick and not how politics is supposed to work. I guess you Republicans could do the same thing, except —as we’re seeing with abortion— no one likes those policies. So, stay mad, I guess.

Politics = free money for the winner's supporters at everybody else's expense. That about right? Your takes are absolutely absurd, but that's par for the course. Did you have a similar giving attitude in this forum when Trump's upper-class tax cuts were passed?

I voted in Florida's Democratic primary election two days ago. I have never voted for a Republican before, though I did for for Charlie Crist for governor, and he is pretty close.