Biden vs Trump 2024 Political Platforms, Policies and Issues

[Biggerboat1]

zorg1000 said:

Biggerboat1 said:

I feel you're being tad harsh here. I think there are a number of issued with this policy, if I'm understanding it correctly. Firstly it's treating a symptom rather than addressing the underlying cause. Is this gonna have to happen every decade to bail out the next generation? Why will their situation be any different than the current crop of debt-saddled graduates?

There's also a fairness component to this. It's not like your example above where an entitlement is given to people who's date of birth falls after a specific date. This forgiveness will treat people of the same age, studying the same courses at the same colleges, from the same backgrounds, differently based on whether they've been proactive in paying off their debt or not. Those who've endeavored to repay their debt will get nothing, whereas their contemporaries who've made it less of a priority will be let off the hook. In some instances this will be because some have made more money than others, but let's be honest, it's also because some people are more fiscally responsible than others.

It also potentially sets up a weird incentive structure going forward. Are future graduates gonna rush to repay their debts when they know there's a chance that it'll be done for them if they just wait it out...?

I live in Scotland and our fees get paid by the government. The loan that we take out for rent & living costs are repayable only when your income hits a certain threshold (27K per annum atm).  I think it's the case that whatever doesn't get repaid after 30 years is forgiven. This seems like a much better setup as obviously nobody is going to keep their salary under 27K just so they can dodge their loan in 3 decades time. But it also assists those who haven't been able to generate a decent income for whatever reason.

Bottom line, I think the US needs to address the route causes here rather than this measure, which yes, will help some vulnerable people, but will also reward others who've not been motivated or responsible enough to repay their debt when they could have, so I can see where chrkeller is coming from with some of his points tbh.

I briefly mentioned in one of my earlier responses that while I support student debt forgiveness, it is just a band-aid that doesn’t fix the underlying issues with the system and we will be in the same situation before long if those issues aren’t addressed.

I can understand the fairness aspect to a small extent, like of course it sucks if you recently paid off your loans and then shortly after that a bunch of people get theirs forgiven but at the same time I’m not for people suffering because others had to. I’ve never had student debt and this doesn’t benefit me in any way but I still support student debt relief because I think helping out my fellow Americans is good policy.

Overall I agree with you that we need to fix the problem at the source, Biden wanted to offer 2 years of tuition free community college which wouldn’t solve the issue entirely but I believe would have been a step in the right direction. This would incentivize more people to attend community college instead of jumping straight into a 4 year university so they would in theory only be getting loans for 2 years rather than 4. This could also potentially cause universities to lower tuition in an attempt to stay competitive.

On top of that, like you mentioned, having people start to repay those loans only after a certain income threshold is met is a good idea. Also, making federal loans interest-free or at the very least extremely low like 1% as the government should view these loans as an investment in its people that will better be able to contribute to and expand the economy rather than a source of future revenue and profit.

I think we agree in large part. It'd be interesting to see a breakdown of debtors who feasibly could have paid off their loans, based on their income, vs those who stood no chance, but doubt that info will be forthcoming.

Just thought that the language being used towards chrkeller was a bit spicy. Everybody draws their lines in a different place, for him nationalized healthcare would be welcome, but not higher education, especially as he points out when there are other systematic problems in the existing system that could be addressed first.

It's just a bit reductive to say that unless you think government should fund either none or all sectors that you're a hypocrite...

Anyway, chrkeller is more than capable of defending himself, it just concerns me when discussions on the left/center-left descend so quickly into ad homs.