Biden proposes new student-loan measures after court defeat

Not every piece of legislation needs to benefit you. It’s okay if others benefit and you don’t get hurt in the process.
- I think it is down right greedy for those who will typically be the highest wage earners to get loan relief for the loans that will make them wealthy. Why not apply that to business loans as well?
  It is particularly paid by those that will have lower wages so how can you say it hurts none?
  
  It’s funny how we can print and print money for decades, we can “invest” in private industries, give them loans with favorable interest rates, billions in grants, look the other way with regards to regulations, not block anti-competitive practices, but the second we try to help actual people directly everybody loses their shit.
  Want to help the economy? That $10,000 (or $20,000) for Pell grant recipients might allow someone to save $300 more a month towards a house, a car, or spend it on goods and services. After 3 years, that’s money back in the economy rather than back to bank that have gotten plenty of help in the best.
  
  It's never been a guarantee that a college degree will put someone in the highest class of wage earners, especially for anyone who's gone to school basically since the turn of the millennium. College tuition and fees have been rising far beyond inflation and wage growth throughout the 21st century so far, without corresponding increase in starting wages for college grads to meet that rise, and with that increase in tuition and fees, more and more students have needed larger and larger loans to pay that cost. Especially for those who went to college in the 2000s, 17-18 year olds could not have predicted that the economy would go to crap (the Great Recession) by the time they graduated, or that new grads would be most hurt by it as companies handed the jobs that would normally go to those new grads to experienced workers who had been laid off, preventing those new grads from gaining the valuable experience and connections that could get them into their industries. Since then the relative value of a college degree has only continued to drop, as those companies continue to shift to valuing experience over education in their hiring practices. New college students and grads can see that now and make better decisions, but back in the 2000s, when those loans that are out there now were taken out, could you really blame a high school kid for not being an expert economist or HR pro enough to figure that would happen? Too many people think of late millennial-Gen Z people when they think of student debt burden, but the largest portion of it is actually held by late Gen X-early Millennials who are paying for the education they got in the 2000s and essentially got shafted on those opportunities they were sold on when they went to the school everyone told them they HAD to go to. (Full disclosure, I am one of those early Millennials.) Biden made a dumb decision by trying to use a law aimed at mitigating COVID economic effects to solve a problem mainly caused by the Great Recession, but it's still a problem that needs to be solved to essentially prevent an American Lost Generation from forming.
  
  Bruh. They literally just forgave all the PPP business loans.
  
  You also had to be earning less than $125k/year today to get the forgiveness. The highest wage earners were never eligible.
  
  If they are the highest wage earners, they should also be the highest taxpayers. If we fixed both issues, they would be the ones paying for student loan relief themselves.
- Hurt is a strong word but other people would be paying for that benefit.
  It's not hard to imagine someone who decided to miss out on college and take the career penalty of lacking a 4 year degree just to avoid debt feeling like it's a bit unfair to have to help pay for other peoples degrees. People who made the decision to take on the debt.
  Maybe it's would be a societal good overall but it's not like there isn't another valid side to the debate. Personally I think that money could be better targeted towards those in poverty whether they have student debt or not.
  
  That kind of thing gets subsidized all the time, just not in the form of loan relief
  It’s also not hard to imagine that an educated populace benefits everybody
  
  It's not like they got education for free. They're still paying a lot of money.
  
  I went that route and I still want debt relief for those who went through university
- What does this even mean lol
  
  It means the people fighting against it are only fighting against it because they don't get anything from it and that maybe they need to stop and consider that not every piece of legislation needs to benefit them and them only.
- That’s not the only reason to oppose this.
  All Bidens solution does is take money from the tax payers to pay off the predatory lenders.
  
  Who owns the debt for federal student loans?
  I'll wait while you learn the answer is, "Department of Education."
  Is the Department of Education a predatory lender?
  
  Predatory lenders? Biden’s plan largely targeted federal loans. That shit was pretty regulated and had very low interest rates. A pay day loan it was not.
  
  Which one are you talking about? Big corporations getting government subsidies or police getting an ever increasing budget or the military industrial complex? Ah, people being able to live life not being forever burried in debt, got it.
  
  What solution do you propose?
  
  More like Biden is taking money from the Treasury that then has to print more dollars out of thin air putting our economy even further in debt which sooner or later is going to have large ramifications.

Good, because the next best option was probably to get together and burn down the Aidvantage headquarters
- That's not off the table

Republicans propose and pass blatantly unconstitutional stuff that there base wants right before elections all the time, then gets mad when courts overturn it right after the election. I'm glad Biden finally got rid of the "legal high ground" concept and started to do some of these "the worst they can say is no" measures.
- What was passed by republicans that is unconstitutional. Please elaborate

The problem is that everything is now legislated through the courts which is now how this system was designed.
- This was not stopping legislation but instead executive action not backed up by legislation. Wouldn't the next logical step be to actually pass a law?
  
  It is stopping legislation, the Heroes Act specifically. Congress acted to give the Executive branch this power, the Executive branch acted well within that scope, and SCOTUS struck it down by ignoring the plain text of the statute.
  
  It was judicial action to stop legal executive action backed up by legislation. Unless you think Missouri actually had standing and the phrase "waive or modify" doesn't mean what it clearly means.
  
  They'll just rule against the law, too. That said, the next step is another executive order ("taking into account the ruling, here's a new EA") and a law.

Its seems as though the sentiment among the high middle class and up is:
College is important to advance in our societal hierarchy. It is not absolutely necessary but generally you are rewarded for having a higher education in more prestegious institutions.
People can afford college because they have been saving up generational wealth. Naturally, increasing costs of living shouldnt be an issue.
College should be about merit not affirmative action. Giving spots for less fortunate makes us less competitive as a nation.
If you cant see how the issues in these statements then i believe you are part of the problem.
- Wohoo I'm part of the problem! Let's go!
  
  Yay you are finally part of something! MOM GET THE CAMERA
  
  Please explain your position more thoroughly for the class so we can examine you in more detail.
  
  what part did you not understand?

I have a hard time seeing how this program is not unfair (not American so might be missing something).
My understanding is that there are 2 programs. One that helps reduce loans by 1k a year, and another one that forgives loans with less than 12k left after 10 years.
The first one seems to be ok as a measure for new students taking out loans because then it would work as a tool to encourage higher education. But as a blanket help it seems unfair as the benefitting people already made their choice and got (or are getting) their education. For the special case of people who are struggling financially I think a program that is specific to them and helps them relative to their struggle would be more appropriate, and it would surprise me if it doesn’t already exist.
As for the second program it seems to just be a gift to people who have already made their choice and completed their education, and is not fair at all to people who have consciously chosen to not pursue this because they couldn’t afford the debt. If someone is financially struggling see my previous point about more appropriate tools to help them, otherwise if they’re not struggling then what is the point of this?
Furthermore the second program also seems to be a one-off? I’m not sure here so please correct me if I’m wrong. If that is the case then it doesn’t even encourage people to pursue higher education.
- Why does it need to be fair? By that logic, we should never change a ton of things, such as tax codes, simply because they're not retroactive ("how dare the government offer a rebate on solar panels after I've already paid full price!"). There isn't really a good way to make something like student loan forgiveness retroactive and to try and do so would make it excessively expensive.
  Why should we hold back on doing a good thing just because it doesn't help 100% of people ever?
  
  I do agree with you about the core of what you’re saying, that in the end it’s a good thing to help people. For sure. But when talking about public funds you have to keep in mind priorities. In this case I can see how this doesn’t seem like a priority to some people, money is not unlimited and these funds could be used for something else. I would personally be more on board if this program targeted students who are about to get loans, I just think it would have more value to society in general than helping someone who is 10 years into their loan and not struggling financially.
  Now as I said I’m not an expert on US public finance so if you tell me that these funds couldn’t be used somewhere else anyway and would be wasted in less important projects then sure I’d revise my opinion.
- The student loan problem (and general debt problem) in the US is such a huge issue that any long term thinking politician would want to take drastic measured to reduce it, whether it's fair or not. The US put a lot of effort putting it's population into debt with each side of the political aisle having two very different mindsets:
  1: Giving people money now will help them leverage themselves out of poverty. Their good investments will help them repay the loan and then make more than they previously could have.
  2: Putting people in debt will make them unable to retaliate against anything that would inhibit their ability to make money to pay off debt (as in, no striking or protesting or anything like that because were all too financially insecure to get away with it). Those who do act out due to poverty can go to prison and be cheap labor there instead.
  Not only was the second mindset more correct, the ultra wealthy also won out because, as people defaulted on their debt and markets collapsed, the ultra wealthy with extra liquid cash during recessions scooped up all the cheapened assets.
  However, with a financial crisis based around student debt, there's no asset to even scoop up. You can't just take peoples degrees as they refuse to pay their student loans. This ones going to cause a global recession (because the global currency is realistically the dollar) for no real gain for even the ultra wealthy. People will have no money to spend on their products and there will be no assets to scoop. Anyone thinking ahead at all would really want to prevent this one from occurring no matter what.
  
  We own a home because of the student loan pause. They sure as hell can take that. There is plenty left for the rich to scoop up. The student loan pause allowed me and many others to move forward in life.
- Since you are not from the US, it might be shocking to you how much the rest of the world considers higher education to be a public good that is subsidized. In the US, the cost is born by students and their families, leaving all but the very wealthy in debt. This is a political choice, just like tax cuts for the wealthy.
  https://www.insider.com/cost-of-college-countries-around-the-world-2018-6#austria-914-2

He should propose that those who took out student loans should pay them back. That is what really should happen.
- Fuck that. I've paid more than $80k+ in extra taxes in the 6 years since I've graduated that I wouldn't have without my degree. This is nothing more than a tax break for me - the little guy. This is nothing compared to their return on investment. Totally why community college/trade school should be free, on condition you graduate or get a job in the field of study.
  
  What about those who took out loans, paid them back, AND paid $80k+ in extra taxes due to the degree they got?
  Fuck those people, right?
  If you took out a loan, you pay it back. You. Not the taxpayers.

The problem is that the president literally does not have this power. Nancy Pelosi even admitted this. It was a blatantly unconstitutional power grab that he knew would be shut down in the courts but did it anyway since he needed something to run on going into the midterms.
- Lol. Funny that you are being downvoted because you are absolutely correct.
  I guess the deadbeats don't care - they just want their free money from the taxpayers.
  
  You call us deadbeats but what about the insane predatory nature of the loans in the first place? Most of us were forced, manipulated, or scared into taking out loans at 18. Most of us also didnt have the education in the first place to understand what the loans all meant, either. "Go to college or you'll be working the mcdonalds drive-thru at 35" kind of stuff. The brain doesn't stop developing until like 27, so regardless of what society has decided, 18 year olds are still very much children.
  We were tricked/manipulated/sometimes outright lied to, and now 3/4 of the $400 payment goes to interest.
  I want to pay back what I borrowed, but at 2/3+ just going to interest, the principal never goes down. For many its still more than they borrowed years and years ago. That's what's criminal.
  
  Nobody even had the balls to reply. Just downvote and move on because they know I’m not wrong lol.

I doubt it.
- Doubt what?
  
  That it'll hold up in court probably.