Do you drive on roads?
And now that you have, do you care to comment?
It was mentioned earlier in this thread that Pelosi said Biden couldn’t do this without congressional approval (which he was unlikely to ever get).
Well, now 94 GOP lawmakers want Pelosi to… hold Biden accountable, somehow, for his “unconstitutional and illegal action”.
Funny how they didn’t do this for bank bailouts, or Trump’s $2 trillion in tax cuts for the wealthiest 1%, or for important matters like turning little brown children into skeletons.
Once told of the Biden strategy (HEROES Act), Pelosi backed off the 2021 statement, saying she wasn’t aware of the mechanisms used when making the original comment. She actually backed down a while ago as the Biden administration has been doing debt relief for months.
Her current position is here:
Got’cha. The Republicans don’t like that kind of nuance.
The nuance of honesty? Yes.
This isn’t spending money to broadly benefit the American people. This is spending money to narrowly benefit a subset of Americans that specifically don’t need it to the broad detriment of the majority of the nation. 1/3 of Americans are against any forgiveness. Another 1/3 are against a blanket forgiveness to any/all debtors. Don’t you “basic reality” me.
You broadly benefit the American people by investing in food inspections, the military, highways, and hospitals. You don’t broadly benefit the American people by giving out free, no-strings-attached money to a cohort of people, screwing everyone who came before, and yes, after.
Back in my day, you had to fight in a war to get the government to pay your school. Now they just let anybody do it. The more irresponsible you are, the more dole you get.
Well how about the obvious consequence that you cut yourself with the other edge of that sword? You wanna explain to the class how it’s OK to be against those other expenditures but OK to be for this one? You’re not offering a justification, you’re offering a tu quoque.
Cite that these are people who “specifically don’t need it”?
One point that I haven’t seen yet in this thread was made by Matt Reed, writing as “Confessions of a Community College Dean”:
His whole article/blog post is worth reading:
They went to college. That means they don’t need it. This isn’t for people in medical debt who happen to have gone to college. This isn’t for people in bankruptcy who happen to have student debt. This isn’t for people who got fired or laid off and just happen to have these loans. This is tailored, intentionally, to people who have student loans and that’s it.
The best argument for it, in my view, is that the highest default rates are among the borrowers with the lowest balances.
This relief doesn’t go to people who default. It’s not intended nor is it directed toward people in default. You want a cite that it goes to people who specifically don’t need it? Here:
Cardiologists with six-figure debts do just fine.
There you go. Your authority just told you we forgave student debt of people who did just fine. But let him hammer home the point for you:
And the impact to the Treasury is likely small, since many of those loans were unlikely ever to be repaid anyway.
Which is why this will only cost $300 billion, a mere third of the entire military. And it’s why it only applies to people who were in default, who couldn’t pay their student loans, and only low-wage workers. In order to get the forgiveness, you have to show that your loan is essentially bad debt. Like a business would write off.
Oh wait…
So anyone who attended college – even for a semester or two – is living a healthy middle class lifestyle?
Cardiologists’ incomes likely make them ineligible.
@Chessic_Sense , did you actually read the fact sheet for who’s eligible for this, or not?
Sure. Why not. Yup, you got me. You just justified the entire bill. 
If they’re living a healthy middle class lifestyle then they have no business being helped by the federal government for absolutely no return, no sacrifice, no penalty. What part of this do you not understand?
Well, not to let facts get in the way of a good story, but:
I absolutely did. It’s an obscene threshold. It should be 40k single, 70k married. Do you think a cardiologist exceeding the income bracket means everything else is fair game? “Oh, it’s fine. So long as the highest paid professional I can think of is excluded, the income thresholds are perfect where they are.”? The dean used it as an exaggeration. I suspect you realize this. Give me the same courtesy.
I was pointing out the fallacy in your assumption that anyone who attended college doesn’t need this relief. In fact, not everyone who attended (or even graduated from) college is living a healthy middle class lifestyle, and many need this relief urgently. Sorry I was too subtle for you.
Oh stop it. Your facts get in the way of nothing. What did you think was going to happen? You thought I’d go “Oh wow, actually, most of the insane amount of money is going to individuals who make less than a-lot-of-money.” and I’d somehow change my mind about them deserving absolutely nothing? What good story do you imagine your facts are getting in the way of?
I see a lot of opinions based upon outmoded ways of thinking, and not a single citation. You’ll have fun, my daughter is flying in!
Lol, ‘insane amount of money’.
Like I said: outmoded.
We aren’t giving the relief to “many who need it urgently,” we’re giving it essentially to “everyone who attended college” even if they “live a middle class lifestyle.”
I just can’t understand the mentality of someone who thinks “many people need money urgently, so let’s give taxpayer dollars to them and also tens of millions of other people.” Are you seriously throwing up your hands and saying hey, there’s no way to tell them apart, whaddayagonnado?
Ah, no. There are various figures on the total cost, but that’s the total cost over a ten- to twenty-year window, on loans that might otherwise be paid back over that timeframe. The total cost of the military over that same 10 to 20 years will be many trillions.
The estimated cost (budget impact) in any given year is perhaps $24 billion (White House estimate) to $40 billion. Compare and contrast with the $800 billion or so the US spends each year on the military.