President Biden thread

Published

Wow.  No one has started such a thread yet?

After promising that most K-8 students would be in schools in the first 100 days,  apparently Joe is afraid to lead on this and has drastically scaled back that goal.

Instead, we're shooting for about half to go to school at least one day a week,  by the end of April.

https://www.usnews.com/news/education-news/articles/2021-02-09/bidens-goal-for-school-reopenings-suddenly-became-more-attainable

 

1 hour ago, toomuchbaloney said:

I don't remember you whining so loudly about the individual tax payor cost to give the wealthiest a tax break during Trump's single term. I guess hypocrisy isn't a concern for you.

It does make me proud that working class folk were the focus of that government initiative and not the wealthy. WE THE PEOPLE deserve to benefit from their tax dollars too.

Big difference between a tax cut and just giving money to people who signed agreements to repay their own education costs.  The money should come from school endowments not tax payers.

1
Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in NICU, PICU, Transport, L&D, Hospice.
1 hour ago, Tweety said:

If a person believes spending through taxation is "taking away" then tax cuts are giving people back their money.  I've seen this analogy before.  If one believes this way, there's no hypocrisy there.

To me the hypocrisy is being worried about the deficit but supporting tax cuts that added to it at least in the short term.  I think the final analysis of how the tax cuts may or may not have helped got complicated by covid and its aftermath.

 

https://www.manhattan-institute.org/trumps-fiscal-legacy

We've had many discussions about the tax cuts during the Trump administration.  Research is showing it did benefit the middle class.  As you remember though I was against it for a variety of reasons.  

https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/584190-irs-data-prove-trump-tax-cuts-benefited-middle-working-class-americans-most/

Still... the cost of the Trump tax cuts for the wealthiest to the working class is ignored by MAGAphiles and Republicans as they fret about student loan forgiveness (that primarily benefits the working class) as an unacceptable cost. The hypocrisy is consistent. 

2
Up Vote Up Vote ×
15 hours ago, heron said:

You’re welcome. It was the least we could do after forgiving all those PPP loans to the likes of MTG and Matt Gaetz.

I didn't need any assistance paying off my obligation.  I'm not sure how transferring my student loan debt to the tax paying public rights the wrong of forgiving the PPP loans of those you mentioned?

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Hospice.
2 minutes ago, Beerman said:

I didn't need any assistance paying off my obligation.  I'm not sure how transferring my student loan debt to the tax paying public rights the wrong of forgiving the PPP loans of those you mentioned?

And student loan recipients are not also taxpayers?

Up Vote Up Vote ×
19 minutes ago, heron said:

And student loan recipients are not also taxpayers?

Yes.   What's your point?

Up Vote Up Vote ×
15 hours ago, Tweety said:

You're getting 20K and the burden per tax payer is $2,500, a figure I've read a couple of times.  So you personally aren't really having anything taken away are you?  

The burden really falls on people like myself, someone paying high taxes with  very little write offs and a middle income that is seeing nothing for the $2,500 cost to me.  You're welcome.

I'm happy that Biden was able or at least try to keep his campaign promise but I also can't say I approve of the 400 billion cost (an estimate over 30 years).   But it beats bombs I guess.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/02/student-loan-forgiveness-could-cost-2500-per-taxpayer-research-finds.html

https://www.npr.org/2022/09/27/1125272287/student-loan-forgiveness-cost-billion

I didn't say I was getting anything taken away from me.  

I'm getting a big benefit, that I didn't need, at the expense of folks like you.

At least you acknowledge it's a rotten deal.  Others here just can't bring themselves to admit the same.  When we discussed a few months ago, some even claimed they're happy to help out others, like myself.

 

Up Vote Up Vote ×
15 hours ago, Tweety said:

If a person believes spending through taxation is "taking away" then tax cuts are giving people back their money.  I've seen this analogy before.  If one believes this way, there's no hypocrisy there.

Correct.  

Transferring my debt to everyone else, including those who make much less money, is a different conversation then letting people keep more of what they earned.

15 hours ago, Tweety said:

To me, the hypocrisy is being worried about the deficit but supporting tax cuts that added to it at least in the short term.  I think the final analysis of how the tax cuts may or may not have helped got complicated by covid and its aftermath.

Disagree.   Most of us who support tax cuts also think the govt spends too much money.  Tax cuts isn't the problem regarding the deficit.  Govt spending is.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
15 hours ago, toomuchbaloney said:

I don't remember you whining so loudly about the individual tax payor cost to give the wealthiest a tax break during Trump's single term. I guess hypocrisy isn't a concern for you.

It does make me proud that working class folk were the focus of that government initiative and not the wealthy. WE THE PEOPLE deserve to benefit from their tax dollars too.

I'm not whining.  You're helping me pay off my loans.  We're having a great couple of years, but will still be slightly below the threshold.   

Thank you!

I'm thankful to the WalMart workers, the single mom taking my Burger King order, and others who are taking on the loans of people like me.  

I'm glad Biden cares about people like me, and isn’t simply trying to buy votes.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
14 hours ago, Rose_Queen said:

Is it that you're really having 20k taken from you, or are the predatory loan companies just not making as big a profit?

I took out a $15,000 loan for grad school. I made 53 payments totaling $12,000 before the pandemic pause. My balance, currently not accruing interest? Still near $10,000.

I still have undergrad loans too, which because they're consolidated aren't eligible for the pause. I have been paying on it since November 2005, for a total of $19,954 of the $21,266 borrowed. My loan balance is just shy of $6,000, and that's at an incredible interest rate of 1.625%.

Student loans currently have an interest rate of about 5% for undergrad and a little over 6% for graduate. I don't even want to know what private loans are charging. As a nation, almost everyone is told they need to go to college to get a good paying job. These are KIDS not even out of high school applying to colleges and filling out the FAFSA for student loans. There is little to no education about what it means when someone so young signs up to take the loan. And I don't even want to hear about how older folks were able to work for the Summer and pay tuition - tuition has gone up at an exponential rate while wages, especially the minimum wage those Summer jobs would pay, have not.

I have no issue with requiring people to pay back what they borrowed. I do, however, take issue with using educational loans to make obscene profits. That 10k I may get? Doesn't even cover all of the interest I have and will continue to accrue. I will have more than paid back what I borrowed.

You took out some dumb loans, or haven't been working very hard to pay them back.  230 bucks a month to pay back 15k, apparently at not a great rate, =

You mentioned it, but seemingly don't realize that the real problem is the tuition costs that skyrocketed over the last 30 years.

 

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Public Health, TB.
2 hours ago, Beerman said:

I'm thankful to the WalMart workers, the single mom taking my Burger King order, and others who are taking on the loans of people like me.  

And you know for certain that Walmart workers and a single mom working at Burger King don’t have any student loans? 
According  to one source I found, 57% of students who take on student loans do not graduate. Or that single mom may have been with a deadbeat who skipped out. 
please don’t project your life experiences onto to everyone else.

2
Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Med-Surg.
8 hours ago, Beerman said:

Disagree.   Most of us who support tax cuts also think the govt spends too much money.  Tax cuts isn't the problem regarding the deficit.  Govt spending is.

I'll stand by what I said and we'll agree to disagree.

I completely understand that conservatives want to cut spending to help with the deficit.  I also understand that deficit spending is the root cause of the deficit.

I also understand that cutting revenue did not help with the deficit.  I also do not understand that those so concerned about the deficit stayed silent about it and bought into the idea that they would pay for themselves.

(This article is from 2020 and is old news now, as is the tax cuts which we talked about ad nauseam at the time so I'll drop it.  Like I said I'll stand by what I said.)

Quote

Less than a week after Treasury Secretary Mnuchin repeated the fanciful claim that the Trump tax cuts of 2017 would pay for themselves, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) proved him wrong. If tax cuts actually paid for themselves, they would reduce deficits based on faster revenue growth that comes from faster economic growth. Deficits immediately shot up after the 2017 supply-side tax cuts. And CBO forecasts that those deficits will continue to stay high for the foreseeable future. This is the opposite of tax cuts paying for themselves.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/christianweller/2020/01/29/trumps-wasteful-tax-cuts-lead-to-continued-trillion-dollar-deficits-in-expanding-economy/?sh=43db548266c4

Here's an article from 2021.  

Quote

A Change in Priorities 

This increase in the federal debt means that formerly budget-conscious Republicans in Congress have done an about-face on fiscal policy.

For example, in 2011, Republicans supported the Budget Control Act, which automatically cut spending across the board between 2013 and 2021.8

 These mandatory spending cuts were called "sequestration."

In 2013, Republicans threatened to not raise the debt ceiling to force budget cuts.9 That would have forced the U.S. to default on its debt. Fortunately, better-than-expected revenue meant that the debt ceiling debate was postponed until the fall.10

In these instances, congressional Republicans were focused on limiting debt and deficit growth at the expense of government functioning. However, with the TCJA, Congress passed a law that significantly increased both deficit spending and the federal debt.

https://www.thebalancemoney.com/cost-of-trump-tax-cuts-4586645

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Med-Surg.
8 hours ago, Beerman said:

I'm thankful to the WalMart workers, the single mom taking my Burger King order, and others who are taking on the loans of people like me.  

Most likely while that person is paying for medicare and SSI taxes, and a load of other taxes like sales tax, etc. they are getting deductions that allow them not to pay the taxes that pay back your loan.  Again, the burden falls on people with a higher income and felt hardest by us in the middle area since we're not rich enough.  

Just sayin'

Quote

In total, about 42.9 percent of U.S. households paid income tax in 2021. The remaining 57.1 percent of households paid no individual income tax. In that same year, about 66.9 percent of U.S. households with an income between 40,000 and 50,000 U.S. dollars paid no individual income taxes.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/242138/percentages-of-us-households-that-pay-no-income-tax-by-income-level/

Up Vote Up Vote ×
+ Join the Discussion