GOP Blocks Senate Debate On Dem Student Loan Bill 834
TheGift73 writes with this quote from an AP report:
"Senate Republicans blocked a Democratic bill Tuesday to preserve low interest rates for millions of college students' loans, as the two parties engaged in election-year choreography aimed at showing each is the better protector of families in today's rugged economy. The 52-45 vote to begin debating the legislation fell eight votes short of the 60 needed to proceed and stalled work on an effort both parties expect will ultimately produce a compromise, probably soon. For now, each side is happy to use the stalemate to snipe at the other with campaign-ready talking points while they are gridlocked over how to cover the $6 billion cost."
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Obama knows how to play politics if anything. (Score:2, Informative)
What's even more funny is that Republicans are running ads against Obama for how much total student loan debt there is out there. There actions here would either (a) increase debts, assuming the higher interest rates don't keep people from going to college, or (b) keep people from going to college.
Yep. they are showing themselves to be *sooo* much better.
Do you not know that Democrats blocked a Republican bill to lower student loan interest rates just last month? The fact that you hammer Republicans for this either shows blatant bias or extreme ignorance on your part as well as whoever submitted this article.
HERE [mcclatchydc.com] is an article explaining it.
Wrong (Score:2, Informative)
This will not make any difference to those, who are getting the student loans, not at all.
In fact with the latest developments that the student loans are forgiven in 15 to 20 years and that the monthly payments cannot exceed 10% of so called 'discretionary spending', which starts at the yearly amount exceeding 2 minimum 'poverty levels' ($16,000 per person or abou 35K for a family of 4), it means that a person making 50K a year will have to pay maximum of 10% of (50K-32K) per year, or $150/month for 15 to 20 years. If the person makes 100K/year, this goes up to maximum of $567/month.
If you actually knew someone with student loan debt, you would know where your error is in your assumption.
First of all, the loan forgiveness only applies to federal student loans. Most students have a mix of federal, state, and bank-supplied loan money. Hence even if the federal loans are eventually forgiven, the others are still accruing interest.
Second, the bank-supplied loans in particular are notorious for being cruel to those who took out the money. Interest rates are free to change at a moment's notice and some people have seen double-digit interest rate increases in single years.
They shouldn't be paid to do that in the first place, who in their right mind would give a loan to a USA student going to major in sociology? WOULD YOU?
Yes, I would. And I would wager that in reality, you would as well. You don't believe what you present to slashdot, as we have already seen. Would the real roman_mir please stand up?
Re:Obama knows how to play politics if anything. (Score:3, Informative)
How is it that reducing the funding by 33% *isn't* an attack on women if reducing the fund by a lesser amount *is*?
Re:Obama knows how to play politics if anything. (Score:2, Informative)
the part of the bill that made the low rates expire this year wasn't the democrat's idea. the dems haven't had a filibuster-proof majority in the senate in years and republican palms needed to be greased to get it passed. hence the expiration date.
Re:It just causes tuition inflation. (Score:4, Informative)
The only way to bring tuition prices down is to reduce the amount of money that can be spent on education. It's not like the universities are not going to fill seats. They have class rooms and teachers that cost them money regardless of how many students they have...
That's a nice idea, but the UK (except Scotland) has recently conducted this experiment for real, and what actually happens when you cut government funding is that tuition fees rise, fewer young people go to university, youth unemployment rises, and the universities end up laying off qualified staff and replacing them with students:
UK university applications down as fees rise [bbc.co.uk] - "With fees rising to up to £9,000 per year, the impact has been biggest for England's universities - down by 9.9%. In Scotland, where Scottish students do not pay fees, there was a fall of 1.5%."
UK university applications in 'steepest fall for 30 years' [guardian.co.uk] - "The proportion of UK students applying to start degrees in the autumn will drop by 10% this year, a university leader has predicted – the steepest fall for 30 years."
Youth unemployment soars, and it's not just a phase [guardian.co.uk] - "But it's not just the shocking tally of more than a million unemployed 18 to 24-year-olds that should worry us... there has been a very sharp rise in the number of young people who have been claiming unemployment benefit for more than a year. There were just 6,000 in 2008, but that has increased by more than eight times to just short of 50,000."
The University of Cambridge has offered all academic and non-academic staff the chance to take voluntary redundancy [varsity.co.uk] (can you imagine - one of the world's top universities - offering *all* employees cash to volutarily leave employment?)
Thousands to lose jobs as universities prepare to cope with cuts : Post-graduates to replace professors [guardian.co.uk]
Re:Obama knows how to play politics if anything. (Score:5, Informative)
I'll take the $250 billion deficit and continue working within the party to reduce that number over the $1500 billion with no chance of having any effect whatsoever. So tell me, who is the fool?
Ummm, the deficit is largely the result of an economic collapse preceded by said control of legislature and executive branch.
That's like blaming the firefighters for all of your property destruction when the arson is the one who lit the fire. "Water damage in my house has increased 500% since the firefighters showed up!"
You can attempt to solve a deep recession through stimulus and tax cuts. BOTH cause deficits and BOTH cost money.
The GOP lit the deficit fire and now they're blaming the people who are saddled with fixing it.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DTVAKoOCx_A/TmeDk3PCsqI/AAAAAAAAEI8/Jn-l5tyOcI0/s1600/Fiscal%2BMess%2Bwith%2BBush%2BTax%2BCuts.JPG [blogspot.com]
Re:NOT an improvement (Score:4, Informative)
Unregulated free markets absolutely require an oppressed underclass and an immobilized middle class in order to generate the desired outcome of maximum profitability for the people at the top. Any other configuration is suboptimal for those aims.
Nonsense. This is precisely what I called making shit up. If one looks at real markets that are as close to unregulated as they get, such as the stock markets, one doesn't see any of these features.
I did no such thing. Just because it does not fit your ideology does not mean it automatically qualifies as "making shit up".
Profit, which is what players in the market seek, comes when a commodity is sold below or above its cost. Profit is maximized only when people are exploited. If everything on the market sold strictly at cost then there would be no exploitation but also no profit.
And in order for there to be people to exploit (to maxmize profit) there needs to be distinct divisions of economic class. A free market that is optimized for profit is also optimized for exploitation of the under classes.
I don't know why you conflate markets with other social problems, but markets aren't responsible for class structures nor oppression of others. That's the domain of human beings who've been doing it longer than the idea of free markets have been around.
You are almost right on that matter. Of course, you likely either won't read this far in my reply or you will misinterpret what I just said. I already said that the market itself can't hurt people, but you conveniently overlooked it because you would rather focus on furthering your misinterpretation of my demonstration that your ayn rand / ron paul fantasy world would require oppression and exploitation.
,br> A market itself is just as agnostic towards the condition as a gun is agnostic towards a murder. Both can be used as instruments of destruction but neither is responsible on their own for the destruction. However much as a gun makes murder easier, a completely unregulated market accelerates exploitation of lower economic classes because that is what must exist to maximize profit.
If a completely unregulated free market truly presented equal opportunity for all, then profit would approach zero. As profit moves further from zero, so does exploitation, oppression, and destruction of opportunity.