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."
Re:Where are the parents? (Score:2, Interesting)
*woooossssssshhhhhhhhh*
That was sarcasm by the GP. The 'M.R.' was supposed to be either "Mr. Republican" or "Mitt Romney". He was pretty much insinuating what you just said.
The Dems are playing games (Score:1, Interesting)
When crafting the original bill that is expiring soon, the Democrats purposely had the bill expire during a presidential election year so that they could play the blame-game and claim that Republicans hate students and only care about the rich. The Dems have no intentions of extending the original law.
It just causes tuition inflation. (Score:3, Interesting)
Why did the price of housing go up and up? Sub prime loans. you can blame wall street for making it worse but the prices were ticking up for years before wall street got involved. The prices started going up with the cheap government loans.
What we can see from the universities that they're responding in the same way. The more you increase the loans the more the tuition goes up. 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... so if you reduce what can be spent on education rather then causing kids not to get educations it will probably cause prices to come down.
Furthermore, the US is giving national tuition rates to foreign students. That's US tax dollars paying for someone's education that isn't even a citizen and isn't likely to stay. So what exactly is the point?
I don't know... I have a lot of problems with the current way we finance tuition. They're the only loans you can't escape by declaring bankruptcy and that strikes me as wrong. There is no legal obligation that you shouldn't be able to escape by declaring bankruptcy. Everything from child support to a student loan. And I know what people are saying, lowlifes will just ditch their obligations. Yes they will. Which is why you don't loan lowlifes money in the first place. As to single mothers getting screwed out of alimony... well, it's a reason to make your separations demands reasonable. If the alimony is so high that it becomes in his interest to declare bankruptcy then you're asking for too much. Pointblank.
Just a little house cleaning and a lot of these problems will go away.
Re:Obama knows how to play politics if anything. (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't think it is true that both parties do not value the small guy, rather the small guy doesn't have a lobby and if he did, what would it lobby for? The crazy-quilt of American politics looks that way because Americans look that way.
I have a suggestion. Since the U.S. should value education for its citizens to compete in the world, and since the Republicans believe in free enterprise, and since the Democrats dislike the oil companies for whatever reasons, let's take the $6 Billion the federal government gives in tax breaks/subsidies to the oil companies and use it to cover the student loan rates. What Republican could be against a government directed industrial policy, what Democrat could be against screwing the oil companies out of a few bucks? Everyone wins.
Re:Obama knows how to play politics if anything. (Score:4, Interesting)
No difference. (Score:4, Interesting)
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 the person gets a loan of 100K, just to pay the principal for a person earning 50K /year, it would take 666 month or 55 YEARS, and that's only principal, at that point the interest rates absolutely does not matter, because he'll stop paying after 15-20 years, so he'd pay less than half of just principle out in that time, the interest rate does not matter.
This is political nonsense, not reality, what is happening in gov't, the reality would include realisation that gov't shouldn't be in business providing any loans to anybody in the first place, so that with the decreased fake demand, the number of students would drop off and prices would go down dramatically.
Why is it a good thing for the number of students to drop off? Because how many students take these loans, adding to the national debt, while not working, adding to the national deficit, requiring this money to be printed or borrowed (and the real interest rates WILL go up eventually, and there is already over $1T of unpaid student debt out there). The huge numbers of students are only going to the colleges to get worthless sociology and literature degrees, or go into law, etc.
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?
If you wouldn't personally, why would you want the entire system to do that?
Besides, rather than creating this false demand and forcing debt on the people, creating all this debt and worsening deficit, it would better for those very students to enter the workforce much sooner and without debt they'd be better off anyway.
Of-course the political elite on the left want to create this 'popular issue', which really only makes the situation for the students worse, and simultaneously this artificially decreases the work participation rate and thus artificially decreases the unemployment rate, so these student loans are handed out for political propaganda. OTOH the colleges and universities etc., are getting a sweet deal - huge numbers of gov't backed students, who don't actually CARE about the cost of education, as long as they get whatever loans is given to them, and those who can do basic math realise that it's in their best interest to go to the most expensive school.
In fact schools need to start including things in their curriculum that are as expensive as possible - how about trips all over the world as part of 'classes'? How about buying every student a house and an expensive car and all the furniture, electronics and clothing they want? Why not? If the system is on the hook for it and the students are capped at how much they will have to pay back anyway, it only makes sense, right?
Nobody sees this for what it is.
Re:Rightwing extremists (Score:3, Interesting)
Fascists.
Terminate Patents of Nobility (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Doesn't anyone care about the country? (Score:2, Interesting)
And please don't bring up the tea-baggers... that is not a party, it's a lap-dog of the Republican party that's just a little too wacky to gain support from intelligent human beings.
You're the one who brought them up and with that tiresome insult no less. At least the Tea Party is attempting to fix things. What are you doing?
Re:Republicans know there constituency... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Once again (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes the prices would go down, but not even nearly enough to let the truly poor students enroll. So what do you do about them? Give them loans, based on their own income? The income of nearly every student is near 0. Give them loans based on the income of their families? What about parents that don't support their children? Should those kids be prevented from getting an education?
Re:Obama knows how to play politics if anything. (Score:5, Interesting)
How much greater is your income because you received those loans and could go to a much better school? How much more skilled and productive are your work colleagues because they took similar loans to attend a better school? And let's not pretend that either social security or medicare will "go broke". There are going to be drastic cuts in benefits, but they've _always_ been "broke". They're not designed to hold a reserve fund, they're designed to churn their taxes pretty directly into the benefits allocated at the moment.
This doesn't automatically make these loans or programs loans a good investment or justified, but it seems important to provide the basic counter so people are reminded what the real issues are when someone makes a confused, self-serving claim like this. After all, the anonymous poster probably isn't on fire right now: why is he paying taxes for a fire department he's unlikely to need?
Re:Obama knows how to play politics if anything. (Score:4, Interesting)
I feel the same way but after my father died of a heart attack after working an 11 hour day in a boiler factory I figure it's money well spent since those things are taking care of her since he's gone. It's not as good as what he used to get for health insurance but it's better then nothing for a woman who's had 18 major operations in her life.
I can't use my insurance on her like her and Dad used theirs on me when I was little so that's all there is. If that stuff lasts till she passes on I'll be satisfied even if there isn't anything left for me.
Re:Loan forgiveness (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, if you can get a loan of any size that is capped either in absolute years of payment or only as a percentage of your earnings or both (as is the case here), then it makes absolute sense to get the biggest loan possible and to use it for all sorts of purposes that have nothing to do with education.
Why not buy yourself a house? You are already graduating with a mortgage anyway. Why not buy yourself a business? Then you can make the monthly payments without any problems at all.
Basically any sort of price control or wage control or interest rate control (which is price control on money) or any other artificial limitation only sets a level, above or below which weird things can then happen that were not anticipated (or were, but people didn't care).
Minimum wage, as an example, creates a bottom, below which people can't find work and below which it isn't possible to create jobs. At the same time it sets a bottom to the prices of goods and services that rely on the jobs at those levels.
With maximum interest rates, it absolutely makes sense to get loans that are huge and that can be used to make a spread, as the banks are doing right now - 'borrowing' from the Fed at 0% and 'lending' to the Treasury at 2-4%, so this makes a nice spread - easy money, but below the surface these banks are insolvent the moment real interest rates go above 2-4% and the Treasury is bankrupt as well, and the Fed obviously too (which can't in practice be bankrupt, but they can cause inflation and hyperinflation in worst case scenario).
Basically all wage and price controls create artificial consequences where there will be abuse, naturally, which is only to be expected, but somehow "nobody could see it coming", which is political nonsense of-course.
Re:Obama knows how to play politics if anything. (Score:5, Interesting)
Thus why you should vote Constitutional Party -> Libertarian -> Independent -> Republican -> Abstain in that order for every politician.
I completely agree, but unfortunately, a vote for anything other than the major party you are closest to is a vote for the one you are not. The only way for a third party to stand a chance beyond the little onesies and twosies here and there is to change the system. The easiest and least disruptive way to do this is to only declare a winner at the state level in any federal election if one candidate receives more than 50% of the vote. If no one receives 50%, the top two vote earners go into a runoff. This would allow voters to vote for a third party without fear that a vote for and independent would ensure that your last choice wins.
Re:Obama knows how to play politics if anything. (Score:5, Interesting)
Alternatively, you could charge young people vast sums of money for their education
Why are the sums of money "vast"? College tuition and fee rates have gone up much faster than the rate of inflation. Why do you think that is? Other things have increased at this rate as well. Health care, for example has also increased at this rate. What do these things have in common? Well, one this is that someone else is paying for them. See, with health care, insurance companies and government will pay a set minimum for procedures. When there is a minimum that payers will pay, what do you think the minimum price will be? The laws of supply and demand no longer applies.
The same can be said of higher education. When students can apply for grants and easy-to-get loans, they can afford more than they can truly afford. When a provider may charge more for a service and still maintain an adequate customer base, they will. Universities may charge more because students can artificially afford to pay more. Before easy loans and grants, students were able to work a summer waiting tables or manning a booth at a mall, save that money and use it to pay for the next year of school. This is no longer the case. Now students must either get student loans or have very wealthy parents.
When I went to school in the early 90's, my tuition at a state funded college was about $500 a semester. Books cost me another $200 or so. Other little piss-ant fees like parking and such would run me another $100. Of course, I didn't stay in a dorm or get a meal plan as it was cheaper to live at Mom's. I was able to work summers and part time during the school year and paid for the whole thing in cash.
Re:Once again (Score:2, Interesting)
And preventing education is an investment in the future of the republican party. A combination of poverty and ignorance is the best environment for their ideology to grow and spread in.
It's sad when bullshit talking points get modded up.
I think you are confused. The Republican party is about self reliance. We want people to take care of themselves. You can't have personal freedom without personal responsibility! Republicans know that government handouts is not a way out of poverty. All it does is multiply the problem. The best social program is a job!
Re:Obama knows how to play politics if anything. (Score:3, Interesting)
Wow, yet again I'm glad I don't live in America. In Australia, we have loans, but they're by no means as draconian. We even had free tertiary education for a long time. The fees we pay are a tiny fraction of what students in the US have to pay, but our our education system is still world class. I think it's better to allow more equal access to education (without the need of scholarships) as you end up with more of a student meritocracy rather than only those whose parents could afford it.
On top of that, we are a very wealthy nation. I don't want to rub in the: 40 hour weeks we work; the 4 weeks of holidays we get a year, or the the 3 months of long service leave we get every 10 years; but it is worth a mention as well as these kinds of rights lead to healthier societies.
I don't want my comments to sound anti-American. They're not. I like most Americans quite a lot and have visited a number of times. (I'm an avid skier!) However, it seems to me that a lot of people, especially the young and disadvantaged get a raw deal in the US. It also seems to me that the US is hell bent of making the super rich even wealthier whilst spending on insanely expensive military systems with money that could give people educations that didn't bankrupt them, whilst benefiting and transforming society for the better as a whole. Regrettably, I see a lot of injustice.
I'm not sure how it works in the US, but any loans we have made are only required to be paid back as percentage of our income once we reach a certain threshold. I hope you have a similar system...