Vice Presidential Debate Thread

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manly

Lifer
Jan 25, 2000
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Free college and debt forgiveness is scary? You'll have to explain that one to me as many countries offer free college to its citizens, some even offer it to any of its residents. A more educated populace certainly doesn't seem like a bad thing let alone scary.

In terms of college debt forgiveness, are you aware of how some student loans work? Because of you were I'd imagine that not only would you be for debt forgiveness but also requiring loan issuers to give back money.
Come on, you know I'm not saying these policies themselves are "scary." But do Americans want Germany or northern European levels of taxation to pay for a social democracy? Even if we did, do you trust that our federal and state governments could do so efficiently?

Not sure what you're getting at with college debt forgiveness, so please educate. I had some direct loans 2 decades ago, and I paid them off. As most people do, since they cannot be defaulted. Like I said, the problem is that the costs (and thus loan amounts) have exploded in recent years. Do you believe a majority of taxpayers are willing to wipe out all college loan debt, and are willing to pay for it?
 

ivwshane

Lifer
May 15, 2000
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Come on, you know I'm not saying these policies themselves are "scary." But do Americans want Germany or northern European levels of taxation to pay for a social democracy? Even if we did, do you trust that our federal and state governments could do so efficiently?

Not sure what you're getting at with college debt forgiveness, so please educate. I had some direct loans 2 decades ago, and I paid them off. As most people do, since they cannot be defaulted. Like I said, the problem is that the costs (and thus loan amounts) have exploded in recent years. Do you believe a majority of taxpayers are willing to wipe out all college loan debt, and are willing to pay for it?

They are your friends, I figured these would be questions you would ask them.

Most home mortgages are 30 years for four times the cost of a student loan and yet you are telling me it took you twenty years to pay yours off? How much was your initial loan and how much in all did you end up paying? Now ask yourself if you think government backed loans, that can almost never be forgiven unless paid, should be able to make X amount from interest off of you? Now think of what you could have done with that money had you not been burdened by it. How much do you think all of the things you could have done would have positively impacted the economy?

So how does paying back loans many times over help you or the country?
 
Feb 4, 2009
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Come on, you know I'm not saying these policies themselves are "scary." But do Americans want Germany or northern European levels of taxation to pay for a social democracy? Even if we did, do you trust that our federal and state governments could do so efficiently?

Not sure what you're getting at with college debt forgiveness, so please educate. I had some direct loans 2 decades ago, and I paid them off. As most people do, since they cannot be defaulted. Like I said, the problem is that the costs (and thus loan amounts) have exploded in recent years. Do you believe a majority of taxpayers are willing to wipe out all college loan debt, and are willing to pay for it?

just change the terms to prime rate plus a 1/4 point or whatever. Forgiveness is like defunding the police, it doesn’t literally mean remove all debt. To some it doesn’t to most it means set the loans up on more reasonable terms.
However I get the point because I suspect colleges set their tuition based upon value or more simply put how much monthly is someone willing to pay. This is a totally different discussion.
 

manly

Lifer
Jan 25, 2000
11,849
2,806
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They are your friends, I figured these would be questions you would ask them.

Most home mortgages are 30 years for four times the cost of a student loan and yet you are telling me it took you twenty years to pay yours off? How much was your initial loan and how much in all did you end up paying? Now ask yourself if you think government backed loans, that can almost never be forgiven unless paid, should be able to make X amount from interest off of you? Now think of what you could have done with that money had you not been burdened by it. How much do you think all of the things you could have done would have positively impacted the economy?

So how does paying back loans many times over help you or the country?
So correct me if I'm wrong, but the two most prominent candidates to push for free college and college debt expunged were Bernie and Elizabeth Warren. I actually didn't cast a vote in the primary, but I probably would have chosen Warren. Biden was at least a couple spots down my list. My personal political beliefs aside, you don't seem to be disagreeing with my position. Not whether these are quality proposals by Bernie, but whether a large part of the American populace cares to support them.

I didn't say it took me 20 years to pay them off; I'm not aware that anybody gets that long but I haven't been keeping tabs with some millennials borrowing 6 figures to earn graduate degrees. My point was that every generation of graduates has paid off their college loans, or dealt with the consequences. Now you're telling me that the last decade of student loan debt should be forgiven? Did the borrowers not understand what they were doing when they signed the loan documents? With interest rates at record lows, I'm assuming most of these loan rates are pretty low as well? Look, I'm not saying there can't be public policies to address the staggering student loan debt, and the underlying cause.

It's like you're asking me how much better our society would function if we became Germany or Scandinavia. I'm asking you if you believe Joe Biden can turn America into a northern European country, with or without the deplorables going on armed rampages. Assuming the Democrats win narrow control of the Senate, the last thing we'd want is to lose that control 2 years later. Recall what happened once MoscowMitch became the majority leader in 2011.
 

manly

Lifer
Jan 25, 2000
11,849
2,806
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just change the terms to prime rate plus a 1/4 point or whatever. Forgiveness is like defunding the police, it doesn’t literally mean remove all debt. To some it doesn’t to most it means set the loans up on more reasonable terms.
However I get the point because I suspect colleges set their tuition based upon value or more simply put how much monthly is someone willing to pay. This is a totally different discussion.
I'm not familiar with typical federal student loan terms, but I agree the interest rates should be minimal.


Bernie's plan would cost about $2.2T because it does literally mean canceling all federal student loans. So great news for all those who happened to borrow within the past decade. But as you suggested, it doesn't really solve the underlying cost problem or forestall new student debt from piling up. I guess taxpayers could be on board with this, as it's funded by new investment taxes.
 

ivwshane

Lifer
May 15, 2000
32,548
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So correct me if I'm wrong, but the two most prominent candidates to push for free college and college debt expunged were Bernie and Elizabeth Warren. I actually didn't cast a vote in the primary, but I probably would have chosen Warren. Biden was at least a couple spots down my list. My personal political beliefs aside, you don't seem to be disagreeing with my position. Not whether these are quality proposals by Bernie, but whether a large part of the American populace cares to support them.

I didn't say it took me 20 years to pay them off; I'm not aware that anybody gets that long but I haven't been keeping tabs with some millennials borrowing 6 figures to earn graduate degrees. My point was that every generation of graduates has paid off their college loans, or dealt with the consequences. Now you're telling me that the last decade of student loan debt should be forgiven? Did the borrowers not understand what they were doing when they signed the loan documents? With interest rates at record lows, I'm assuming most of these loan rates are pretty low as well? Look, I'm not saying there can't be public policies to address the staggering student loan debt, and the underlying cause.

It's like you're asking me how much better our society would function if we became Germany or Scandinavia. I'm asking you if you believe Joe Biden can turn America into a northern European country, with or without the deplorables going on armed rampages. Assuming the Democrats win narrow control of the Senate, the last thing we'd want is to lose that control 2 years later. Recall what happened once MoscowMitch became the majority leader in 2011.

You didn’t answer my question. We can discuss those other points later.

I’ll repeat the question for you:
So how does paying back loans many times over help you or the country?

Free college is a different topic but since it’s related I’ll answer. Most candidates proposals offer free public college. The benefits of this are many including giving private for profit colleges much more competition but more importantly it opens up access to those who would have otherwise qualified to go but could not afford it. Without that debt around their necks we are now back to my original question;)
 

ondma

Platinum Member
Mar 18, 2018
2,999
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So correct me if I'm wrong, but the two most prominent candidates to push for free college and college debt expunged were Bernie and Elizabeth Warren. I actually didn't cast a vote in the primary, but I probably would have chosen Warren. Biden was at least a couple spots down my list. My personal political beliefs aside, you don't seem to be disagreeing with my position. Not whether these are quality proposals by Bernie, but whether a large part of the American populace cares to support them.

I didn't say it took me 20 years to pay them off; I'm not aware that anybody gets that long but I haven't been keeping tabs with some millennials borrowing 6 figures to earn graduate degrees. My point was that every generation of graduates has paid off their college loans, or dealt with the consequences. Now you're telling me that the last decade of student loan debt should be forgiven? Did the borrowers not understand what they were doing when they signed the loan documents? With interest rates at record lows, I'm assuming most of these loan rates are pretty low as well? Look, I'm not saying there can't be public policies to address the staggering student loan debt, and the underlying cause.

It's like you're asking me how much better our society would function if we became Germany or Scandinavia. I'm asking you if you believe Joe Biden can turn America into a northern European country, with or without the deplorables going on armed rampages. Assuming the Democrats win narrow control of the Senate, the last thing we'd want is to lose that control 2 years later. Recall what happened once MoscowMitch became the majority leader in 2011.
Your reasoning is based on false equivalency. You seem to be equating "quality proposals" with what the populace wants to support. Not necessarily the same.
I had student loans many years ago; only had to borrow a few thousand for a full four year degree, room and board. College debt is a whole new ball game these days. It is simply crippling. Tuition is crippling, and even the cost of books is outrageous. College costs need to be reigned in for a start. I worked for a major university for several years just before retiring, and I can tell you there are huge opportunities to cut costs. Federal grants (not loans) also need to be made available for a much wider income range, in lieu of totally free tuition.
 

manly

Lifer
Jan 25, 2000
11,849
2,806
136
Your reasoning is based on false equivalency. You seem to be equating "quality proposals" with what the populace wants to support. Not necessarily the same.
I had student loans many years ago; only had to borrow a few thousand for a full four year degree, room and board. College debt is a whole new ball game these days. It is simply crippling. Tuition is crippling, and even the cost of books is outrageous. College costs need to be reigned in for a start. I worked for a major university for several years just before retiring, and I can tell you there are huge opportunities to cut costs. Federal grants (not loans) also need to be made available for a much wider income range, in lieu of totally free tuition.
Obviously part of a competent government's role is to educate its populace on policy proposals; but maybe I'm naive and like to think that the will of the people still matters to Democratic politicians (unlike with GOP elected officials who constantly fuck over their voters). I agree that the costs of college have exploded, and that's partly due to availability of student loans (IIRC for-profit universities heavily exploited this until recently). Whether tuition at public institutions is free or not, we should try to fix this underlying problem. I personally don't believe wiping out $1.6T in debt as a one-time patch is the proper policy solution. If you don't bend the cost curve, what happens in a decade: we pass legislation to wipe out another $2T in student loans?
 

ondma

Platinum Member
Mar 18, 2018
2,999
1,520
136
Obviously part of a competent government's role is to educate its populace on policy proposals; but maybe I'm naive and like to think that the will of the people still matters to Democratic politicians (unlike with GOP elected officials who constantly fuck over their voters). I agree that the costs of college have exploded, and that's partly due to availability of student loans (IIRC for-profit universities heavily exploited this until recently). Whether tuition at public institutions is free or not, we should try to fix this underlying problem. I personally don't believe wiping out $1.6T in debt as a one-time patch is the proper policy solution. If you don't bend the cost curve, what happens in a decade: we pass legislation to wipe out another $2T in student loans?
Obviously, if you wipe out existing college debt, you also have to concurrently introduce measures to reduce costs and provide more assistance to keep the problem from recurring. It is probably unrealistic to abolish all student debt, but even to eliminate 30 or 50 percent would make the problem much less onerous. I would also favor making student debt forgivable in bankruptcy, should that be necessary, as nearly every other kind of debt is.
 

ivwshane

Lifer
May 15, 2000
32,548
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Obviously, if you wipe out existing college debt, you also have to concurrently introduce measures to reduce costs and provide more assistance to keep the problem from recurring. It is probably unrealistic to abolish all student debt, but even to eliminate 30 or 50 percent would make the problem much less onerous. I would also favor making student debt forgivable in bankruptcy, should that be necessary, as nearly every other kind of debt is.

There is zero reason why student loans couldn’t be non forgivable while at the same time have a zero percent interest rate.
 

ondma

Platinum Member
Mar 18, 2018
2,999
1,520
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There is zero reason why student loans couldn’t be non forgivable while at the same time have a zero percent interest rate.
Why do you think loans that one takes out to get an education should be non-forgivable while credit card debt, which is often run up for much less legitimate purposes, should be forgivable?
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
85,632
50,852
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Why do you think loans that one takes out to get an education should be non-forgivable while credit card debt, which is often run up for much less legitimate purposes, should be forgivable?
If student loans can be discharged through bankruptcy then student loans will cease to exist for a lot of people, doctors and lawyers in particular as a large percentage of people would simply declare bankruptcy after graduation.

The reason they can’t be discharged is that the whole idea is you are often giving tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in unsecured loans to someone with no income, job, or credit history. No one would do that if they could be discharged. Student loans are simply a bad idea all around and should be eliminated. Publicly financed education is a better idea.
 

ivwshane

Lifer
May 15, 2000
32,548
15,424
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Why do you think loans that one takes out to get an education should be non-forgivable while credit card debt, which is often run up for much less legitimate purposes, should be forgivable?

One is part of doing business and businesses involving issuing credit should be pickier in who they give credit to and the other is for the betterment of the country with an incentive to actually get a job to pay back your loan.