The Democrat Utopia

[BigRedBuster]

6 hours ago, JJ Husker said:

The other issue is, if that education isn’t worth going $30k to $60k in debt and it doesn’t provide you with a job that can fairly easily pay it back in a reasonable timeframe, is it worth it all? I’d say no. IMO there is way too much made about the importance of getting that education. I blame a lot of employers for requiring a 4 year degree for jobs that quite frankly don’t need a degree. I’d say the vast majority of jobs could be performed just fine by a person with no more than the desire to learn and a little OJT which they are going to need anyway.

The possibility of that is a pretty good reason to not rack up huge debt doing it. 

[JJ Husker]

3 hours ago, BigRedBuster said:

The possibility of that is a pretty good reason to not rack up huge debt doing it. 

I think that is the overarching problem here. Too many kids are being told that is the only way to make it in life. And too many employers are bought in to the idea. That leads to colleges charging more and more people taking on debt they wouldn’t need if everyone along the way was more reasonable and the expectations were more realistic. So many jobs, especially in business, are really just glorified clerical work needing only remedial math and communication skills. Yet the entry price is a 4 year degree and/or an MBA. It’s pretty ridiculous when you stop and look what so many of these people with degrees actually do day to day.

[Lorewarn]

Look if we're gonna follow the "hold everyone to the highest standards of personal responsibility and never reward people for making mistakes" then we'd probably end up forgiving all student loans anyways because we wouldn't know what the hell to do with all the extra taxpayer money after we stopped bailing out banks and oil companies and subsidizing farmers and buying over inflated military contracts and offering huge tax breaks to corporations.

[JJ Husker]

52 minutes ago, Lorewarn said:

Look if we're gonna follow the "hold everyone to the highest standards of personal responsibility and never reward people for making mistakes" then we'd probably end up forgiving all student loans anyways because we wouldn't know what the hell to do with all the extra taxpayer money after we stopped bailing out banks and oil companies and subsidizing farmers and buying over inflated military contracts and offering huge tax breaks to corporations.

That’s a fair point. Our government wastes a ton of taxpayer money on numerous things. But it’s not hypocritical to object to the items we might have some control over. I am not for any of those things but I am a little resigned to accepting some of them as just being the way things are. If all of it was eliminated, we could be taxed less and keep more of our money. That might make education and everything more affordable.

 

One of my biggest objections to things like forgiving student loans is for fairly selfish reasons. It’s not a benefit anyone in my family ever got to take  advantage of. Why should I pay taxes to help forgive others debt or this huge child tax credit that was just implemented. That’s another one I’ll never benefit from. Seems they always start this s#!t after we’ve already fully paid our own way. I’d probably be for some of this crap if I or my family could ever benefit from it but as it is I am against it. Tired of paying my own way and then being taxed to pay the way for others too. Our school loans were not forgiven and we’ve already paid them ourselves. We got by paying for everything when we had kids so why should I kick in now so others can have it easier (talking about the recently enacted child tax credits). When do I get some of the government dole? If they forgive student loans now, wouldn’t it only be fair to also reimburse those of us who didn’t have it forgiven?

[Archy1221]

5 hours ago, JJ Husker said:

That’s a fair point. Our government wastes a ton of taxpayer money on numerous things. But it’s not hypocritical to object to the items we might have some control over. I am not for any of those things but I am a little resigned to accepting some of them as just being the way things are. If all of it was eliminated, we could be taxed less and keep more of our money. That might make education and everything more affordable.

 

One of my biggest objections to things like forgiving student loans is for fairly selfish reasons. It’s not a benefit anyone in my family ever got to take  advantage of. Why should I pay taxes to help forgive others debt or this huge child tax credit that was just implemented. That’s another one I’ll never benefit from. Seems they always start this s#!t after we’ve already fully paid our own way. I’d probably be for some of this crap if I or my family could ever benefit from it but as it is I am against it. Tired of paying my own way and then being taxed to pay the way for others too. Our school loans were not forgiven and we’ve already paid them ourselves. We got by paying for everything when we had kids so why should I kick in now so others can have it easier (talking about the recently enacted child tax credits). When do I get some of the government dole? If they forgive student loans now, wouldn’t it only be fair to also reimburse those of us who didn’t have it forgiven?

Some of what he said isn’t really comparable to the idea of eliminating student loan debt.  Bailing out banks, yes it is because they accumulated the debt like the students did.  
Oil gets subsidies just like farmers.  This isn’t them taking on debt and having it eliminated.  Though I wish we would eliminate the licking of winners and losers here too.  Buying military equipment is in no way the same as eliminating student loan debt, but we can agree that military waste is definitely prevalent.  
 

I’m gonna make an educated guess though and say that if all those things were eliminated, our politicians could find some other stupid thing or things to waste our money on instead of lowering our taxes.  I wish what you said is what would happen though. 

[BigRedBuster]

Why don’t we cancel/pay off everyone’s mortgage?  What about car loans?  

[BigRedBuster]

How about cancelling everyone’s Christmas gift debt because social pressure made everyone go spend more money than what they had?

[BigRedBuster]

I have two daughters getting married this year. Everyone is telling me I need to spend so much money on them. I think the government should pay off all my credit card bills. 

[RedDenver]

8 hours ago, JJ Husker said:

One of my biggest objections to things like forgiving student loans is for fairly selfish reasons. It’s not a benefit anyone in my family ever got to take  advantage of. Why should I pay taxes to help forgive others debt or this huge child tax credit that was just implemented. That’s another one I’ll never benefit from.

JJ, kudos to you for the honesty. I think a lot of this discussion is underpinned by people not wanting others to "get the good deal". IMO this is one of the main reasons why our country is slowly crumbling: because we often don't act in the collective good if it doesn't also benefit us personally.

 

BRB, you're usually a level-headed poster, but none of these examples are at all similar to paying to educate our populace:

59 minutes ago, BigRedBuster said:

Why don’t we cancel/pay off everyone’s mortgage?  What about car loans?  

 

57 minutes ago, BigRedBuster said:

How about cancelling everyone’s Christmas gift debt because social pressure made everyone go spend more money than what they had?

 

53 minutes ago, BigRedBuster said:

I have two daughters getting married this year. Everyone is telling me I need to spend so much money on them. I think the government should pay off all my credit card bills. 

 

[JJ Husker]

7 minutes ago, RedDenver said:

JJ, kudos to you for the honesty. I think a lot of this discussion is underpinned by people not wanting others to "get the good deal". IMO this is one of the main reasons why our country is slowly crumbling: because we often don't act in the collective good if it doesn't also benefit us personally.

 

BRB, you're usually a level-headed poster, but none of these examples are at all similar to paying to educate our populace:

 

 

 

Forgiving student loan debt is NOT paying to educate the populace. Those are two very different things. It is extremely similar to the things BRB listed. 

Maybe you can explain to me why I should be for and want to pay for these things that benefit only others and that I have no hope of ever benefiting from? And please don’t use “the collective good” angle. Anyone interested in the collective good can move to a commune or one of the few remaining communist countries and partake of everything that involves.

[RedDenver]

4 minutes ago, JJ Husker said:

Forgiving student loan debt is NOT paying to educate the populace. Those are two very different things. It is extremely similar to the things BRB listed. 

Well, we didn't pay to educate the populace when we could have, so many racked up student loan debt in order to get their education. Forgiving student loan debt is certainly not the same as if we'd just directly paid to educate the populace the first time, but it is an attempt to rectify the situation. It is not similar to buying a car, gifts we bought, or wedding costs. Could make an argument about mortgage and home buying being similar in benefit to society, but they're still pretty dissimilar financial activities.

 

And as I've said a few times, I'm open to other solutions to attempt to rectify the situation besides straight forgiveness across the board, but I think the debt forgiveness is the simplest and most effective approach. If we don't attempt to reduce college costs to students or show we're going to help them out later, then it will most definitely have an impact of the education of our populace as college is going to be more and more only for the affluent.

[Archy1221]

20 minutes ago, RedDenver said:

college is going to be more and more only for the affluent

Only if you pick the wrong path to a college education, which we have shown multiple times.  

[NM11046]

9 hours ago, JJ Husker said:

One of my biggest objections to things like forgiving student loans is for fairly selfish reasons. It’s not a benefit anyone in my family ever got to take  advantage of. Why should I pay taxes to help forgive others debt or this huge child tax credit that was just implemented. That’s another one I’ll never benefit from. Seems they always start this s#!t after we’ve already fully paid our own way. I’d probably be for some of this crap if I or my family could ever benefit from it but as it is I am against it. Tired of paying my own way and then being taxed to pay the way for others too. Our school loans were not forgiven and we’ve already paid them ourselves. We got by paying for everything when we had kids so why should I kick in now so others can have it easier (talking about the recently enacted child tax credits). When do I get some of the government dole? If they forgive student loans now, wouldn’t it only be fair to also reimburse those of us who didn’t have it forgiven?

I hear ya.  As a single, childless person I don't like paying for the public schools in my community - ZERO benefit for me, ever.  But I'm given no choice and have to try and embrace that by making today's youth more educated I will somehow benefit in the future.   There are people in my state that definately don't drive on all the roads yet they pay for upkeep and plowing etc.  

 

This feels like a similar "society" debt.

[Lorewarn]

2 hours ago, BigRedBuster said:

I have two daughters getting married this year. Everyone is telling me I need to spend so much money on them. I think the government should pay off all my credit card bills. 

 

 

Funny enough you mention credit cards, as I had two credit cards from my younger years that I irresponsibly got/used and went out of control. 

 

Ended up settling for WAY less than I owed on both of them. Way, way less. Crazy idea. 

[JJ Husker]

1 hour ago, NM11046 said:

I hear ya.  As a single, childless person I don't like paying for the public schools in my community - ZERO benefit for me, ever.  But I'm given no choice and have to try and embrace that by making today's youth more educated I will somehow benefit in the future.   There are people in my state that definately don't drive on all the roads yet they pay for upkeep and plowing etc.  

 

This feels like a similar "society" debt.

I guess we all pick where we draw the line in the sand. I don’t have a problem with primary education. That seems to me to be something society should kick in for (and my kids are done with schooling). But a college education is different IMO. Part of my position is probably because I don’t feel it is necessary. It is something people choose to do to improve their life. Great, let them choose it and pay for their own choices. I really don’t see where that is any different than a person who chooses to improve their life by racking up credit card debt. Therefore I don’t see where either one should be my responsibility to pay for it.

 

I do think the cost of a college education is ridiculous and I am not opposed to helping make it less costly. But loan forgiveness after the fact is pretty much a non-starter for me. If they want to reimburse/forgive a limited, reasonable amount after the fact, fine, send me my share. I just don’t see where it’s fair that the people who managed on their own should now be stuck with the bill for others. A good place to start would be defeating this notion that a college education is vital for everyone. It isn’t and shouldn’t be.