Silver... I admit the college loan forgiveness is questionable policy. But for the many conservatives and GOP followers who are angry and foaming at the mouth that it's immoral for people to receive forgiveness and we're going to bust the budget, I'd like to know why they are so over the moon on this?
I saw no similar pushback, no calls of immorality, no worry about the effect on the deficit first when we added 1.5 trillion tax cuts or the PPP giveaway to mostly people of means during the Trump admin.
This is effectively a tax cut for lower income ppl who most likely will put that money back into the economy as opposed to squirreling it away in tax shelters and savings accounts.
Silver... piggybacking on your previous thread, for the ppl who want to see "biblical" values reflected in government, think MTG, Boebert and others, is it a fair question to ask how they view the concept of debt forgiveness and jubilee?
Dave, I would add that many of these older so-called conservatives screaming “socialism” and such (McConnell, Grassley, et al) were enjoying a heavily government subsidized tuition in their day. They could actually work a part time minimum wage job and pay the remainder. That has become an impossibility today.
Thanks to Reaganomics and the further eroding of revenue sharing, the burden of tuition shifted to students as cost skyrocketed.
Considering how the average Joe worker paid for these plutocrat’s education along with the hand outs you mention (which I could add plenty to- subsidizing Walmart and Amazon workers for 1), the average Joe should be pissed at only getting a measly 10K in loan forgiveness.
Dave, you would have to ask those politicians about their biblical beliefs. My post before this one was actually advocating for a secular democratic Republic, admonishing people who wanted to enforce biblical values via the law and government, that it is a fool's errand.
So what did that $1.5t Trump "giveaway" do to the 'unsellable deficit'...nada 2018-2020. Then Covid hit. Then Biden hit. Claw back the Covid spending, then we can talk about "loan forgiveness". And don't get me started on Obama's Obamacare give-aways that obviated the deficit problem.
Yes RJW, you are correct. Speaking of my home state, CA, in 1976 tuition and fees to in state students at the UC schools, Cal Berkley and UCLA for example, was $630.00 annually.
In 2020, that cost is over $40,000.
Certainly wage increases cannot make up the difference, nor can the "savings" ppl got from the Prop 13 tax cut.
Was that education ppl got back then subsidized? You bet it was. By everyone in the state.
As a 1982 USC graduate school graduate I paid $1,040 per credit. I also simultaneously took accounting and computer programming credits at WVCC and paid $10 per credit. The State of California heavily subsidized public colleges. With all the give-aways since Prop 13, they can no longer afford to.
btw - Those complaints about "Reaganomics" ring a bit hollow when you consider that all those "subsidized California tuitions" and the fact the RWR was Governor of California from 1967-75.
I personally attribute the explosion in higher education costs to the Great Society Higher Education Act of 1965, when the Federal Government got into the Student loan guarantee business (FAFSA).
Actually Silver, they are. Sens Warren and Sander have been front and center for years advocating for free college. As have others in government and in the commenting class. Just because you've missed it, doesn't mean it isn't, or hasn't been happening.
No -FJ, the reason they don't support colleges at the same level as before is not because of all the post Prop 13 giveaways.
It has more to do with the fact that after Prop 13, the state of CA has been forced to fun education with a lottery and sales tax, both extremely volatile and susceptible to economic fluctuations.
Previously education was mostly funded with property taxes.
"Free college". Wow, just tax the uneducated to subsidize the educated. Sounds fair to me. Cuz we all know how less-well paid civil servants are, and how much more "efficient" and "productive" they are.. BWAH!
That's funny, lottery and sales taxes. We do a similar thing here in MD. Except for every dollar that casinos and lottery contribute to education, the "general assembly" subtracts a dollar for education coming out of the general tax revenue fund. So in reality, every education dollar comes from the same "general" fund. But it IS a fun "shell game" to watch.
Nothing will stop the "Student Loan Debt Relief" from being taxed as income. Why not? Because that's how student debt has always been written off. What was owed to the Department of Education will then be owed to the IRS instead. How many of these people crushed by student debt will be able to handle being taxed as if their annual income is $20K higher? That shifts tax brackets upwards, so not only will they be taxed on money that never actually passed through their hands, they'll be taxed more on the money they actually made.
Next comes property seizures and jail time for those who couldn't pay their student loans and definitely won't be able to pay an inflated tax burden.
Will they build more prisons, or legalize weed to make room for prisoners?
You are an intelligent man. You must know that "free college" is not free. It would be a gigantic trillion dollar smooch from the federal government to Big Ed, at taxpayer expense.
The federal government wrecks and distorts every market it pokes its snout into.
Get the government out of the student loan business, make the colleges freight the student loans and have skin in the game, and you'll see astronomical college prices come down.
The educated academic class and the HR DEI enforcers definitely have the urge, but they would not survive in the wild. They have operated too long in an environment where they have no natural predators.
Charles Taylor... From Boston gas station attendant to warlord of Liberia. It can happen.
When foreign countries need experienced and innovative people on the ground to run their factories, infrastructure, and logistics, they'll pay better than America for it. And if living in America is politically no different than living in a third world hellhole...
... Why not move? I agree. My own escape plan includes a foreign country.
Our nation is devolving, but prices keep climbing despite lower standards, so why not move to Mexico City or Lisbon, or some remote part of the Philippines?
Like endless war, now in Ukraine, with gas prices tripled, the price of fertilizer and food doubled, natural gas futures quadrupling, higher utility bills, food riots in the third world?
Like how China ripped us off for 30 years?
The "experts" and the "elites" did that.
Like where the world is now? Thank the experts and the elites.
Yeah, we need a "Great Reset," but not exactly what the WEF has planned.
Emerson College says "August National Poll: Biden Bounces Back On Approval and 2024 Ballot; Voters Split on Student Debt Relief and Student Loan Program Value".
Regardless, Dems easing the pain of working grunts doesn't compare to the flood gates of money shifted to the top for campaign backing. Did you hear the one about Ronna McDaniel begging them to pay up?
btw- I just watched the new version of "A League of their Own". The original Tom Hanks version was about women's liberation. Little did I know that it was all "really" a struggle for Lesbian rights and the 1940's Stonewall oppression. Funny how these "liberation struggles" seem to follow the same scripts, huh?
In twenty years it'll get re-made again as a girls' Little League Team and how we historically oppressed paedophiles. Catamites need to be free to love...
SF, your 1 trick rubber/glue pony of msnbc indoctrinating accusations are beyond stale, particularly coming from a far right suck up and mouth piece such as you.
Not sure by what authority you proclaim to speak for all those “ordinary Americans” but I was referring to the huge political shift of the prospects in November. While political winds can change, what should have been an all out bloodbath now appears to be competitive.
The loan forgiveness results are yet to be seen but if you want to cling to that and ignore price drops and jobs for everyone, have at it. That lot of Trump picked jackasses running in competitive states ain’t exactly helping.
While Dems have been on quite a roll, Rs seem to be outdoing themselves with scandals and corruption each week.
The MSM has certainly re-asserted their "confidence in the narrative" that a red tsunami isn't going to erase the Great Society of the 60's.... and you're certainly free to believe it, if you want to, Ronnie. But there's only one "poll" that will matter, and that's the one taken next November. And usually, people's voting attitudes aren't changed with a week or two of "happy news" about the troubles of Orange Man.
Ronald, What Farmer said. Try to think and act like a thinking adult, not third grader calling everyone a doody head.
If you have been paying attention here--and I don't think you have, or more likely, you insist turning everyone here into your own rightwing strawman--I have never joined the chorus of people exulting in how the GOOP is going to crush the DemonCraps this fall.
If anything, I've cautioned against overconfidence. Anything can happen. What I will say, is both the left and right have their bubble propaganda that is little more than feeding a narrative to their viewership to make them feel better, (or anger them up, as need be).
The last year of Trump (thanks to the Covid hysteria) and the first two years of Biden have sucked ass for ordinary working Americans. I know, I am one, and I live with, work, and play with ordinary working Americans. That is my whole family. All I know is what I see with my own two eyes and hear with my two ears.
People are pissed off, and will become increasingly desperate economically as climbing prices continue to consume their already-strained budgets. The price of natural gas and petroleum products are projected to increase 30% this winter.
The GOOP has nothing to address any of this, but its the midterms and the Democrat Party is in charge, so Repubelicons will probably realize some gains.
SF, I generally stay away from election predictions and have said anything could change.
Yes, conditions are wipe for a Democratic bloodbath. And I suspect the drought to drive up tomato products, green beans and other items as well. And Rs are going to be hammering these hard along with a constant mention of drag queens.
But I think Americans are warming to him more than you'd like to admit. They aren't seeing some raging bombastic egomaniac setting policy from a 3AM toilet Tweet. He's not mentally unstable like the propagandists told you. He isn't constantly stirring culture wars and riling up deplorables and his administration isn't a scandal fest like his predecessor's.
And then there's his legislation accomplishment that appeals to a great deal of people. Whata ya know, government seems to be working again!
Gas prices are coming down and food prices are following. Wages have gone up.
Yeah yeah, I get it that prices are still high and that people are still pissed, and struggling.
But here's the deal, Republicans suck. They truly suck and more people are looking. They are running some truly pathetic candidates and alarms are going off. The RNC is pulling money from several close races. And on top of the clown lot, the GOP is openly telling them that if given power, they intend to throw a $trillon tax at them and sunsetting SSI and Medicare. And after the abortion ruling (which could very well play bigly), more people are seeing that they mean what they say.
I really can't make a prediction because I've seen too often people voting against their best interests. But there has been indicators and polls that suggest this bloodbath might not be so bad- at least for now.
As I've said already, outside the leftwing bubble, ordinary working people are not tinkling their panties with glee like you are over DC legislation. It's just government blowing more money to no perceptible affect in the lives of ordinary people.
Abortion may be the issue that gains ground for Democrats. They have smartly framed it as a rights issue, and Repubelicons, after beating the freedom drum for decades, suddenly find themselves in a defensive crouch on the issue.
Still, as the Ragin' Cajun famously said, "its the economy, stupid," and that will be the #1 issue in November.
All hell will probably break loose in Germany this winter, and we'll see food shortages and riots in poor countries.
Luckily for the DC Establishment, enough Americans are so stupid they will never realize how the DC firebugs created one more global crisis in Ukraine.
We both agree with Berra, that predictions are hard to make, especially about the future.
And yes, Carville nailed it. Yes, the economy is a mess and will be front and center.
But I think what's being demonstrated now is that Clinton/GWHB moment when Bush sat slack jawed saying he didn't understand the question and Bill very well got it and explained how he understood and felt the pain.
Today's so-called conservatives are pointing fingers with a promise to burden their constituents more while Dems are passing legislation. And if gas and other commodities continue to fall, there goes the only thing Rs can cling too.
Rs have taken "corporations are people too" and the 47% moochers to new levels. They "don't feel the pain" of a woman being forced to carry her skull-less baby to maternity only to die or of a raped impregnated 10 year old. "What do you have to lose" didn't work.
My personal opinion (as of now) is that Dems will keep the senate. This is mainly due to no competitive races in heavy Trump states along with a flawed list of R candidates. I suspect Rs will easily take the House mainly due to heavy gerrymandering.
I agree Dems probably keep the Senate. Oz's campaign must have saboteurs on the inside. He has an immigrant story, rose from nothing to become a respected cardiologist, then a TV star bringing medical advice to the people, and it has made him very rich. That is what he should be running on, not running away from. Especially since he is running against a guy who has mooched off his parents his whole life.. But anyway, Oz loses. Walker probably loses, Kelly in Az keeps his seat, JD Vance wins...
It would take a total catastrophic GOP collapse for them to not take the House, but if anyone could blow such a silver platter opportunity, its the GOOP.
I don't think it matters anymore. We are past the point where a party can ride to the rescue and fix everything. Politics is downstream from culture. We are heading for Idiocracy.
On a grander scale, in Spenglerian terms, Western culture has ossified into Western Civilization, and is now in the late stages. The US and Europe are old men with old ideas and lacking the youth and vigor to adapt and stay on top. The world is in the early stages of a great epochal shift, and this is all just part of life's rich pageant (apologies to Inspector Clouseau and REM). This is how the world has always worked.
McConnell is ceding the Dems the Senate. He'd rather have "Democratic" colleagues than Trumpish ones and so he's starving their campaigns for national RNC funds.
Somebody should really be charged with cruelty to the mentally handicapped, by running Herschel Walker as a candidate. Just one reason the GOP is not going to take back the Senate.
Well, the FBI can now tell the rest of the story of their fishing expedition at Mar-a-Lago to the NY Tomes leak machine about the big one that got away... AGAIN! lol!
Perhaps you should have read the warrant (including the exculpatory data), CI...
Under the U.S. Constitution, the President is vested with the highest level of authority when it comes to the classification and declassification of documents. See U.S. Const., Art. II,§2 ( The President [is] Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States[.] ). His constitutionally-based authority regarding the classification and declassification of documents is unfettered. See Navyv Egan,484 U.S. 518, 527 (1988) ( [The President's] authority to classify and control access to information bearing on national security flows primarily from this constitutional investment of power in the President and exists quite apart from any explicit congressional grant. ).
Any attempt to impose criminal liability on a President or former President that involves his actions with respect to documents marked classified would implicate grave constitutional separation-of-powers issues. Beyond that, the primary criminal statute that governs the unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material does not apply to the President. That statute provides, in pertinent part, as follows: Whoever, being an officer, employee, contractor, or consultant of the United States, and, by virtue of his office, employment, position, or contract, becomes possessed of documents or materials containing classified information of the United States, knowingly removes such documents or materials without authority and with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than five years, or both.18U.S.C.§1924(a). An element of this offense, which the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt, is that the accused is an officer, employee, contractor, or consultant of the United States. The President is none of these. See Free Enter. Fundv Pub. Co Acct. OversightBd.,561U.S. 477,497-98(2010) (citing U.S. Const., Art.II,§2cl. 2) ( The people do not vote for the 'Officers of the United States. ');see also Melcherv Fed Open Mkt. Comm.,644 F. Supp.510, 518-19 (D.D.C. 1986),aff d,836 F.2d561(D.C. Cir. 1987) ( [a]n officer of the United States can only be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, or by a court of law, or the head of a department. A person who does not derive his position from one of these sources is not an officer of the United States in the sense of the Constitution. ). Thus, the statute does not apply to acts by a President. Case 9:22-mj-08332-BER Document 102-1 Entered on FLSD Docket 08/26/2022 Page 35 of38
Oh, I have read the Affidavit, especially thorough enough to know that you're citing a letter from Trump's attorney......not the basis for the search warrant. What Corcoran lays out....applies to a sitting President.
Me too, especially since the DNC "political patronage" system is the only thing that really matters again, these days. The days of a Rudy Giuliani bringing down Carmine DeSapio Tammany Hall pols and mobsters are over (hence all the pent-up hatred against Giuliani).
Makes me long for the return of the Cincinnati. Where are those West Pointers when you really need them? I suppose that the foreign "charitable foundation" money just became too tempting. :(
47. From May 16-18, 2022, FBI agents conducted a preliminary review of the FIFTEEN BOXES provided to NARA and identified documents with classification markings in fourteen of the FIFTEEN BOXES. A preliminary triage of the documents with classification markings revealed the following approximate numbers: 184 unique documents bearing classification markings, including 67 documents marked as CONFIDENTIAL, 92 documents marked as SECRET, and 25 documents marked as TOP SECRET. Further, the FBI agents observed markings reflecting the following compartments/dissemination controls: HCS, FISA, ORCON, NOFORN, and SI. Based on my training and experience, I know that documents classified at these levels typically contain NDI. Several of the documents also contained what appears to be FPOTUS ‘s handwritten notes.
It will be interesting to see if the date(s) of those notes can be determined as after 20 Jan 21.
All this speculation is tiresome. All I can say is, DOJ better have one hell of an unprecedented case, and they better prosecute it, or this is just a continuation of Operation Get Trump.
Establishmentarians in government have been playing fast and loose with classified information for decades. Leaking is OK if the right people do it.
Mishandling classified information is just an oopsie when people like Hillary "accidentally" channel e-mails with classified information to a personal clandestine server. I don't just hammer this because it was Hellary. Cleared people with special admin privileges had to remove that information from high system and air gap it to her. I still can't believe there were ZERO prosecutions of those multiple, deliberate acts.
I'm confused as to what is tiresome. There is now no doubt, as he has admitted it, that Former President Trump had US documents, illegally and purposefully with intent, in his possession.
Some of those documents, as even he admits, at one point at least, we marked as classified.
At the very least, he has willfully disregarded the Presidential Records Act of 1978.
He has broken the law. Period.
Now whether he is charged or not, I have no idea how it will play out. Because there will never be a unanimous jury that will find him guilty. And DOJ must take that into account.
Fair question... let's say it is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that Trump had our most secret documents at Mar a Lago, did not secure them properly and because of that, personnel and our surveillance methods were compromised.
@Dave - A jury of Trump supporters (the Cultist variety), wouldn't convict Trump of strangling Lee Greenwood with an American flag, on the deck of the U.S.S Arizona Memorial.....on CNN....while recreating Jeremiah Wright's 'God D*mn America sermon.
Nice try, Dave. Now tell us when did I ever support a "tax cut for the rich." And I'm taking your word that their really was such a thing.
BTW, what do you think of the Trump tax legislation that doubled the standard deduction? Do you think that had anything to do with people feeling richer?
Speaking of taxes--for the purpose of consistency--you must congratulate Trump and congress form putting the SALT Cap in place. It has resulted in billion$ more in the treasury each year, and forces--as Bernie says--"Millionaires" and Billionaires" to "pay their fair share."
We can pay this ping pong game all day long, which is why it is so damn boooooring
Minus... what about the subsidies we pay ppl to NOT grow food? Aren't subsidies anti-capitalistic?
Silver, of course we can play this back and forth all day, or night. But it doesn't change the fact that those of you pissed off about this essential tax cut for low and middle income ppl seldom complain about the same and subsidies for richer folks.
And that's all I'm saying.
If you all want to live in a no subsidy world, where everyone pays their bills, let's start at the top with the folks who evade taxes, use bankruptcy to avoid paying debts, pay little of no taxes on carried interest, etc.
What about subsidies we pay to people Not to work (Unemployment)? Social Security? What about the H1-B Visas we grant so that foreigners can take American jobs?
The point is, why do we want to subsidize and industry (education) who's prices are already out of control and doesn't deliver on the "value" of its' promises to its' customers?
It's a moral hazard for both producer AND consumer.
The purpose of farm subsidies is to stabilize prices. Loan forgiveness "explodes" them.
Want to achieve a beneficial effect? Forgive student loans... but only for STEM courses. We need more STEM degrees, and fewer racial grievance degrees.
Okay, not all STEM fields. Earth and Environmental Sciences are already vastly over-supplied. We need much fewer CO2 obsessed research projects. Our "normal science" mode needs a few kick in the pants before we invest more into antiquated and obsolete theories (ie- global warming).
@Dave - How about we hold people accountable for their life choices? If a student or a family knew that they couldn't afford (or didn't choose to save for) a four year degree without a student loan......and didn't take the opportunity to enroll their little prince or princess in a Community College for the first two years of cheaper, core requirements, before transferring to that University.......why should I have any sympathy for them,...much less subsidize their education?
@CI... I'm sympathetic to that view. Any way we look at it, lowering the overly high cost of education is going to take government action. Either by cram downs on colleges to lower those costs and forcing them to open their endowments, or through subsidies.
I don't know what the solution is, but I don't want a college education to be only available to people of means. When the UC system had a tuition of less than a grand for even a semester, a guy could get a part time job and cover most of that, maybe using a little of the parents money.
Now at 40K, how does that happen? What kind of part time job covers that?
But as to holding people accountable, why just students? I'll give and say this... when conservatives come to the table and say hold bad business people accountable too and not allowing bankruptcy to avoid debts, I could agree to your point.
BTW -FJ, don't subsidies manipulate markets? Playing CI, where is the Constitutional mandate for the feds to choose the winners and losers in an economy and put their hands on the scales?
How do we choose when we call a subsidy good and honorable, like with farmers and when we call a subsidy a government handout and politically motivated, like with the solar industry.
Any way we look at it, lowering the overly high cost of education is going to take government action.
No....not any way we look at it.... Let the market act, without interference from FedGov.
If you want to reach some utopian goal where 'everybody' gets to go to college.....make it part of the public school system (which itself has dubious Constitutional basis).
Government is the opposed "virtue" to economics. The point is to find an optimal "balance" between "liberty" and "control". As the Greeks would say, "Meden Agan".
So no, there's no "objective rule". Somewhere between "laissez faire and totalitarianism, there's a balance.
Unfortunately the promotion of "consumerism" has lead to "products" serving as the primary substitute for "social relations". It's gotten so bad that even our "conversations (social-relations) are regulated by the medium of the products upon which they are "facilitated" (social-media).
Dave, You are being dishonest when you call this a "tax cut."
It is the president taking at least $240 billion from the treasury and selectively paying off private loans. The legality is questionable.
And it doesn't primarily help poor people. It's a big gift to the upper middle class/affluent professionals.
Please, your comments on this topic have been uncharacteristically uninformed.
Analysis of a $10,000 blanket relief program published Tuesday by the Penn Wharton Budget Model found 69.79% of overall debt forgiveness would go to the top 60% of Americans by income, while individuals who make between $82,400 and $141,096—placing them between the 60th and 80th percentile—would receive the greatest share of overall forgiveness, at 28.1%, though the additional relief for Pell grant recipients should bring further benefit to lower-income borrowers.
It's hilarious that Biden's White House is replying on Twitter to every Republican politician that is tweet-bitching about the student loan forgiveness with their name and the size of the PPP loan that was forgiven for them, some of them totalling over a million dollars each.
As a purely tactical move in politics, it's brilliant.
Try again, doofus. Even the NY Times says its "not quite equivalent. Government shut down businesses during the government-sponsored covid panic, so it typical government fashion, it created a crisis and then passed legislation to help people survive the crisis. From the NY Times
"The P.P.P. loans were effectively designed to be forgiven. The federal government offered them without the traditional standard of vetting for business loans in an effort to quickly distribute money to businesses that were struggling during the first years of the coronavirus pandemic. Nearly every company with 500 or fewer workers qualified for the low-interest loans, which were forgiven so long as the money went to permitted costs."
Silver... regarding those tax cuts... looking at statista, who I've always loved because their stuff is reliable on the international stage, here's what I see.
The result of those tax cuts during the Trump Admin produced mostly flat income growth for the Feds. Or to put it differently, the GOP view that tax cuts pay for themselves was shown once again, to be false.
If you look further on the chart, you'll see that revenue picked up after the pandemic [duh] but is projected to continue to climb.
We'll see how DC deals with that as it relates to the now declining deficit.
But none of that changes the reality that for the first time in a long time, mostly lower and middle class ppl are getting a pretty big, essentially tax cut. Which in the end, won't have a ton of immediate affect on the deficit as the non payment of loan remittances is already in the system and will play out over 10 years.
Dave, They implemented a tax cut, and still collected more revenue the first year it was in effect. How is that not paying for itself?
Revenue went up. Your only argument is, it didn't go up at the same rate as years past. Then, in subsequent years, the trend is upwards.
If anything, this shows that the cut failed to fundamentally change anything, other than garner some votes for the GOOP. Also, the deficit is not "declining." The covid budget spike was unprecedented, and Biden's 2021 is a little below that.
Let's wait a few years and see where it goes. I am not optimistic.
Finally, you keep calling the debt cancellation a tax cut for the lower and middle class, and I have provided a link to a breakdown in the thread above that shows you are wrong.
Want to help poor people? "Forgiving" college debt is a very inefficient way to do it, but I understand Democrat voters are trying to defend it for partisan reasons.
That cheeseburger one reminds me of when I used to be one of the three martini lunch crowd. (Two martinis before ordering food.) One of the group ordered the diet plate and asked the waitress (which is what we had forty years ago, waitresses) to substitute french fries for the cottage cheese.
We’ve reported on how whistleblowers have come forward reporting on the politicization of the FBI, including in regard to the Hunter Biden case, Trump matters, and domestic terrorism cases.
But now, even more whistleblowers are coming forth, revealing that the Bureau’s management is “out of control” in offices across the country."
One whistleblower said offices and supervisors pad the number of crimes / terrorism cases reported and handled to help with performance reviews and holiday bonuses.
From indeniable partisanship to unaddressed / excused internal sexual harassment to pressure to sign false statements to falsifying records, whistleblowers are exposing the FBI is an out of control criminal mess.
...and with such unprecedented, historic, unwarranted actions being taken like a heavily armed raid on a President's home by the same Agents who are under investigation by Durham for their roles in Hillary's / Obama's failed coup attempt and affidavits thst provide no justification for it, the FBI is only helping prove the whistleblowers' claims.
"Indeed, the process has been so widely commented upon that one writer postulated a common life cycle for all of the attempts to develop regulatory policies. The life cycle is launched by an outcry so widespread and demanding that it generates enough political force to bring about establishment of a regulatory agency to insure the equitable, just, and rational distribution of the advantages among all holders of interest in the commons. This phase is followed by the symbolic reassurance of the offended as the agency goes into operation, developing a period of political quiescence among the great majority of those who hold a general but unorganized interest in the commons. Once this political quiescence has developed, the highly organized and specifically interested groups who wish to make incursions into the commons bring sufficient pressure to bear through other political processes to convert the agency to the protection and furthering of their interests. In the last phase even staffing of the regulating agency is accomplished by drawing the agency administrators from the ranks of the regulated." [p.p. 60-61]
I have posted about a dozen challengers asking Democrat supporters to provide either a list of their rejections of Trumps polices or of Biden’s achievements for the reason to justify they did vote for Biden. Not only could they not list even ONE policies but Biden himself provided many reasons since his first day in office why they shouldn’t have....such as shutting down the Keystone pipeline, because it was one of Trump’s BIG success’s in making America energy independent, effectively rewarding our enemies, Russian and Iran.
Biden is SO dumb that he doesn't even know what he's signing when he signs those EO's, even Kamala tells him to just "Sign it anyway"
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Democrats love working class people so much, they tax them to pay off loans for people who went to college.
ReplyDeleteThat's why they love them.
DeleteSilver... I admit the college loan forgiveness is questionable policy. But for the many conservatives and GOP followers who are angry and foaming at the mouth that it's immoral for people to receive forgiveness and we're going to bust the budget, I'd like to know why they are so over the moon on this?
DeleteI saw no similar pushback, no calls of immorality, no worry about the effect on the deficit first when we added 1.5 trillion tax cuts or the PPP giveaway to mostly people of means during the Trump admin.
This is effectively a tax cut for lower income ppl who most likely will put that money back into the economy as opposed to squirreling it away in tax shelters and savings accounts.
Silver... piggybacking on your previous thread, for the ppl who want to see "biblical" values reflected in government, think MTG, Boebert and others, is it a fair question to ask how they view the concept of debt forgiveness and jubilee?
DeleteDave, I would add that many of these older so-called conservatives screaming “socialism” and such (McConnell, Grassley, et al) were enjoying a heavily government subsidized tuition in their day. They could actually work a part time minimum wage job and pay the remainder. That has become an impossibility today.
DeleteThanks to Reaganomics and the further eroding of revenue sharing, the burden of tuition shifted to students as cost skyrocketed.
Considering how the average Joe worker paid for these plutocrat’s education along with the hand outs you mention (which I could add plenty to- subsidizing Walmart and Amazon workers for 1), the average Joe should be pissed at only getting a measly 10K in loan forgiveness.
Dave, you would have to ask those politicians about their biblical beliefs. My post before this one was actually advocating for a secular democratic Republic, admonishing people who wanted to enforce biblical values via the law and government, that it is a fool's errand.
DeleteAlso, you will find nowhere where I defended any of that spending you mentioned.
DeleteSo what did that $1.5t Trump "giveaway" do to the 'unsellable deficit'...nada 2018-2020. Then Covid hit. Then Biden hit. Claw back the Covid spending, then we can talk about "loan forgiveness". And don't get me started on Obama's Obamacare give-aways that obviated the deficit problem.
Delete:P
DeleteYes RJW, you are correct. Speaking of my home state, CA, in 1976 tuition and fees to in state students at the UC schools, Cal Berkley and UCLA for example, was $630.00 annually.
DeleteIn 2020, that cost is over $40,000.
Certainly wage increases cannot make up the difference, nor can the "savings" ppl got from the Prop 13 tax cut.
Was that education ppl got back then subsidized? You bet it was. By everyone in the state.
But no one talks about those realities much.
As a 1982 USC graduate school graduate I paid $1,040 per credit. I also simultaneously took accounting and computer programming credits at WVCC and paid $10 per credit. The State of California heavily subsidized public colleges. With all the give-aways since Prop 13, they can no longer afford to.
Deletebtw - My college tuition was about $400 a year at USMMA... but then I also had to do 10 years in the USNR...
DeleteWill these student loan forgiveness programs include a public service requirement?
Deletebtw - Those complaints about "Reaganomics" ring a bit hollow when you consider that all those "subsidized California tuitions" and the fact the RWR was Governor of California from 1967-75.
DeleteI personally attribute the explosion in higher education costs to the Great Society Higher Education Act of 1965, when the Federal Government got into the Student loan guarantee business (FAFSA).
DeleteWhy does higher education cost so much? Because the Government guarantees that it can!
DeleteWhy aren't concerned progressives demanding Big Ed stop gouging consumers?
DeleteHow conservative profs are there?
Delete...but hey, the progressives just care about "the little guys". BWAH!
DeleteThe profs and admins get to keep the students hyper-inflated tuition money... but let the government "forgive" the ridiculous loans. How "noble".
DeleteYa just gotta be in one of the Democrats "business rackets" like "education" or "green energy".
DeleteActually Silver, they are. Sens Warren and Sander have been front and center for years advocating for free college. As have others in government and in the commenting class. Just because you've missed it, doesn't mean it isn't, or hasn't been happening.
DeleteNo -FJ, the reason they don't support colleges at the same level as before is not because of all the post Prop 13 giveaways.
DeleteIt has more to do with the fact that after Prop 13, the state of CA has been forced to fun education with a lottery and sales tax, both extremely volatile and susceptible to economic fluctuations.
Previously education was mostly funded with property taxes.
But hey, keep at it.
"Free college". Wow, just tax the uneducated to subsidize the educated. Sounds fair to me. Cuz we all know how less-well paid civil servants are, and how much more "efficient" and "productive" they are.. BWAH!
DeleteThat's funny, lottery and sales taxes. We do a similar thing here in MD. Except for every dollar that casinos and lottery contribute to education, the "general assembly" subtracts a dollar for education coming out of the general tax revenue fund. So in reality, every education dollar comes from the same "general" fund. But it IS a fun "shell game" to watch.
DeleteNothing will stop the "Student Loan Debt Relief" from being taxed as income. Why not? Because that's how student debt has always been written off. What was owed to the Department of Education will then be owed to the IRS instead. How many of these people crushed by student debt will be able to handle being taxed as if their annual income is $20K higher? That shifts tax brackets upwards, so not only will they be taxed on money that never actually passed through their hands, they'll be taxed more on the money they actually made.
DeleteNext comes property seizures and jail time for those who couldn't pay their student loans and definitely won't be able to pay an inflated tax burden.
Will they build more prisons, or legalize weed to make room for prisoners?
Dave,
DeleteYou are an intelligent man. You must know that "free college" is not free. It would be a gigantic trillion dollar smooch from the federal government to Big Ed, at taxpayer expense.
The federal government wrecks and distorts every market it pokes its snout into.
Get the government out of the student loan business, make the colleges freight the student loans and have skin in the game, and you'll see astronomical college prices come down.
Brain drain is a two-way street. How many educated people here will become oligarchs in other countries when the opportunity knocks?
DeleteThe educated academic class and the HR DEI enforcers definitely have the urge, but they would not survive in the wild. They have operated too long in an environment where they have no natural predators.
DeleteCharles Taylor... From Boston gas station attendant to warlord of Liberia. It can happen.
DeleteWhen foreign countries need experienced and innovative people on the ground to run their factories, infrastructure, and logistics, they'll pay better than America for it. And if living in America is politically no different than living in a third world hellhole...
... Why not move? I agree. My own escape plan includes a foreign country.
DeleteOur nation is devolving, but prices keep climbing despite lower standards, so why not move to Mexico City or Lisbon, or some remote part of the Philippines?
True. Ukraine wanted fatboy Vindman to be their Defense Minister.
DeleteLike endless war, now in Ukraine, with gas prices tripled, the price of fertilizer and food doubled, natural gas futures quadrupling, higher utility bills, food riots in the third world?
ReplyDeleteLike how China ripped us off for 30 years?
The "experts" and the "elites" did that.
Like where the world is now? Thank the experts and the elites.
Yeah, we need a "Great Reset," but not exactly what the WEF has planned.
Who'da ever though that Little Joey from Scranton with a party in disarray would be turning a red tsunami into a useless pink ripple?
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing what handing out free money can do
DeleteIt's not really "free" money so much as "other people's money".
DeleteEmerson College says "August National Poll: Biden Bounces Back On Approval and 2024 Ballot; Voters Split on Student Debt Relief and Student Loan Program Value".
DeleteRegardless, Dems easing the pain of working grunts doesn't compare to the flood gates of money shifted to the top for campaign backing. Did you hear the one about Ronna McDaniel begging them to pay up?
Working grunts with Masters in Gender Equity Studies?
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteRonald,
DeleteYou and others who are tuned into the msnbc leftwing propaganda sphere greatly misread the public.
Ordinary Americans are not tinkling their panties with delight over legislative victories like you are.
Wait till people see their heating bills this fall. Its gonna get ugly, and I take no pleasure in saying that.
btw- I just watched the new version of "A League of their Own". The original Tom Hanks version was about women's liberation. Little did I know that it was all "really" a struggle for Lesbian rights and the 1940's Stonewall oppression. Funny how these "liberation struggles" seem to follow the same scripts, huh?
DeleteIn twenty years it'll get re-made again as a girls' Little League Team and how we historically oppressed paedophiles. Catamites need to be free to love...
Delete...or how we wouldn't "trans" ten year olds on demand...
DeleteIt's so much easier to re-frame old stories than write new ones from scratch. "Those people in olden days were sooooo backwards...."
DeleteSF, your 1 trick rubber/glue pony of msnbc indoctrinating accusations are beyond stale, particularly coming from a far right suck up and mouth piece such as you.
DeleteNot sure by what authority you proclaim to speak for all those “ordinary Americans” but I was referring to the huge political shift of the prospects in November. While political winds can change, what should have been an all out bloodbath now appears to be competitive.
The loan forgiveness results are yet to be seen but if you want to cling to that and ignore price drops and jobs for everyone, have at it. That lot of Trump picked jackasses running in competitive states ain’t exactly helping.
While Dems have been on quite a roll, Rs seem to be outdoing themselves with scandals and corruption each week.
The MSM has certainly re-asserted their "confidence in the narrative" that a red tsunami isn't going to erase the Great Society of the 60's.... and you're certainly free to believe it, if you want to, Ronnie. But there's only one "poll" that will matter, and that's the one taken next November. And usually, people's voting attitudes aren't changed with a week or two of "happy news" about the troubles of Orange Man.
DeleteRonald,
DeleteWhat Farmer said. Try to think and act like a thinking adult, not third grader calling everyone a doody head.
If you have been paying attention here--and I don't think you have, or more likely, you insist turning everyone here into your own rightwing strawman--I have never joined the chorus of people exulting in how the GOOP is going to crush the DemonCraps this fall.
If anything, I've cautioned against overconfidence. Anything can happen. What I will say, is both the left and right have their bubble propaganda that is little more than feeding a narrative to their viewership to make them feel better, (or anger them up, as need be).
The last year of Trump (thanks to the Covid hysteria) and the first two years of Biden have sucked ass for ordinary working Americans. I know, I am one, and I live with, work, and play with ordinary working Americans. That is my whole family. All I know is what I see with my own two eyes and hear with my two ears.
People are pissed off, and will become increasingly desperate economically as climbing prices continue to consume their already-strained budgets. The price of natural gas and petroleum products are projected to increase 30% this winter.
The GOOP has nothing to address any of this, but its the midterms and the Democrat Party is in charge, so Repubelicons will probably realize some gains.
"But there's only one "poll" that will matter, and that's the one taken next November."
DeleteKinda like how you guys respected the 2020 outcome?
SF, I generally stay away from election predictions and have said anything could change.
DeleteYes, conditions are wipe for a Democratic bloodbath. And I suspect the drought to drive up tomato products, green beans and other items as well. And Rs are going to be hammering these hard along with a constant mention of drag queens.
But I think Americans are warming to him more than you'd like to admit. They aren't seeing some raging bombastic egomaniac setting policy from a 3AM toilet Tweet. He's not mentally unstable like the propagandists told you. He isn't constantly stirring culture wars and riling up deplorables and his administration isn't a scandal fest like his predecessor's.
And then there's his legislation accomplishment that appeals to a great deal of people. Whata ya know, government seems to be working again!
Gas prices are coming down and food prices are following. Wages have gone up.
Yeah yeah, I get it that prices are still high and that people are still pissed, and struggling.
But here's the deal, Republicans suck. They truly suck and more people are looking. They are running some truly pathetic candidates and alarms are going off. The RNC is pulling money from several close races. And on top of the clown lot, the GOP is openly telling them that if given power, they intend to throw a $trillon tax at them and sunsetting SSI and Medicare. And after the abortion ruling (which could very well play bigly), more people are seeing that they mean what they say.
I really can't make a prediction because I've seen too often people voting against their best interests. But there has been indicators and polls that suggest this bloodbath might not be so bad- at least for now.
Kinda like how you guys respected the 2020 outcome?
DeleteBiden's not the president? Who knew?
:)
DeleteRonald,
DeleteAs I've said already, outside the leftwing bubble, ordinary working people are not tinkling their panties with glee like you are over DC legislation. It's just government blowing more money to no perceptible affect in the lives of ordinary people.
Abortion may be the issue that gains ground for Democrats. They have smartly framed it as a rights issue, and Repubelicons, after beating the freedom drum for decades, suddenly find themselves in a defensive crouch on the issue.
Still, as the Ragin' Cajun famously said, "its the economy, stupid," and that will be the #1 issue in November.
All hell will probably break loose in Germany this winter, and we'll see food shortages and riots in poor countries.
Luckily for the DC Establishment, enough Americans are so stupid they will never realize how the DC firebugs created one more global crisis in Ukraine.
We both agree with Berra, that predictions are hard to make, especially about the future.
DeleteAnd yes, Carville nailed it. Yes, the economy is a mess and will be front and center.
But I think what's being demonstrated now is that Clinton/GWHB moment when Bush sat slack jawed saying he didn't understand the question and Bill very well got it and explained how he understood and felt the pain.
Today's so-called conservatives are pointing fingers with a promise to burden their constituents more while Dems are passing legislation. And if gas and other commodities continue to fall, there goes the only thing Rs can cling too.
Rs have taken "corporations are people too" and the 47% moochers to new levels. They "don't feel the pain" of a woman being forced to carry her skull-less baby to maternity only to die or of a raped impregnated 10 year old. "What do you have to lose" didn't work.
My personal opinion (as of now) is that Dems will keep the senate. This is mainly due to no competitive races in heavy Trump states along with a flawed list of R candidates. I suspect Rs will easily take the House mainly due to heavy gerrymandering.
I agree Dems probably keep the Senate. Oz's campaign must have saboteurs on the inside. He has an immigrant story, rose from nothing to become a respected cardiologist, then a TV star bringing medical advice to the people, and it has made him very rich. That is what he should be running on, not running away from. Especially since he is running against a guy who has mooched off his parents his whole life.. But anyway, Oz loses. Walker probably loses, Kelly in Az keeps his seat, JD Vance wins...
DeleteIt would take a total catastrophic GOP collapse for them to not take the House, but if anyone could blow such a silver platter opportunity, its the GOOP.
I don't think it matters anymore. We are past the point where a party can ride to the rescue and fix everything. Politics is downstream from culture. We are heading for Idiocracy.
On a grander scale, in Spenglerian terms, Western culture has ossified into Western Civilization, and is now in the late stages. The US and Europe are old men with old ideas and lacking the youth and vigor to adapt and stay on top. The world is in the early stages of a great epochal shift, and this is all just part of life's rich pageant (apologies to Inspector Clouseau and REM). This is how the world has always worked.
McConnell is ceding the Dems the Senate. He'd rather have "Democratic" colleagues than Trumpish ones and so he's starving their campaigns for national RNC funds.
DeleteNice REM reference and great album.
DeleteBut we slid into Idiocracy years ago.
Burn it to the ground - start over.
^ CI
DeleteSomebody should really be charged with cruelty to the mentally handicapped, by running Herschel Walker as a candidate. Just one reason the GOP is not going to take back the Senate.
Delete-CI
Politics is a clown show.
DeleteREM is one of my favorite bands. Fables of the Reconstruction is their best, imo.
Clousseau is one of my favorite characters... ;)
Deleteps - Re: "Spengler"... I don't think Russia's done experimenting with the "cultural" phase of their "civilization". America though, is kaput.
DeleteWell, the FBI can now tell the rest of the story of their fishing expedition at Mar-a-Lago to the NY Tomes leak machine about the big one that got away... AGAIN! lol!
ReplyDeleteWeird how "Anon" ignores the classified information. Guess it doesn't tie in to the approved narrative....
ReplyDeletePerhaps you should have read the warrant (including the exculpatory data), CI...
ReplyDeleteUnder the U.S. Constitution, the President is vested with the highest level of authority when it comes to the classification and declassification of documents. See U.S. Const., Art. II,§2 ( The President [is] Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States[.] ). His constitutionally-based authority regarding the classification and declassification of documents is unfettered. See Navyv Egan,484 U.S. 518, 527 (1988) ( [The President's] authority to classify and control access to information bearing on national security flows primarily from this constitutional investment of power in the President and exists quite apart from any explicit congressional grant. ).
Any attempt to impose criminal liability on a President or former President that involves his actions with respect to documents marked classified would implicate grave constitutional separation-of-powers issues. Beyond that, the primary criminal statute that governs the unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material does not apply to the President. That statute provides, in pertinent part, as follows: Whoever, being an officer, employee, contractor, or consultant of the United States, and, by virtue of his office, employment, position, or contract, becomes possessed of documents or materials containing classified information of the United States, knowingly removes such documents or materials without authority and with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than five years, or both.18U.S.C.§1924(a). An element of this offense, which the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt, is that the accused is an officer, employee, contractor, or consultant of the United States. The President is none of these. See Free Enter. Fundv Pub. Co Acct. OversightBd.,561U.S. 477,497-98(2010) (citing U.S. Const., Art.II,§2cl. 2) ( The people do not vote for the 'Officers of the United States. ');see also Melcherv Fed Open Mkt. Comm.,644 F. Supp.510, 518-19 (D.D.C. 1986),aff d,836 F.2d561(D.C. Cir. 1987) ( [a]n officer of the United States can only be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, or by a court of law, or the head of a department. A person who does not derive his position from one of these sources is not an officer of the United States in the sense of the Constitution. ). Thus, the statute does not apply to acts by a President. Case 9:22-mj-08332-BER Document 102-1 Entered on FLSD Docket 08/26/2022 Page 35 of38
Oh, I have read the Affidavit, especially thorough enough to know that you're citing a letter from Trump's attorney......not the basis for the search warrant. What Corcoran lays out....applies to a sitting President.
ReplyDelete...and written three months before the raid at Mar-a-Lago.
DeletePresident or ex-president, it doesn't matter. The Congressional "criminal" statute doesn't apply to either.
DeleteIrrelevant.
DeleteWords have meaning... so it's VERY relevant.
DeleteHeh....that would mean it's a pretty open and shut case for his dime store legal team. Weird that they're not acting that way.
Deletethe primary criminal statute that governs the unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material does not apply to the President.
DeleteSee you in Court. :)
DeleteI'll bring the popcorn. Oh, he'll probably get off....the moneyed and political elite always do.
Delete.....groan.....
DeleteI appreciate the laugh though.
Me too, especially since the DNC "political patronage" system is the only thing that really matters again, these days. The days of a Rudy Giuliani bringing down Carmine DeSapio Tammany Hall pols and mobsters are over (hence all the pent-up hatred against Giuliani).
Delete:P
DeleteWelcome back to "the good old days"...
...of Freedom Our Rock.
Delete;P
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteMakes me long for the return of the Cincinnati. Where are those West Pointers when you really need them? I suppose that the foreign "charitable foundation" money just became too tempting. :(
Delete47. From May 16-18, 2022, FBI agents conducted a preliminary review of the FIFTEEN BOXES provided to NARA and identified documents with classification markings in fourteen of the FIFTEEN BOXES. A preliminary triage of the documents with classification markings revealed the following approximate numbers: 184 unique documents bearing classification markings, including 67 documents marked as CONFIDENTIAL, 92 documents marked as SECRET, and 25 documents marked as TOP SECRET. Further, the FBI agents observed markings reflecting the following compartments/dissemination controls: HCS, FISA, ORCON, NOFORN, and SI. Based on my training and experience, I know that documents classified at these levels typically contain NDI. Several of the documents also contained what appears to be FPOTUS ‘s handwritten notes.
ReplyDeleteIt will be interesting to see if the date(s) of those notes can be determined as after 20 Jan 21.
They could have been TOP SECRET/SCI/CNWDI and it wouldn't have made a difference. The criminal statute doesn't apply.
DeleteAll this speculation is tiresome. All I can say is, DOJ better have one hell of an unprecedented case, and they better prosecute it, or this is just a continuation of Operation Get Trump.
ReplyDeleteI don't find it tiresome in the least. The 'dear leader can do no wrong' crowd....has it's entertainment value.
DeleteUntil the DOJ lays out its case and files charges, it's all just idle speculation. Might as well be shaking a magic 8 Ball
DeleteTrump's 'handling' of classified materials is of great interest to me.
DeleteEstablishmentarians in government have been playing fast and loose with classified information for decades. Leaking is OK if the right people do it.
DeleteMishandling classified information is just an oopsie when people like Hillary "accidentally" channel e-mails with classified information to a personal clandestine server. I don't just hammer this because it was Hellary. Cleared people with special admin privileges had to remove that information from high system and air gap it to her. I still can't believe there were ZERO prosecutions of those multiple, deliberate acts.
The system stinks and it has no credibility.
I'm confused as to what is tiresome. There is now no doubt, as he has admitted it, that Former President Trump had US documents, illegally and purposefully with intent, in his possession.
DeleteSome of those documents, as even he admits, at one point at least, we marked as classified.
At the very least, he has willfully disregarded the Presidential Records Act of 1978.
He has broken the law. Period.
Now whether he is charged or not, I have no idea how it will play out. Because there will never be a unanimous jury that will find him guilty. And DOJ must take that into account.
Fair question... let's say it is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that Trump had our most secret documents at Mar a Lago, did not secure them properly and because of that, personnel and our surveillance methods were compromised.
Would a jury of Trump supporters find him guilty?
I doubt it.
And if you think I'm wrong, just see -FJ's comment. He's already figured it all out. No way Trump can be guilty.
DeleteTrump broke zero laws.
Delete@Dave - A jury of Trump supporters (the Cultist variety), wouldn't convict Trump of strangling Lee Greenwood with an American flag, on the deck of the U.S.S Arizona Memorial.....on CNN....while recreating Jeremiah Wright's 'God D*mn America sermon.
DeletePeople's Exhibit A just above my comment.
Delete:)
DeleteA reasonable person could say let's hold him to the Hillary standard.
Deletethe redacted affidavit
Deletelol! I can't believe they deleted the word "stain" after the word ketchup.
DeleteDid you work your way through college, and sacrifice to quickly pay off your student loan debt?
ReplyDeleteBiden Democrats have a name for you: sucker!
Gosh Silver... that's like saying if you work hard, pay your taxes and keep your nose clean, the GOP has a name for you: sucker.
ReplyDeleteWhy is essentially a tax cut for low and middle income people BS yet a tax cut for millionaires is good economic policy?
Adam Smith says that there are two types of labour, productive and unproductive. You subsidize the former, not the latter.
DeleteA millionaire with a factory is worthy of a subsidy. A millionaire with a manor house and 20 servants, is not.
DeleteThe first generates millions in additional revenues from products sold, the second generates nothing.
DeleteNice try, Dave. Now tell us when did I ever support a "tax cut for the rich." And I'm taking your word that their really was such a thing.
DeleteBTW, what do you think of the Trump tax legislation that doubled the standard deduction? Do you think that had anything to do with people feeling richer?
Speaking of taxes--for the purpose of consistency--you must congratulate Trump and congress form putting the SALT Cap in place. It has resulted in billion$ more in the treasury each year, and forces--as Bernie says--"Millionaires" and Billionaires" to "pay their fair share."
We can pay this ping pong game all day long, which is why it is so damn boooooring
Minus... what about the subsidies we pay ppl to NOT grow food? Aren't subsidies anti-capitalistic?
DeleteSilver, of course we can play this back and forth all day, or night. But it doesn't change the fact that those of you pissed off about this essential tax cut for low and middle income ppl seldom complain about the same and subsidies for richer folks.
And that's all I'm saying.
If you all want to live in a no subsidy world, where everyone pays their bills, let's start at the top with the folks who evade taxes, use bankruptcy to avoid paying debts, pay little of no taxes on carried interest, etc.
What about subsidies we pay to people Not to work (Unemployment)? Social Security? What about the H1-B Visas we grant so that foreigners can take American jobs?
DeleteThe point is, why do we want to subsidize and industry (education) who's prices are already out of control and doesn't deliver on the "value" of its' promises to its' customers?
It's a moral hazard for both producer AND consumer.
The purpose of farm subsidies is to stabilize prices. Loan forgiveness "explodes" them.
The point of a subsidy is to achieve a beneficial market effect. It's not to chase badly spent money with more good money.
DeleteWant to achieve a beneficial effect? Forgive student loans... but only for STEM courses. We need more STEM degrees, and fewer racial grievance degrees.
DeleteOur "culture industry" already suffers from an over-saturation of cultural grievances in the "narratives" it produces... movies, plays, music, etc.
DeleteOkay, not all STEM fields. Earth and Environmental Sciences are already vastly over-supplied. We need much fewer CO2 obsessed research projects. Our "normal science" mode needs a few kick in the pants before we invest more into antiquated and obsolete theories (ie- global warming).
DeleteEarth Sciences is in desperate need of a paradigm shift.
DeleteSomething a little more helio-centric.
Deleteie- The Earth's energy transfer through magnetic reconnection (ala aurora borealis).
DeleteA Paean to Elon...
Delete@Dave - How about we hold people accountable for their life choices? If a student or a family knew that they couldn't afford (or didn't choose to save for) a four year degree without a student loan......and didn't take the opportunity to enroll their little prince or princess in a Community College for the first two years of cheaper, core requirements, before transferring to that University.......why should I have any sympathy for them,...much less subsidize their education?
Delete@CI... I'm sympathetic to that view. Any way we look at it, lowering the overly high cost of education is going to take government action. Either by cram downs on colleges to lower those costs and forcing them to open their endowments, or through subsidies.
DeleteI don't know what the solution is, but I don't want a college education to be only available to people of means. When the UC system had a tuition of less than a grand for even a semester, a guy could get a part time job and cover most of that, maybe using a little of the parents money.
Now at 40K, how does that happen? What kind of part time job covers that?
But as to holding people accountable, why just students? I'll give and say this... when conservatives come to the table and say hold bad business people accountable too and not allowing bankruptcy to avoid debts, I could agree to your point.
But that's never gonna happen.
I gotta wonder why...
BTW -FJ, don't subsidies manipulate markets? Playing CI, where is the Constitutional mandate for the feds to choose the winners and losers in an economy and put their hands on the scales?
DeleteHow do we choose when we call a subsidy good and honorable, like with farmers and when we call a subsidy a government handout and politically motivated, like with the solar industry.
Is there an objective rule?
Any way we look at it, lowering the overly high cost of education is going to take government action.
DeleteNo....not any way we look at it.... Let the market act, without interference from FedGov.
If you want to reach some utopian goal where 'everybody' gets to go to college.....make it part of the public school system (which itself has dubious Constitutional basis).
Government is the opposed "virtue" to economics. The point is to find an optimal "balance" between "liberty" and "control". As the Greeks would say, "Meden Agan".
DeleteSo no, there's no "objective rule". Somewhere between "laissez faire and totalitarianism, there's a balance.
...at least until it becomes "unlivable" and the "revolution" occurs.
DeleteUnfortunately the promotion of "consumerism" has lead to "products" serving as the primary substitute for "social relations". It's gotten so bad that even our "conversations (social-relations) are regulated by the medium of the products upon which they are "facilitated" (social-media).
DeleteWe've become Oswald Spengler's "Faustian souls"...
DeleteEmbrace your post-humanism, cyborg!
DeleteDave, You are being dishonest when you call this a "tax cut."
DeleteIt is the president taking at least $240 billion from the treasury and selectively paying off private loans. The legality is questionable.
And it doesn't primarily help poor people. It's a big gift to the upper middle class/affluent professionals.
Please, your comments on this topic have been uncharacteristically uninformed.
Analysis of a $10,000 blanket relief program published Tuesday by the Penn Wharton Budget Model found 69.79% of overall debt forgiveness would go to the top 60% of Americans by income, while individuals who make between $82,400 and $141,096—placing them between the 60th and 80th percentile—would receive the greatest share of overall forgiveness, at 28.1%, though the additional relief for Pell grant recipients should bring further benefit to lower-income borrowers.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/personalfinance/biden-e2-80-99s-student-loan-forgiveness-plan-here-e2-80-99s-who-benefits-most-e2-80-94and-least/ar-AA113dWn?fromMaestro=true
It's hilarious that Biden's White House is replying on Twitter to every Republican politician that is tweet-bitching about the student loan forgiveness with their name and the size of the PPP loan that was forgiven for them, some of them totalling over a million dollars each.
DeleteAs a purely tactical move in politics, it's brilliant.
Try again, doofus. Even the NY Times says its "not quite equivalent. Government shut down businesses during the government-sponsored covid panic, so it typical government fashion, it created a crisis and then passed legislation to help people survive the crisis. From the NY Times
Delete"The P.P.P. loans were effectively designed to be forgiven. The federal government offered them without the traditional standard of vetting for business loans in an effort to quickly distribute money to businesses that were struggling during the first years of the coronavirus pandemic. Nearly every company with 500 or fewer workers qualified for the low-interest loans, which were forgiven so long as the money went to permitted costs."
Truth is not the Democrat Party's friend.
The results of El Donaldo's "tax cuts for the rich:"
ReplyDeletehttps://www.statista.com/statistics/200405/receipts-of-the-us-government-since-fiscal-year-2000/
https://www.cato.org/blog/federal-tax-revenues-soar
https://datalab.usaspending.gov/americas-finance-guide/revenue/trends/
https://www.cato.org/blog/federal-tax-revenues-soar
This one is especially revealing, and will come as a shock to those consuming leftwing propaganda about how the rich pay less taxes than poorer people
https://taxfoundation.org/publications/latest-federal-income-tax-data/
Silver... regarding those tax cuts... looking at statista, who I've always loved because their stuff is reliable on the international stage, here's what I see.
DeleteThe result of those tax cuts during the Trump Admin produced mostly flat income growth for the Feds. Or to put it differently, the GOP view that tax cuts pay for themselves was shown once again, to be false.
If you look further on the chart, you'll see that revenue picked up after the pandemic [duh] but is projected to continue to climb.
We'll see how DC deals with that as it relates to the now declining deficit.
But none of that changes the reality that for the first time in a long time, mostly lower and middle class ppl are getting a pretty big, essentially tax cut. Which in the end, won't have a ton of immediate affect on the deficit as the non payment of loan remittances is already in the system and will play out over 10 years.
Dave,
DeleteThey implemented a tax cut, and still collected more revenue the first year it was in effect. How is that not paying for itself?
Revenue went up. Your only argument is, it didn't go up at the same rate as years past. Then, in subsequent years, the trend is upwards.
If anything, this shows that the cut failed to fundamentally change anything, other than garner some votes for the GOOP.
Also, the deficit is not "declining." The covid budget spike was unprecedented, and Biden's 2021 is a little below that.
Let's wait a few years and see where it goes. I am not optimistic.
https://datalab.usaspending.gov/americas-finance-guide/deficit/trends/
Finally, you keep calling the debt cancellation a tax cut for the lower and middle class, and I have provided a link to a breakdown in the thread above that shows you are wrong.
Want to help poor people? "Forgiving" college debt is a very inefficient way to do it, but I understand Democrat voters are trying to defend it for partisan reasons.
:)
Delete@ Dave... so how's the drought going?
DeleteJoe, that's a great commercial. Sad that the Repubelicon Party is too stupid to come up with brilliant stuff like that.
DeleteActually...
DeleteThat cheeseburger one reminds me of when I used to be one of the three martini lunch crowd. (Two martinis before ordering food.) One of the group ordered the diet plate and asked the waitress (which is what we had forty years ago, waitresses) to substitute french fries for the cottage cheese.
ReplyDeleteWe’ve reported on how whistleblowers have come forward reporting on the politicization of the FBI, including in regard to the Hunter Biden case, Trump matters, and domestic terrorism cases.
ReplyDeleteBut now, even more whistleblowers are coming forth, revealing that the Bureau’s management is “out of control” in offices across the country."
One whistleblower said offices and supervisors pad the number of crimes / terrorism cases reported and handled to help with performance reviews and holiday bonuses.
From indeniable partisanship to unaddressed / excused internal sexual harassment to pressure to sign false statements to falsifying records, whistleblowers are exposing the FBI is an out of control criminal mess.
...and with such unprecedented, historic, unwarranted actions being taken like a heavily armed raid on a President's home by the same Agents who are under investigation by Durham for their roles in Hillary's / Obama's failed coup attempt and affidavits thst provide no justification for it, the FBI is only helping prove the whistleblowers' claims.
This is one of the reasons smart people have observed that all bureaucracies should be smashed and remade every 10-20 years.
DeleteThe Myth of the "Administrators of the Commons"
Delete"Indeed, the process has been so widely commented upon that one writer postulated a common life cycle for all of the attempts to develop regulatory policies. The life cycle is launched by an outcry so widespread and demanding that it generates enough political force to bring about establishment of a regulatory agency to insure the equitable, just, and rational distribution of the advantages among all holders of interest in the commons. This phase is followed by the symbolic reassurance of the offended as the agency goes into operation, developing a period of political quiescence among the great majority of those who hold a general but unorganized interest in the commons. Once this political quiescence has developed, the highly organized and specifically interested groups who wish to make incursions into the commons bring sufficient pressure to bear through other political processes to convert the agency to the protection and furthering of their interests. In the last phase even staffing of the regulating agency is accomplished by drawing the agency administrators from the ranks of the regulated." [p.p. 60-61]
Its going to be labor day. I miss Jerry Lewis.
ReplyDeleteI miss Paul Harvey. I miss CBS Radio Mystery Theatre
I miss movies and TV shows I wanted to see.
From Beakerkin
DeleteBeak,
DeleteSame here!
I have posted about a dozen challengers asking Democrat supporters to provide either a list of their rejections of Trumps polices or of Biden’s achievements for the reason to justify they did vote for Biden.
ReplyDeleteNot only could they not list even ONE policies but Biden himself provided many reasons since his first day in office why they shouldn’t have....such as shutting down the Keystone pipeline, because it was one of Trump’s BIG success’s in making America energy independent, effectively rewarding our enemies, Russian and Iran.
Biden is SO dumb that he doesn't even know what he's signing when he signs those EO's, even Kamala tells him to just "Sign it anyway"