Capitol Hill Blue Forums Active Threads This Week

The most important part of the student loan forgiveness is that 20 years of payments must be made. The rest of the loan is interest to the government. Interest = free money to the government.

The free money to the government is being done away with. I have no problem with that.

The interest on my $29,500k loan was literally $100k. THAT is outrageous.


My parents don't help me. Ergo, the student loan. When one is late teens/early 20s, 9% interest over the course of 20+ years, simply was not on the radar. Now-a-days, loans spell out just how much interested will accumulate and what the final payment will be. Back then, that wasn't done.

Maybe the boomer generation but not me. I didn't go to college. I was raised by a single mom and she couldn't afford to help with college. I looked into furthering my education. I didn't like what I saw so I didn't go. Crazy how much I would have had to pay back in the end! It. Was. My. Choice. I wasn't forced to go to college.

I was still able to make a living. It wasn't always easy but I did it without going in to debt. I am now only a couple of years away from retirement, and I am earning a 6 digit income and am quite happy.

The fact that something needs to be forgiven at all, makes me think something is wrong to begin with! Why. Not. Fix. That.?

Its not giving money away. Principle payments have been made for twenty years. Only the 9% interest added to the principle is being forgiven. After 20 years, the original principle has been paid.

Forgiving the interest is the right thing to do. After all, baby boomers got the entire loan cancelled in bankruptcy. No one is complaining about THAT!

Why? Because those complaining are baby boomers. In typical baby boomer fashion - they are ladder pullers. They got the benefit of loan dissolution through bankruptcy - they want no one else to have the same benefit. Ergo, pulling-up the ladder once the were safely on top. - so that everyone after don't have the same benefit.

We Gen X'ers, Gen Y's, Gen Z's know what you boomers did.

Darts, good analogy. But I’ll leave you with folks enthusiasm in voting for president so you can compare 2024 to 2020.
2024 42% either extremely enthusiastic or very enthusiastic in voting for president, 41% not too enthusiastic or not at all enthusiastic. Question 14.

https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/econTabReport_nURRSN3.pdf

2020 76% either extremely enthusiastic or very enthusiastic in voting for president, 12% not too enthusiastic or not at all enthusiastic. Question 22.

https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/nzc8dt85gn/econTabReport.pdf

The questions break this down via age, race, party, political philosophy etc. if you want to check those out. People wanted to get out and vote in 2020 which resulted in a 62% voter turnout, 160 million. Which had the highest voter turnout since 1960 when 63% voted. That enthusiasm to vote isn’t there this year for this rematch.

I have, pretty much, heard all that stuff. I continue to kinda ignore it. I ignore it because it simply makes no sense. Its as if everybody is in front of a target and they are holding the darts but can't figure out what to throw at, so they just stand there wondering what to do next. They all really want to do something but cannot figure out how to do it.

Oh well, we will know in a few months. Hopefully the result will be something we can survive.

I wish us both luck...........

Probably more have that defiant mood. Perhaps half or even a bit more. But they don’t want Trump to regain the white,house, they also don’t want Biden reelected either. A Harvard/Harris poll showed 58% of all Americans want a new president. That new president doesn’t include the present one nor the former one. Then this from Pew Research - Reflecting their dissatisfaction with the Biden-Trump matchup, nearly half of registered voters (49%) say that, if they had the ability to decide the major party candidates for the 2024 election, they would replace both Biden and Trump on the ballot. Other than this, there’s a ton of great info in the Pew Research Paper/poll.

https://www.pewresearch.org/politic...roadly-critical-of-both-biden-and-trump/

https://harvardharrispoll.com/key-results-april-3/

You can also add that 64% of all Americans want another choice other than Biden and Trump. This from Time - The 2024 presidential election is a rematch between one man widely seen as too old for the job and another man widely seen as too dangerous. The prospect has left much of the country feeling both paralyzed and horrified. Call it the Dread Election.

A Yahoo survey last fall found that the most common feeling this election cycle—across age, gender, and party leaning—is “dread.” More than 4 in 10 American adults said they felt “dread” about the upcoming contest, more than the proportion that responded with words like “exhaustion,” “depression,” or “indifference.” Nearly half of women, white voters, and Democratic leaning voters say they dread the looming presidential rerun. Republicans have slightly less trepidation (their dread hovered in the mid-thirties) but they’re not in a great mood either. Strong majorities of both parties express dissatisfaction with their choices.

https://time.com/6883103/the-dread-election/

I’d say it’s closer to 60% of all Americans who don’t want this rematch. Defiant or dread or wanting someone other than Biden and Trump, take your choice of words or phrases.

Either case..... We both agree that things are not, exactly, right. I find it all pretty strange. When I added to my house, several years ago, the interest rate of 12% now its 7 something and everybody is whining about it. Biden has done more than most presidents yet people keep on saying he is a mistake as he is too old and frail and has mental problems - basic crap. Yep, something is wrong!

I've come to the conclusion that one-third of the country is suffering from "Oppositional Defiant Disorder" and they want to reelect Trump as their rage outlet.

Yep, you are right. I remember, when Trump was running before and one of the heads of a network said, right out loud, that Trump was a goldmine for his network and he would show any Trump stuff he could. We got Trump because the media gave him to us and they are still doing it. The strange thing is that I am blaming the media when the simple fact is that the American voting public seem to love to watch him in 'action'. There is nothing one can do about that.

I continue to wonder if American has not somehow found, and been addicted to 'dumb', in a big way. We will see in November and it scares the hell out of me.

I should add one last. When Trump left office virtually all, talking heads rated him as the WORST PRESIDENT IN THE HISTORY OF AMERICA! I wonder if the addiction of 'dumb' includes a failure in political memory as well.

I don't really care when or who gives the money away when it is not going to fix anything. There has got to be a better way to spend that money to fix it so students aren't taken advantage of.

I'm no economist or education expert, but it looks to me like a waste to give the money away to pay someone's debt that they could have avoided in the first place. Similar to giving someone a fish instead of teaching them how to fish!

Fix the problem, whatever it might be, instead of handing out more taxpayer money. Then in another, what, 5 or 10 years there can again be another giveaway/bailout for the students and nothing again gets fixed?

Just thought I would update this. It now seems that the Democrats are going to be all over and out Trump (Its actually Trump and NOT the Republicans (which is, exactly, how Trump wants it))

So this is to warn everybody that they are going to see Democrats actually try and win an election. I seriously want them to win, REALLY! I am not sure when this is going to occur. So far I haven't seen what they say is going to happen. There will be videos, and ads, and doors knocked, etc. I am waiting with baited breath and VERY excited!!

Perhaps Trump thinks that he can out yell the the microphone from the other side? They will also have NOBODY attending this but the two that partake. I, personally, do not think this will actually happen as claimed. That having been said miracles can happen?

Decent Americans have always known that the conservative government of Israel has kept Gaza in a prison-like condition where no one can come and go. Grabbing land and erecting settlements simply because the people on that land is considered "lesser-thans" by the land grabbers is apartheid. This is the policy of Israel when it comes to the Palestinians.

People are finally waking-up to what Israel has been doing to the Palestinian people and what Israel has been doing is not right.

Decent Americans have NOT allowed the Gaza issue to take a back seat.

Rick, Personally, the young ones supporting the Palestinians, I’d say the conditions prior to Hamas attack on Israel or apartheid if that is what you want to call it, had nothing to do with their support. No one, young or old paid much if any attention to Gaza prior to that. Or to Israel or the Palestinians. We, as a nation have always supported Israel, those over 30 still do. Breaking down that support by age, 18-29-year olds, support the Palestinians over Israel 37-14, 30-44 are about evenly split, 23-21 Israelis over Palestinians, 45-64 40-12 Israelis, over 65 55-10 Israelis over Palestinians. That leaves a lot of folks with no opinion or not sure in all the age groups. All adults or the nation as a whole support Israel 34-19. Perhaps old habits because we’ve always supported Israel no matter what or maybe because it was Hamas who initiated the attack on Israel and is the cause of the ongoing war. Who knows? Reasons for whoever they support wasn’t given. The younger ones are more open to the changing environment, the situation that few others would embrace. The young one’s are paying a lot more attention to what is happening in Gaza than the rest of the nation or the older folks.

I’d say what’s happening in Gaza has taken a back seat to almost every other issue and problem we as a nation face today. Maybe that’s because the Israeli/Palestinians conflict doesn’t affect us personally like inflation, rising prices, climate change, healthcare, abortion, crime, immigration, etc.

When Boomers discharged their student loans through bankruptcy, was money being given away?

Today's student loan forgiveness is the result 2005 Bankruptcy Reform Act the Congress wrote, and GWBush signed, allows student loan forgiveness at 20 years of payments. It’s 2024, the law has been in effect for 19 years. The loans that are eligible for forgiveness are just now meeting the criteria for forgiveness.

The reasons why student loan forgiveness was written into the bankruptcy law is because the 2005 reform law made it impossible to ever roll student loans into bankruptcy – which many Boomers had done previously. This is another example of Boomer ladder-pulling.

Ol' Joe can be faulted for making the insinuation that he's forgiving loans, when in fact, he's simply enforcing a 2005 law.

It would be interesting if the June 27th debate rules stay in place. I'm surprised that Trump agreed to them. His MAGAt base is not happy - they like when Trump interrupts.

Do you think that NutANDyahoo keeping the Palestinians in apartheid conditions have anything to do with it? Or Israel's slaughtering of 35,000 innocents, 70% being women and children?

Yes, decent citizens are supporting Palestinians.

Apparently Biden and Trump are going to have two 'debates'. One next month and one later. What makes it interesting is that, apparently, Biden has set some rules. One is that the microphones can be turned off (only on during time given to speak) and there would be no crowd to watch just a studio.

WOW! Its gotta really be interesting. Does ANYBODY think this is going to control the Trump bully? Gonna be REALLY interesting I think!

Maybe his wife won't let him touch her?!??

Incidentally, the Palestinians are now full members of the UN. We voted NO, made no difference. I think they are entitled and, now, the trick will be to pick out a place that they can actually call their own. Netanyahu will have a FIT! The United States and the UK set up this whole mess. Its time to settle it!!

Its also interesting that Netanyahu is still charged with fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in three separate scandals involving powerful media moguls and wealthy associates. He denies wrongdoing. The Israeli court remains open on that one and continues, as far as I can tell. This actually makes Trump and Netanyahu kinda brothers at playing courts. Netanyahu has been fighting this whole thing since, I think, around 2019.

I just tried to look the whole thing up and found that its kinda mysterious right now but remains active.

Wow! I was, obviously, wrong - apologies. I do remember, however seeing, someplace, that we had a lot fewer. That being said, when I rely on my own memory, its quite possible I screwed up - I will try and be more careful in the future.

Anyway, once one side starts with the nukes the other side will do the same and the results will not be good (which was my basic thought and Putin has been threatening for a while, now and I suspect he is quite capable of starting a nuclear war where nobody wins in the end.

Rick, A lot of folks aren’t planning on voting this year or planning on voting third party against both Trump and Biden. On both sides and especially those of the independent, swing voter persuasion. Young voters 18-29 are currently polling Biden by a 48-27 margin. Biden won this group 60-36 in 2020. Even with less young ones voting, the drop is 12 and 11 points from both Biden and Trump. Those young ones planning on not voting isn’t hurting either one. At least as of today. It’s independents and swing voters where Biden has his problem. Swing voters are currently 38-34 Trump over Biden. In 2020 Biden won this group 54-41 over Trump. It’s this group I check on daily. Biden doesn’t have a problem with any other group, just independents. Most independents which dislike both major party candidate, have an unfavorable view of both. 27% favorable Biden, not Trump, 31% favorable Trump, not Biden, 37% unfavorable view of both.

Young voters favor the Palestinians over the Israelis by a 32-13 margin. But independents favor the Israelis by a 34-16 margin. The stoppage of arms shipments to Israel has hurt Biden among swing voters. Too little, too late for young voters. The rest to add up to 100% are not sure, hadn’t heard enough or don’t favor either side. But to most Americans, the Israeli/Hamas war isn’t of interest. Inflation, rising prices, immigration remain the most important issues in deciding who to vote for and by a wide margin over every other issue.

I’m the opposite of you, I firmly believe almost any other democrat, especially a younger, fresher face, not another old foggie like Sanders or Warren would be trouncing Trump instead of trailing by a point or two today. I’m talking candidates like Tammy Duckworth, Andy Beshear, Laura Kelly etc. my opinion on this is from me studying independents, swing voters, the election deciders.

Biden proposes debate schedule but refused to participate in any of the Bipartisan debate commission’s debates.

Defying election tradition, Biden proposes debating Trump twice, wants first one in June.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/defying-election-tradition-biden-proposes-125229621.html

I think this is great. The Republicans or RNC has withdrawn from the Bipartisan debate commission anyway. The problem with the Bipartisan debate commission debate schedule has always been in my opinion, their debates were scheduled after early voting has begun in several states. This makes sense to me. A June debate and another in September.

https://www.npr.org/2022/04/14/1092...iased-commission-on-presidential-debates

I was talking to some Gen Z’s in Seattle on Saturday night. They’re very upset with Joe - mostly because of the Palestinian genocide that Israel is foisting on Gaza, that they are not going to vote.

Yesterday was primary day in three states. Trump won the GOP majority - Nimrata Haley got 30% of the vote - even though she dropped out 45 days ago.

A lot of folks won’t be voting this year.

Personally, I think ol’ Joe should have been one and done. He says the only reason he running again is to keep Trump out of office. Had Trump not decided to run for a third time, ol’ Joe would have passed the reins. I agree, ol’ Joe is the only one that can beat Trump.

…and here we are.