capnamerca

This is a fair point.

It's been a pretty big selling point for the GOP, but it's because those entitlements go to corporations and donors, and not the American people. And if the mentality is repugnant to some, help us change the narrative by bringing back nuance and compromise.

also, don't print any money to help with inflation, don't give anyone any tax breaks, and don't force companies to pay better wages.

People are TRYING, man! Yes, people should make better decisions about what degrees they take. Let's emphasize the trades more in high school. Let's put some federal money towards educational programs, manned by the Department of Education. Yes, people should make better decisions about what loans they should take out. Let's ALSO hold Freddie and Fannie accountable for making some really terrible loans to people they're pretty sure would never be able to pay it back. Yes, you should pay back what you sign your name to. But bankruptcy exists because a long time ago, we founded this country on the ideals that all of us are entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and one of the things we very specifically contemplated were "second chance" things, like bankruptcy. But student loans are exempt? Why? Even if we stopped the forgiveness programs right now, we're just dooming another generation of borrowers to the same fate if we don't DO something about it.

There's a ton of great nuanced conversation we can have here. First off, no one got "free money," and the government didn't spend your tax dollars to write anyone a check. The vast majority of what was forgiven was future-money-owed, and in many of those cases, the boworrer had already repaid the original value of the loan. I acknowledge that I'm not bringing data to this statement, but these are the general themes of what the program was built on. I'd love to talk with you about WHY these loans got to a point where forgiveness was something to even be considered. Lending practices in higher education have horrendously misaligned incentives. The primary lender in these situations is the federal government - Fannie and Freddie. The money is made incredibly easy for 18, 19, 20 year olds to get. That easy money has led universities to actually REDUCE the amount of other types of incentives available to students, and it's enabled them to raise tuition without seeing a commensurate change in their enrollment. Additionally, because student loans aren't dischargeable by bankruptcy, Fannie and Freddie have very little incentive to decline borrowers, which feeds this "easy money" feedback loop on the supply side. This disconnection of the normal market-force check and balance has led to really bad outcomes for a lot of people. I FULLY agree that 'loan forgiveness' is a really blunt-force way to try and ease the pressure on these folks; I'm very much a "pay back what you sign your name to" guy in real life. But we gotta do SOMETHING, because people are suffering. Guess which party has no interest in a compromise and working across the aisle on these things? It's also worth pointing out what these folks do when their loans are forgiven. What's the outcome of that money? They spend it. It goes back into the economy, many times over. These are generally kids, trying to get ahead, get out of credit card debt, maybe buy a house or a car, plan a wedding. And it's money that already exists in the grand machine, and it doesn't have to be printed, so it's non-inflationary. That young person just got a raise, and no one had to increase wages, or approve a tax break, or fight to make consumables costs cheaper. All three of those are GOP stronghold positions, and things that GOP voters keep saying they care about. So it's difficult to have a conversation about "student loan forgiveness" because all the outcomes seem good for the GOP. It sure looks like GOP voters really just want people to suffer.

oh, I know. I've known specifically in my own household since about 2012, when we heartbreakingly needed access to those types of services. Even then, the hoops we had to jump through clearly had nothing to do with the health and safety of my wife, or even her future ability to let us try again. And as if I needed reminding, I've watched like everyone else while the GOP systematically dismantled or refused to invest in anything even remotely related to education, womens health, or childcare programs, as if I needed any more proof.

One party supports structure and decorum around the supreme coury, and one party holds confirmations only when it benefits their party, appoints clearly political appointees, and leverages the supreme court flow to directly enrich themselves. (BTW a left-leaning court is responsible for some pretty basic things historically, like desegregation and the ability of my wife to vote). Immigration - the border isn't open, but it is overwhelmed. One party put forth common sense legislation to try and do something about it, acknowledging that individual bill wasn't perfect but that we had to start somewhere, and worked to have in-congress bipartisan support for it. The other party killed that bill so as not to give the first party a "win" during an election season, which seems to be a rather unserious attempt to fix said border problem. What parts of the Left's platform need correcting? Can you please list off policy that's been voted into law (or ED), or policy that you think was rightly shot down which would otherwise have been enacted, that's broken?

This isn't directed at you specifically, but your comment here is emblematic of the issue. Because in this country, we get one of two choices - Republican or Democrat - that shape the direction of this country. You can hold all the personal beliefs you want, you can donate to all the right organizations, you can volunteer your time at the shelter, and those are wonderful things which I sincerely keep happening. But enacting change comes from one of two places, and you sat it out. We saw who won, and thus ... you're part of the problem. Newt Gingrich is the other reason why this is such an intractable problem. This thread started on the premise of a truce, of a cogent conversation amongst people who's opinions differed. Baked into that 'truce' assumption is that by finding places where two different sides might agree, there exists a place where compromise can thus happen. Newt moved the republican party to a place where compromise is, quite literally, no longer possible. (Source) I forget who the poster was up-thread who said "democrats have said that about every GOP nominee in my lifetime," and then referenced Romney and both Bushes, all three of whom were nominees AFTER the Gingrich brain-worm had taken root. There did use to be a compromise concept to both parties. but it died in the late 90's on the GOP side. So when the progressives / liberals / democrats scream for compromise, for policies that put our most marginalized people first, for policies that help ALL Americans, the GOP DNA sees them as weakness, as losing. Compromise requires two parties acting in good faith, and the GOP aren't, and haven't in more than 30 years. It's completely useless to have any conversation about policy, because there's 0 chance of anything happening in the Senate or House, and the REASON that nothing will happen is entirely on the GOP. This is not to say that the democrats have policy figured out, or have any sort of monopoly on being right, but there's no path for the democrats to work on anything, because the other side won't do a goddamned thing in good faith. Which leaves us with one option and one option only - the presidential and congressional elections. If the democrats don't have control, then there is no structure in place any more to check the most basic of our human nature. Even if GOP senators or advisors wanted to consider doing something positive for the American common man, the minute they engage a democratic peer to work on something, they're ostracized by the party. Just look at the border bill for this insane reluctance to work on things that would benefit their own goddamned party, simply because of the deep-seated need to not give the other side a win. I have no energy left to think about compromise, because it doesn't do any good. The political people we just put into power have no interest in governing, only in winning, and the people that are going to suffer are all of us. They don't care about policy; they only care about winning. How anyone can vote for that is beyond me, and how anyone can claim for one second that "if the democrats only did X or Y, then we'd be more willing to lean in" is beyond me, because the facts of the matter are, you like winning too. More than you like helping your fellow man. Otherwise you would have voted for the Democratic nominee, and preserved some small piece of the American Experiment. BTW, an abortion ban doesn't reduce abortion. It only reduces safe abortion, which is a different way of saying it only kills more women. Progressives have spent the better part of 20 years putting forth common-sense legislation and educational programs designed to reduce abortion. NOBODY wants to kill babies, we're just ALSO interested in not killing women, and realize that the solution requires nuance. If you want to work on not killing babies or women, we're happy to have your vote in the mid-term elections. If you don't care about women, then please, continue to sit out. Sigh. I tried. But I guess this was directed at gsoda directly, at least a little bit.

We gave up one really great option two days ago, as an American people.

"Does this also surprisingly look like Athens, Georgia? No? Because that's where we are ..." Holy shit, this killed me.

double-post. Sorry.

I fear you're falling into the trap of what America used to be. Sheer inertia will continue our standard of living for a while, but the gnashing of teeth from a lot on here is in reaction to a very clear changing of the guard. Hell, I'd argue that the rags-to-riches story of American Exceptionalism hasn't really been a legitmate outcome for 20 or 30 years now; just look at real wage growth over time, or the accumulation of wealth (and how America USED to deal with this level of disgusting aggregation), or any of a 1000 other signs that basically boil down to "rich get richer." And before you say "yeah but it's always been that way," it hasn't been that way to this level since the days of Rockefeller. And it took a Great Depression, and then the most liberal progressive president the entire world had ever seen to turn it around, which led to the actual creation of that American dream we all cling to. Unions, jobs programs, welfare programs, wider access to health care, pollution control programs, widespread education programs. The REASON that the last 5-6 generations of Americans think that this is the best country in the world to come be a 'self-made man' is because of all the social programs put in place to make it possible, and they're almost all unilaterally under attack from the incoming government and it's mega-rich supporters.

It's not Trump. It's the people he's going to end up putting into positions of power that will careen us towards the end of the republic. Conservative judges by the hundreds if not thousands. Stated lunatics that want to abolish the NWS, FEMA, the Department of Education. Even scarier lunatics in his inner circle with publicly stated sympathies with white nationalists, etc. And christ, possibly two more SC judges. Stage2 comes right after infrastructure week.

It's not about what I call him ... if you're drawing parallels, I'm 100% CERTAIN that Colin Allred never called Abbot anything derogatory on the campaign trail, or encouraged his supporters to vote against the ADA.

I couldn't chime in earlier, but I'm so fucking sick of the whole "well, if the democrats were just nicer and didn't talk down to people, blah blah." Total bullshit coming from the party of people that willingly voted for a guy who made fun of a handicapped journalist live on national television. This right here, all the way back in 2015, should have been the fucking end of it. The GOP has spent the better part of a decade dehumanizing anyone who doesn't toe the line. Crooked Hillary, Let's Go Brandon, Lyin' Kamala ... these came not from local activist agitators but direct from the mouth (er, fingertips) of the guy you just put in office. So kindly fuck off with your "democrats are the mean ones." Even if we cowtowed ALL THE WAY OVER and put the backs of our heads on the pavement, you assholes would find something else to fight about. Because you aren't negotiating in good faith basically ever. Every accusation is an admission; the soul of the GOP can't comprehend legitmate compromise, empathy, a desire to actually help folks who might disagree with them, and so they just assume everyone else feels the same way. He's not going to reach across the aisle because he doesn't know how, and he doesn't care to learn. HIs goal isn't compromise, his goal isn't noble, his goal isn't helping those less fortunate. I don't particularly know what his goal IS, other than chaos and personal enrichment, but along the way he's putting people in positions of power with very clear goals that will serve to hurt people. Fuck you and your both-sides bullshit. It's never in good faith, and it never has been.