Political Roundtable Part XXX

[Zonkerbl]

The dems have been purging guys like Manchin for awhile because you can't get anything done w parasites like that leeching the life out of your party. But it cuts both ways - Trump won because he picked up the xenophobic union workers the dems discarded. And Manchin being a dem means Darth McConnell isn't in charge of the senate.

Really what we need is a combination of more educated white people (the real reason Dems want to cancel student debt) and more courage in passing anti-racist legislation (e.g. criminal justice reform).

How you get there from here, in time to save democracy from the gop, is the issue. Need to hold out for at least a few more years.

[FAH1223]

Cancelling student loans is a hell of a lot more complicated than reactionaries on Twitter will have you believe. The best option is for Congress to pass a law, simple as that.

The problem with Biden discharging student loans is that no one knows if it’s constitutionally legal and trust me you will have a ton of right wing groups sue the government (funny Republicans are never made to be punished for going against things that are broadly popular) and a Republican President could come in and reverse the order which would predictably throw things into chaos (and if anyone believes Republicans would suffer any political hit you haven’t been paying attention).

https://www.npr.org/2021/12/07/1062070001/student-loan-forgiveness-debt-president-biden-campaign-promise

Much has been written about the president's authority — through his education secretary — to simply cancel the debts of millions of borrowers. Here's an NPR primer from nearly two years ago.

But Biden doesn't seem eager to try this door. For one thing, he says, it's not certain that canceling student loans with the stroke of his pen would hold up in court, admitting in a February 2021 town hall that "I don't think I have the authority" to cancel $50,000 per borrower.

Instead of acting unilaterally, though, this year Biden asked the Education and Justice departments to explore his legal options. The results are still TBD, more than six months later.

Since then, the White House has gone largely quiet on loan cancellation. Some advocates — and many Democrats — worry that, for whatever reason, the administration is intentionally dragging its feet. Not so, said Kvaal, the education undersecretary, in his interview with NPR.

"Legal authority is not an on-off switch. You need to think about the standards that would be applied, the rationale that we can muster," Kvaal explained. "We are looking very carefully with the White House and the Department of Justice at whether we can cancel loans across the board for everyone, and that's something where deliberations are still continuing."

And cancelling student loan debt is not as politically popular as most people believe. It takes a lot of nuance.

"I do think the president maybe understands that broad loan forgiveness is not popular in this country, which is why, I think, he has not gone the route of doing what some in his party want to do."

But polling suggests broad loan forgiveness would be popular, if done with some nuance. For example, a Grinnell College poll conducted in March found that 27% of respondents supported forgiving all student debt and an additional 39% supported forgiveness "for those in need." In other polling — from Vox/Data for Progress and the Harris Poll — a majority of respondents supported broad, if limited, forgiveness.

But I get the frustration from advocates and Biden shouldn’t have run on it if he didn’t have a plan to deliver. The Whitehouse has communicated this poorly and he needs to fire all of his political advisors. These clowns are still using the Clinton playbook from decades ago trying to appeal to bi-partisanship and sane Republicans.

I think It seems solid from an administrative law perspective. I just want someone more grounded in nuts and bolts of constitutional law to explain to me who would be harmed/have standing to sue if Exec Action was attempted on, say, $10k cross the board forgiven. Student loan servicing companies?

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Expect more of this. A lot of anger and frustration out there.

[pancakes3]

the "we're still working out the kinks of our legal authority to cancel debt" argument doesn't explain why they aren't extending the moratorium on payment. it's bullspit.

[FAH1223]

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[Bonscott]

Nitwit Democrats are more infatuated with Trump than anything else,especially the king nitwit currently in the White House

[FAH1223]

the "we're still working out the kinks of our legal authority to cancel debt" argument doesn't explain why they aren't extending the moratorium on payment. it's bullspit.

Read on Twitter

‘IT’S JUST COMPLETELY DELUSIONAL’ — The White House has been pretty clear in recent days: Federal student loan payments will resume Feb. 1 as Biden lifts the nearly two-year pandemic-era pause despite pressure from many in his own party to extend it.

Behind the scenes, that political reality has led the Biden administration to conduct Zoom meetings with allies in the student loan forgiveness space in an effort to make the resumption of loan repayments as smooth as possible.

But despite their no-drama intent, the confabs have not always been smooth sailing.

One such “tense meeting,” described by someone familiar with what happened in the conversation, happened Wednesday. Loan forgiveness advocates relayed to members of Biden’s domestic policy and economic teams that beyond the actual economic, legal and policy implications of lifting the loan repayment pause, the move was “bad politically.” They wanted “to sound the alarm to them about what we believe to be a very serious political mistake that they’re about to be making,” a second source familiar with the conversation told me.

Team Biden was not moved. Multiple sources familiar with what was said at the meeting described the administration’s message as effectively that borrowers had two years to prepare for this and knew the pause wouldn’t last forever.

Sources told me that one administration official in the meeting suggested that overall, the pandemic was trending in the right direction, and that resuming student loan payments is part of getting back to normal.

The White House also "pulled that kind of bullsh-- of ‘the fundamentals of the economy are strong,’ which is devoid of reality,” the first source familiar with the conversation added. “Yeah, sure, the stock market may be better. Unemployment numbers are better — yes, absolutely. But in terms of real wages, in terms of how people are feeling in their pocketbook, it’s just completely delusional.”

In the eyes of debt forgiveness advocates, the ramifications of lifting the pause are dire. Not everyone is feeling the impact of a rebounding economy. Rising prices and now a new coronavirus variant are causing widespread unease. And going into an election cycle, a decision like this could affect turnout and enthusiasm — especially among younger voters, who are already unreliable midterm voters.

ARISHA HATCH, the VP of Color of Change, did not attend the meeting, but described the political outlook this way: “Our early research showed that people would be making political decisions based on that issue. When you combine it with an entire narrative about the difficulties that Democrats are having [in] pushing forward an economic agenda that actually offers relief to people, lots of folks were wondering: What is the narrative, what is the story, what is the push when you go back to the voters in this upcoming election cycle?”

Some of the debt forgiveness advocates left the meeting feeling like the White House doesn’t yet have a full plan in place. “It felt like the tail wagging the dog,” a third person familiar with the meeting put it. “Like someone at some point, some number of months ago said, ‘We can’t keep this thing paused forever.’ And so everybody went into execution mode, and nobody actually stopped to think about what they were doing. And now we’re here.”

The White House declined to comment on the record about the meeting, but administration officials again insisted that the loan repayment pause was always meant to be temporary, and pointed to actions the administration has already taken in this realm — including forgiving “$12.7 billion in student loan debt.”

One administration official told Playbook to expect announcements “in the coming weeks and months” on what resources will be available so that borrowers who have already been struggling through the pandemic can hop on the right payment plan, including deferment.

“The Department of Education is taking a number of steps to ensure that it’s not just some sort of cold turkey” situation, the official said. “We are trying to take every step possible to do right by the borrowers.”

As for the Department of Education’s review of whether Biden has the authority to unilaterally cancel at least $10,000 of student debt per borrower — which Biden campaigned on — administration officials tell me that conversations are still happening and no final determination has been made. An official did say that Biden is still ready to sign a $10,000 student loan forgiveness bill into law if Congress can pass it.

[Pointgod]

the "we're still working out the kinks of our legal authority to cancel debt" argument doesn't explain why they aren't extending the moratorium on payment. it's bullspit.

Agreed, but it’s a damn if you do, damn if you don’t situation. It’s not like Biden gets any credit for extending the moratorium, but it’s the right thing to do. Just extend it indefinitely until the next election. Seems like an easy win.

[Zonkerbl]

Looks like Manchin pulled the plug on bbb, just as everyone knew he would.

Announcing it on Fox was a particularly vicious stab in the back.

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[Wizardspride]

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[pancakes3]

the "we're still working out the kinks of our legal authority to cancel debt" argument doesn't explain why they aren't extending the moratorium on payment. it's bullspit.

Agreed, but it’s a damn if you do, damn if you don’t situation. It’s not like Biden gets any credit for extending the moratorium, but it’s the right thing to do. Just extend it indefinitely until the next election. Seems like an easy win.

biden doesn't get credit because it was Trump who paused the payments. for all of trump's ills, this is an objectively good policy. it is a step towards addressing the root cost of skyrocketing costs of higher education. resuming payments is an affirmative step backwards and ignores the problem, like ignoring climate change.

saying that we need to return to normalcy in the context of student loans shows that the administration (and big D Dems) believe that having to go into six-figure debt to access higher ed (which at this point is a misnomer as college degrees are standard for a majority of job that pay a living wage) reveals that they just don't give a flip, which is (1) not their platform; and (2) politically unpopular.

[Wizardspride]

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[FAH1223]

Looks like Manchin pulled the plug on bbb, just as everyone knew he would.

Announcing it on Fox was a particularly vicious stab in the back.

Read on Twitter

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It was clear this would happen for months. The White House calling him a liar is a big surprise to me. They’re pissed.

[Wizardspride]

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[TGW]

Lol the ineffective biden admin letting this phony undermine their agenda once again. Yet you have Democrat supporting morons in this very thread argue that Manchin is needed in the party. What a joke.

[Wizardspride]

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[Wizardspride]

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[TGW]

Embarrassing. A two-bit comedian on a hiphop station is exposing these losers.

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[dckingsfan]

Machin isn't a D. This should be completely clear now. There are 48 D Senators - not enough to get anything done.

And there will be nothing done in 22-24 when Trump takes over again. And even less in Trump's 3rd and 4th terms.

[Pointgod]

Lol the ineffective biden admin letting this phony undermine their agenda once again. Yet you have Democrat supporting morons in this very thread argue that Manchin is needed in the party. What a joke.

Dude at this point you’re basically a Republican in disguise. You even voted for Trump. Sounds a lot like Manchin.

[Pointgod]

Machin isn't a D. This should be completely clear now. There are 48 D Senators - not enough to get anything done.

And there will be nothing done in 22-24 when Trump takes over again. And even less in Trump's 3rd and 4th terms.

Everyone has no one to blame but themselves for trusting Manchin. And Progressives took **** for not passing the infrastructure bill until BBB was passed. Turns out they were right, but got pressured into passing the infrastructure bill.

Sad that bolded is where your country is headed.