Rob Rogers for April 30, 2022

The system is by the bought and paid for, of the wage slaves and for the obscenely rich.

Tax giveaways and corporate welfare? No problem. No questions about how to pay for it.

PPP loans for COVID emergency relief to corporations forgiven? No problem. No questions about how to pay for it.

Loans to students so they can get the college education we tell them they need to have?

How are we going to pay for it?

This is debt that they should never have had to assume in the first place, especially at rates far higher than what are offered to banks and financial institutions. If the U.S. government is going to loan money to students, at the very least it should be at interest no higher than whatever the lowest rate charged anyone else is.

Most other industrial nations have free public education K-through public college.

In the United States, we guarantee free public education through high school, but add four more years and all of a sudden it somehow becomes a communist plot?

Conservatives keep talking about “American exceptionalism,” but it seems to mean that things like universal no-fee health care, universal no-fee public higher education, high-speed rail, common-sense gun safety oversight, a strong social safety net and financial security for seniors can work in every other industrialized country in the world, “except” not in the United States.

In other words, everyone else in the industrial world is good enough, smart enough and worthy enough to make these things work, EXCEPT the United States.

Thanks again, Citizens United — the gift that keeps on giving … to those who already have plenty!

Right wing are against freebies expect when it benefits them

Tax cuts for the rich means more money in "campaign contributions’ for politicians. See the connection? Have to be blind not to.

Chevron just made record breaking profits. Chevron gets MILLIONS in govt subsidies!!! That is okay, right wingnuts love that, but free education, no way. If you’re educated you may find out that Chevron gets MILLIONS in govt subsidies and Chevron doesn’t want that to happen!!

So that’s what Lisa Benson looks like?

“You need this, so you CAN’T HAVE IT!!! We can ONLY give money to people WHO DON’T NEED IT!!!”

Truth.

Problem is if you educate too many of the populace they might have a better understanding of how the system works and try to change it…

Colleges are no longer places of learning. They’re profit centers. Of course, some of them hide those profits in their “endowments”, so Shazam!! they’re “non-profits”. The dragon king Harvard University is squatting on a treasure trove of $53 billion, and even the lowly “public” University of Florida has more than $2 billion.

Whle we’re attacking student debt, let’s do something about why those debts are so high in the first place.

There is no way of knowing what we have lost by not giving every person their best opportunity to achieve whatever they can. It is detrimental to the entire human race, not just to the individual. And, it isn’t just that the mind that could have discovered the cure for cancer could have been born in poverty and never learned to read.The average college graduate pays about $7800 more a year in federal taxes than the average high school graduate. Over 30 years, that totals about $234,000. If that’s divided by the 4 years it takes to get a college education, the government breaks even if it paid every student $58,500 a year to attend school. This doesn’t even consider that with the degree, the person is less likely to ever need unemployment or welfare, and that more students would complete high school if they could see it as the way to a good job. They would also be paying a larger amount in all other types of taxes, social security and Medicare. The best investment we could make to keep America strong is to not just forgive all student loans but to make all higher education, including trade schools, etc totally free, as long as the student is making decent grades. There is no better way to spend money than, to give our people every opportunity to be the best they can be. Yes, It’s good for them individually, and the country is made of individuals, so it benefits the country.

How about this?

A refund/forgiveness on student loans, if, they sold you a useless education.

The problem is Biden/Democrats just want to add it to the debt. What if they came out and said forgiving the loans and making public university affordable, say $1,000 (roughly tuition from 1965 adjusted for inflation) semester is a moral imperative BUT it would require increasing each income tax bracket by 1%/2% -12% bracket go to 13%/14%? Would voters agree? And no Bezos/Musk will not be paying for everyones’ education.

Should future college students who want to major in the social sciences/humanities be required to sign a waiver acknowledging the degree will not be a good financial return on their investment before they receive any assistance/loans?

https://news.yahoo.com/laura-ingrahams-argument-against-student-082446239.html

There are many issues around student loan forgiveness. 1. What about all the students who paid off their loans? How do they feel when some people get the government to pay off their loans? 2. college graduates make a lot more money than high school grads. so use some of that to pay off your loans. 3. there were other options: 2 years of Jr. college and transfer to a state college vs. 4 years at Stanford. 4. If someone majors in something that isn’t going to improve their chance to earn money, like philosophy, then it’s up to them to figure out how to pay it off.

It’s ok if a similar fairy visits a Rich Tax Payer, and offers a tax cut.

Perhaps we can get money for the students from the

Tax breaks for rich people fairy

Oil subsidies fairy

Wall St bail out fairy

or the $700 billion defense fund fairy.

Democrats Mission Statement…When things are going bad, double down. Ignorant tone deaf pandering for votes. Rich white professionals already vote Democrat, youngsters don’t vote in mid-terms you know who does? Ya’all about to f-around and find out.

This is why Elon Musk moved to the right, he doesn’t want the left to tax him more.

The richest man in the world does not want to pay his fair share of taxes.

My wife’s father died when she was a pre-teen. Her widowed mother decided that, hell or high water, her three daughters were going to get university educations, and moved what was left of the family from Cleveland to California, where in-state tuition was free. This worked out well, for the daughters and for the communities they served in later life. (As it happened, my wife’s stint at UC Berkeley overlapped mine, although we never met there; the mid-sixties were exciting times….)

I suppose there is a bit of a theoretical problem of forgiving student loan debt, because it doesn’t compensate those who were able to pay it, or most of it, off. Perhaps the US could declare something like “retroactive free post-secondary education,” and reimburse those who had to pay for their educations, whether or not they had to borrow, or were able to pay off the debt before now. This puts those who were able to support themselves through university, or who were indebted and have been able to pay it off, a bit ahead, but maybe they deserve to be.

Trump gave most of the PPP money to one trucking firm. Now someone is paying for the right wing trucker protests.

Right on!

How about no tax breaks for anyone?

He may be a fairy. He may even be a gleeful fairy. But whatever you do, don’t call him “gay”.