Buying the Vote: Student Loan Forgiveness

[Dr. Taylor, DVM]

The midterm elections are fast approaching and with them a constant stream of articles calling for President Biden to cancel student debt.

Let me preface this thread with a little about myself so you can better understand my position. I went to college for 9 years. 5 years of undergrad and 4 years of veterinary school. I hold, at the time of this article, just about $285,000 in federal student loan debt. And this is all from vet school alone. For undergrad, I worked full time, lived at home, and went to a local junior College for as many classes as possible. I came out of undergrad with a bachelor's degree and $0 in debt.

Vet school was different. Due to the limited number of schools, just 30 in the entire country, I was forced to go out of state if I wanted to join the program (I applied to 13 schools, but was accepted to just 1). This was 2010-2014, during the Obama administration. I took out ~$50-60,000 in loans a year for tuition, books, and living expenses. I'm a pretty frugal person, generally speaking, and didn't waste the money. Most truly went to tuition. When I graduated, I had ~$300,000 of debt. I be you can do the math, cause [4yrs × $60,000 =/= $300,000].

For those who don't know, graduate student loan interest rates are quite a bit higher than undergrad rates. My average interest rate is 6.8%, my lowest being about 5.5% and highest at 7.8%. These are federally provided and "backed" student loans, not private loans. Also, subsidized loans for graduate students were ended in 2012.

You can probably see where this is going.

I accrued at least $60,000 in new "debt" while in school.

Let's make this worse. For the first 2 years after school, I applied for Income Driven Repayment (IDR) because my monthly repayment was $3,300, and I had a salary of $65,000. So I clearly couldn't afford that. Well, IDR is a honey trap. The amount they required me to pay wasn't even the total interest I accrued monthly. So after 2 years, I suddenly owed $320,000, while having pissed away ~$20,000 in the same time.

It was then that I became very serious about my loans. I hand calculated my interest and have tried to pour as much free cash into it as possible. This is hard to do since I pay $20,000 in interest every year. Yes, you read that right, $20k just in interest. That's more than the poverty line makes. That's the uphill battle I have to deal with.

(I'll start post 2 tomorrow night)

[Dr. Taylor, DVM]

Part 2:

So, why did I post all that lengthy info? It's because I do not agree with student loan forgiveness. Whether it be $10,000 or $50,000 or all of it.

I would benefit heavily from student loan forgiveness, but in reality it would just increase the national debt and drive inflation up even faster.

But that doesn't mean we don't need student loan reform, we absolutely do, and I've had some ideas on the matter.

1) The federal government should stop giving out student loans. The way loans are given to young adults, by the government, is predatory. We have taught children, from the millennial generation onward, that they must go to college at all cost and this is wrong.

2) We shouldn't tax money used to pay off federal student loans. Either, we should allow loan holders to claim all of their interest on their taxes or we should allow them to take money out pre-taxes to pay for loans (like with FSA or HSA accounts).

3) Lower interest rates. Do you know why graduate students pay, on average, 2% more in interest? It's because they are more likely to pay the loans back. Yes, you read that right. Being able to pay back a student loan means you get a higher interest rate. Does that make sense to anyone? Imagine if your home mortgage rate was higher because you had a GOOD credit score.

Now, that all being said, if the Biden administration does pass some form of oan forgiveness, I will take the money. As far as I'm concerned, that's me getting my stolen tax money back.

[Rob W. Case]

One thing that Democrats ALWAYS do (and this has been so consistent that I TRUST it as a science) is that when things don’t appear to be going their way politically, they try to attempt to “save face” and do anything and everything they can to energize and mobilize voters who are now demoralized, unenthusiastic, or disaffected. How do they know that their constituents are demoralized, unenthusiastic, or disaffected? Poll numbers.

Just like in 2010 when Barack Obama was president, the Democrats (whose policies currently DOMINATE the White House and both houses of Congress) have no positive theme or message to run on. To put it another way, there is no reason to go out and vote Democrat. Now, just like 2010, all you get is blame and situations that worsen by the day, though this time in 2022, its worse than it was in 2010.


Poll Numbers & Democrats:

Public opinion polls are the primary force that drive the actions of Democrats, especially in an election year. They are usually most aggressive in their agenda in off election years to get their unpopular policies securely put in place, and the in the next election year, they try to “save face” and “let time heal all wounds”.

On that note, the polling data reflects that young people (millennials and Gen Xers- many of which voted for him in 2020) are not exactly enthusiastic and excited about him now. And so, he’s trying to save face to “get them back” and he’s trying to propose “student loan forgiveness” as a way to pump life into this demographic. He’s lost over 20 points in support from these groups. Barack Obama did the same thing during his presidency, though he pulled out the student loan forgiveness proposal when he was running for re-election in 2012 (It was H.R. 4170 proposed in the 112th congress). It’s not good to be pandering this way when we are in this bad of shape. It will only make inflation and everything that is affected by it skyrocket and get worse. And the fact that we are on the threshold of a recession, and Biden is not exactly a pro-economic growth president, will make things even more difficult for the middle class.

[donnabc]

The polls are changing. Biden and the Dems are climbing back up the polls.

[Rob W. Case]

Aug 29, 2022 8:33:05 GMT -6 donnabc said:

The polls are changing. Biden and the Dems are climbing back up the polls.

It depends on which poll you look at. The best one, I believe - because it polls for the most part likely voters (Rasmussen), has Biden at 45% approval, 53% disapproval.

Polls fluctuate, as you know, but the poll numbers in this case, are a reflection of a dynamic that asks "how comfortable is the frog in the boiling pot"? In other words, like I said before, off-election years are always the worst under a Democrat, because their policies are in full swing. They ease up on their policies in political seasons in order to "save face" to give the effect that things are getting better. Barack Obama mastered this strategy well, and Biden, is for the most part, duplicating it. But let's look at something interesting.

Biden has been reinstating the old Obama agenda in his first two years in office. On top of that, there are also parallels with that era.

For example:

in 2010, gas prices averaged to around $3.00 a gallon.
In 2022, gas prices averaged to around and above $5.00 a gallon, with some peaks coming close, or surpassing $6, depending on where you live.

-Illegal immigration now is a carbon copy of the Obama administration's policies, allowing open borders without restraints.
-The Swine Flu Pandemic of 2009 originated in Mexico, and with Obama's open borders policies, allowed it to permeate the country. When asked about it, he said "it would be akin to closing the barn door after the horses are out, because we already have cases here in the United States.” While Biden and the Democrats enforced draconian and illegal mandates in regards to COVID, Biden has allowed unvetted COVID positive illegals into the country in droves.

On the economy, in 2010, I remember the economy being one of stagnation. Under the Obama presidency, the economy and GDP shrank a number of times. So the standard became one of spin in terms of setting projections as to how they expected the economy to perform, and how the economy met or surpassed those projections. In other words, it was like moving the goal posts around to where they set them, not to where they're supposed to be. That way, devastating news would not appear as bad as it really was, and any surpassing of the set projections would appear to be good and give the impression of recovery. But in the end, what's real is real, and the economy never boomed during those years.
Biden's economy is now in recession. the economy (by GDP) just shrank 0.9%, and he is dropping trillions of dollars like money is no object, and is not over yet.

There is a lot more, but I am going to stop there.

The point I'm trying to make is that despite these unpopular policy results, Barack Obama at this point in his presidency had an approval rating of 46% approval, 52% disapproval (Rasmussen), and on the day of the mid-term elections in November of 2010, he had 45% approval and 54% disapproval. And Barack Obama was charismatic and his followers gave him the benefit of the doubt, and people wanted to like him. So where did that get him on November 4th? Nowhere. The Republicans gained 61 seats in the House that year, won 5 seats in the Senate, and picked up at least 10 governorships. Biden does not have any charisma whatsoever. He has dementia and it shows strongly. He constantly struggles and stumbles when he speaks. He has a record that is worse than both of his predecessors, but he is pulling out the "candy" to try and motivate people to go to the polls, and this is where this "student loan forgiveness" gimmick comes from.

Notice that most of the Democrats are not running on the Biden record. They are off doing their own thing, independently of him. But the fact of the matter is that they are on board with Biden and support his agenda completely and fully. And despite all of these little gimmicks, attempts to redefine concepts that people base their economic decisions on (like the word "recession"), buying votes, tampering with the voting process, blaming everyone else but poor policy decisions, and then some, things do not look good for the Democrats, because as things stand now, it's as good as it's going to get. if the Democrats pull off a win in November, and we enter into an off election year, then prices and inflation are going to go back up and things are going to continue to decline the way they've been declining since 2021, but worse. You would then have to wait until the 2nd or 3rd quarter of the next political season of 2024 to expect any sort of "relief" from that until then. And now many Democrats are trying to back away from the student loan forgiveness gimmick, or sending mixed messages as to what is really going to come of it, if it passes.