So, I found a new term for Joe Biden I like. Kyle Kulinski discussed this topic too, and he called him "Bare Minimum Biden." And yes, that's accurate for this. Anyway, as you can tell by the link, Biden decided to forgive $10,000 in student loan debt.
While this is better than nothing, my stance on this is gonna be "la dee freaking da." Really, this is pathetic. It's literally the bare minimum to be able to say you did something, while not actually doing much of consequence. It's typical democratic party politics. As I said, the democrats are mostly a conservative party. They support the status quo, and only support minor shifts to it at most. And this is after the Bernie Sanders wing twists their arm. So, Biden is doing the same old democratic shuffle of trying to do something to appease left wing voters, while doing as little as possible so he can go to his stakeholders and moderate voters and say he did damage control. That's what this is, damage control. Again, doing something to get progressive voters off of his back, but simultaneously doing as little as possible.
I want to remind people what other alternatives were on the table. Bernie wanted to forgive all of it, which is my preferred approach. Warren wanted to forgive $50k, which is still a band aid, but a much bigger band aid. He could have moved to remove all interest from student loans. That would knock down the totals a lot more than $10k for some people. He could have had universal IBR with no tax bomb, which is what my compromise option would look like.
Any of these, or any combinations of these, would be more progressive, and more helpful, than this. This is a joke. Again, it's doing the bare minimum to say they did something, while actually preserving the status quo as much as humanly possible. It's maddening, but this is what the centrist wing of the democratic party likes to do. They did it with BBB too. We literally got 1/5th of that in monetary value and just got a bunch of tax credits. And, admittedly, that ain't Biden's fault. I'll given Biden credit for trying there. But congress stonewalled him. But THIS?! Biden theoretically has the ability to forgive student debt by the stroke of a pen. I've seen some people argue the other way too, claiming he doesn't have the authority, but I think if he can get away with $10k, why not all of it?
Admittedly, this doesn't solve the problem. More people will go to college, they'll get more student debt, and we really should have free college. Which brings me to another issue. Much like Biden's free college plan, this has a means test on it, only forgiving debt for people under $125k. I mean, too be fair, if you make $125k+, you dont need help, but it's the principle of the thing. Why not just make college free? Why carve out all of these exceptions, and limitations, and make it so darned complicated. Democrats have a pathological obsession with means testing everything, because they don't believe in universal programs. They just believe in doing the bare minimum for those they deem worthy of help. It's infuriating.
That said, yeah, I think Bare Minimum Biden is a good name for him. It really sums up the philosophy of the centrist wing of the democratic party.
I mean, I admit, I've been getting more flexible, I've been trying to offer some more moderate alternatives to Bernie proposals on some issues. I can get behind a robust public option on healthcare. On student debt forgiveness, I laid out my alternatives above. I don't support a green new deal and instead support a more moderte framework. But COME ON, the dems can't even meet those standards. It's freaking pathetic. My moderate compromise options still are significantly more progressive than anything the democrats seem to want to actually do. Sure, Harris may have proposed a public option similar to my own. And Biden's Build Back Better is one of the two frameworks I actively endorse for climate change (the other being Yang's). But they don't enact such things. Harris' plan was lost to the dustbins of history and Biden won the narrative, then didn't even do THAT. Biden also failed to pass Build Back Better, although he had some help from "moderates" in his own party on that one.
It's like these people don't want people to have nice things, and are doing the bare minimum to say they did SOMETHING to get them off of their back. It's pathetic.
Well, I'm not gonna stop pushing for actual ideas that actively make peoples' lives better. And I'm not gonna settle for this luke warm garbage.
EDIT: I looked more into it and Biden's plan may have been more progressive than first thought. It appears he is forgiving up to $20k for Pell grant borrowers, is making IBR a bit more progressive, and is modifying how interest accrues as well.
Still, this is a bunch of band aids that doesn't go far enough so I maintain my current position otherwise. I just acknowledge this isn't as pathetic as I thought.
No comments:
Post a Comment