The Best Of Hands
By Mitch Berg
So on Tuesday, Brandon banged his sceptre on the floor of the palace and bade $20K to disappear from student loan balances, forthwith.
And his reasoning was the same, sober statesmanship we’ve come to expect from Brandon:
Unanswered – and, as far as I know, unasked by most of the media – does he actually have the authority to unilaterally erase loan balances and transfer it all to the deficit?
Of course not – not if you take enumerated powers seriously:
As of yet, Congress has provided no authorization for the executive branch to arbitrarily write off some of the money that borrowers owe to taxpayers. As of yet, Congress has passed no rules that allow down-on-their-luck presidents to throw money at people for political gain. As of yet, Congress has given no instruction that if the president’s friends might like a little more cash, he can raid the Treasury to give it to them. Certainly, Congress has set up a loan program. But the deal there is rather simple, all told: First you borrow, and then you pay back what you borrowed. There is no mention of “forgiveness” days or of “help” or of rolling Chekhovian jubilees, and by pretending otherwise, President Biden is making a mockery of his oath to uphold the Constitution.
To be fair and accurate, there’s never been any indication Biden understood that oath, even before his senescence.
But mark my words: colleges – their endowments untouched – will start telling prospective students “Borrow whatever you need – there’ll be another forgiveness soon”.
You and I, and our grandchildren, will be paying off the loans of these
August 26th, 2022 at 6:23 am
Well, Joe, what did you do to the taxpayers when you gave oil from our strategic reserve to China? How about the kickbacks that you and Piglosi received from both China and Ukraine? How about all of the slush money that you are spending out of the wallets of your own constituents? You know, the ones you left wing pricks are claiming to help.
August 26th, 2022 at 6:23 am
My stepdaughter attended and then graduated from UW Madison. She now has a comfortable income with benefits working for the Chicago Public Schools, shares a comfortable apartment in trendy Lincoln Park, and drives a leased Subaru Impreza. A couple of weekends ago she and her girlfriends jetted out to New Jersey to stay at the home of parents of one of them. Nice lifestyle, if you can get it.
Her mother, not married to me at the time, put her name on $30K of student loans between 2015 and 2019. Now that Brandon has declared debt liberation, I’m going to do the rational thing, even though I believe the policy is terrible: I’m going to take the money.
August 26th, 2022 at 6:28 am
golfdoc;
Yup! I’ve spoken with and heard a number of people that have the same opinion. I’m just hoping that the number of people that have paid their loans off or have been dutifully paying the monthly payments, including the 6-8% interest rates, revolt at the ballot box.
August 26th, 2022 at 8:34 am
milton friedman is not in charge anymore the government can give away as much money as it likes there is no danger of inflation that is caused by putin damn him
forgiving government loans is the same as giving away government money so why only 10 for private and 20 for pell why not all of it cheap bastard
August 26th, 2022 at 8:52 am
The republican arguments are pretty thin. In fact they are more unsupported assertions than arguments.
They aren’t giving people $10k in cash, they are taking it off their loan balance. They will not be able to go out and buy a car tomorrow. People will have their repayments reduced so will have more cash to spend except their repayments have already been on hold for two years so the practical immediate effect is zero. Any inflation has already happened.
August 26th, 2022 at 9:53 am
Cool – the troll got its talking points! Let’s see:
They aren’t giving people $10k in cash, they are taking it off their loan balance.
No one has argued otherwise.
They will not be able to go out and buy a car tomorrow.
No one has argued that, either.
People will have their repayments reduced so will have more cash to spend except their repayments have already been on hold for two years so the practical immediate effect is zero.
So “people” could spend cash on cars or whatever else? Or are cars prohibited? And if the practical immediate effect is zero, why is this exercise necessary?
Any inflation has already happened.
Has it now?
August 26th, 2022 at 9:55 am
It’s ridiculous to pretend this is going to cause an inflationary fire. Student loans have been paused for the past two years straight, with no interest accruing on them. So people haven’t been paying them. It’s going to be a huge relief for the long term, but for the moment, it has absolutely no effect (except maybe on savings, or on those who have been still paying them down even though they aren’t required to and aren’t paying interest on them).
August 26th, 2022 at 10:06 am
At the absolutely very least these people had better be taxed as if this forgiveness is income.
August 26th, 2022 at 10:10 am
👆🏻 And I was sure no one could make Paul Krugman look intelligent.
Now do Betty McCollum, rAT.
August 26th, 2022 at 10:13 am
^^ I’m enjoying, I guess, the call out of all the hypocritical individuals in Congress who didn’t pay back their massive PPP loans… but why in the world are members of Congress applying for, and getting, six and seven figure government loans?
Is it also regressive to not allow students with crushing debt to use the same bankruptcy laws that Trump did to bail on his debt responsibilities five times, which left others owing his debt?
And tell us who turned the student loan game over to the for profit lenders that caused a lot of this massive debt to be a lifetime sentence, and which failed party changed the laws to prohibit SL debt from being forgiven in the first place?
August 26th, 2022 at 10:23 am
^^ every day Emery shows up here and flaunts his ignorance of economics.
The interest payments were suspended, not forgiven. Interest was continuing to accumulate on the student loans.
Idiot.
Maybe you can join a sixth grade social studies discussion group. They might appreciate your genius there.
August 26th, 2022 at 10:24 am
“Emery on August 26, 2022 at 10:13 am said:”
Textbook whataboutism.
August 26th, 2022 at 10:25 am
👆🏻 Hey dickhead, you were sharing your intimate insights into inflation. Remember? No?
Put the G&T down. 🍸
August 26th, 2022 at 10:29 am
So typical of you, Bot Boy. The PPP loans are worlds away from college loans.
On your second pile of bullshit, Trump’s bankruptcies didn’t directly affect taxpayers, unlike Obumbler’s funding of Solyndra (and other crony deals),which left U.S. taxpayers on the hook for $535 million and the CEO, a big DemoCommie bundled, walked away with a couple million bucks in bonuses. This article highlights what an utter failure this was.
https://www.cato.org/blog/solyndra-case-study-green-energy-cronyism-failure-central-planning
It’s too bad that DemoCommies haven’t got the integrity to make good on this crime by paying it off with funds from their billions in dark money donations.
August 26th, 2022 at 10:33 am
I wasn’t backing Trump’s loans; I didn’t take a haircut when he went belly up.
The government backed those student loans with my.fucking.money. Only an 80IQ nitwit couldn’t see the difference.
Lucky for us, we have one on hand.
August 26th, 2022 at 10:39 am
There are plenty sources for when discharging student debt via bankruptcy became disallowed. Since the last two times are Republicans I’m sure it’s all their fault.
1976 Congress controlled by Democrats
1978 ——- Democrats
1979 ——- Democrats
1984 Democrat House Republican Senate
1990 ——- Democrats
1998 ——- Republicans
2005 ——- Republicans
August 26th, 2022 at 10:39 am
FWIW, the PPP loans were specifically designed to be forgiven. Student loans were not. Whether PPP loans were justified is a separate issue.
Most conservatives would like student loans to be dischargeable in bankruptcy, but that change was part of Obamacare. So as usual you are, as P.J. O’Rourke put it, calling in an air strike on your own position.
August 26th, 2022 at 11:05 am
Now here’s an idea: make student loans dischargeable via bankruptcy — but only the first $10k.
August 26th, 2022 at 11:05 am
I said the term “inflationary fire” (the full quote was something like pouring gasoline on an inflationary fire) was ridiculous. This implies that this will cause inflation to rage immediately, while today’s inflation is still occurring.
But Biden started talking about how he’d be forgiving $10,000 in debt two years ago. So it’s baked in.
Why on earth would someone pay debt that has 0 interest and two years of no late fees for failing to ever pay it, instead of paying down higher-interest debt, or if they have no debt, saving and making money with their savings’ interest or their stocks’ rises? Especially since we’ve known Biden would probably forgive that debt and write it off anyway. There are no changes to people’s spending here (except for the 1.2% of student loan borrowers who have still been paying off that debt, even though there’s 0% interest, they don’t have to pay it throughout the years of pauses, and they can make more money by investing those payments in savings or stocks instead).
Borrowers already baked this loan forgiveness into their planning two years ago, when Biden and the Democratic candidates first started talking about forgiving the debt. Or at the latest, 1.75 years ago, when Biden got elected.
August 26th, 2022 at 11:33 am
As long as woolly is pulling quotes — he should have included this quote: “It is indeed sad that these people can’t pay off their loans and live the life that they want, but it’s fundamentally unfair to ask those who never went to college now to bear their burden.”
http://www.shotinthedark.info/wp/?p=83194
August 26th, 2022 at 11:34 am
🚨 OT
Defendants targeted in DeSantis’ voter fraud crackdown were told they could vote
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/26/desantis-voter-fraud-defendants-florida-00053788
Those arrested DeSantis’ voter fraud crackdown were registered and were sent voter cards. The government told them they could vote, so they voted….
August 26th, 2022 at 12:54 pm
You just can’t admit when you got your ass kicked, can you Emery?!
Can’t back up your bullshit? Then threadjack by going off topic.
But, hey Bot Boy, keep playing and losing.
August 26th, 2022 at 1:32 pm
^^ Happy Redacted Mar-a-Lago Search Warrant Affidavit Day to all who celebrate!
The Republican leadership looking increasingly with egg on their face. Trump has no classified information they said. The raid at Mar-A-Lago indicated otherwise. Show us what was taken, they screamed. Trump could have released the document from his end without a fuss. But no! The DoJ/FBI released the list of papers seized. And was it bad. Trump bleated ‘they took my passport’. And the Republican leadership went blue! Passports! Turns out they were returned as procedure! Show us the affidavit, Trump said. And the Republican leadership went into another frenzy. Now that a heavily redacted version is out there, and the investigation to retrieve documents gains more credibility, what do the Republicans do? They have uttered a word in support of the FBI officers whose names were released by Trump’s people. Hardworking officers who are now facing death threats for doing their job in getting secret documents back to a safe place. Really sad to see the depths that the Grand Old Party has sunk too under these current leadership.
August 26th, 2022 at 3:10 pm
they had to send armed agents because the national archivist wants the napkins signed by world leaders
no wait they had to send federal agents armed with rifles because nuclear secrets written inside passports about to be shared with russia russia russia as the secret service stood outside the hosue
my bad the same people who lied to the judge to wiretap a sitting president had to send nearly three dozen federal agents wearing body armor carrying machine guns to paw through melinas underwear because [redacted] which plainly shows [redacted] and thereby justified [redacted].
i get it now i cant believe i fell for the lie im so embarassed
August 26th, 2022 at 3:24 pm
dc school to ban unvaxx students half of black student not vaxx will be banned
wonder if test scores rise
unexpectedly
August 26th, 2022 at 3:30 pm
Memaw had 3000 classified docs. 200 of which were Top Secret and 3 that were beyond Top Secret.
I pray the degenerates prosecute Drumpf….let’s get this show on the road.
August 26th, 2022 at 3:33 pm
“But her emails!!”
Excellent battle cry.
August 26th, 2022 at 3:43 pm
Unredacted:
“As I previously indicated to you, Mar-a-Lago does not include a secure location authorized for the storage of classified information,” the letter says. “As such, it appears that since the time classified documents were removed from the secure facilities at the White House and moved to Mar-a-Lago on or around January 20, 2021, they have not been handled in an approp1iate manner or stored in an appropriate location.”
Hahahahahahaha!
Bring it!!
August 26th, 2022 at 3:46 pm
So, Emery, are the walls closing in on Trump?
So much unwarranted confidence. Seething, brain addling TDS on full display based on an AFFADAVIT?
Lol.
August 26th, 2022 at 4:39 pm
I was a never Trumper b4 the ’16 election (check it). But now I’m 100% Drumpf because:
~ He won’t do shit, except collect scalps.
~IDGAF if he does
~It will drive the degenerates to violent actiint.
There’s no down side.
August 26th, 2022 at 4:41 pm
“Drive degenerates to violent action”
August 26th, 2022 at 4:42 pm
“Drive degenerates to more violent action”
August 26th, 2022 at 5:34 pm
Emery, regarding the notion that loan forgiveness won’t lead colleges to raise tuition, we have several decades of federally backed student loans and grants accompanied by….large increases in tuition to pay for ever more administrators, diversity counselors, monstrous student recreational centers, sportsball stadia, and the like. It’s not like providing more money for higher education hasn’t been proven to cause inflation in the past. Really, the onus is on you to prove why it wouldn’t be this time.
August 26th, 2022 at 5:47 pm
I keep thinking about the OUTRAGE that erupted over the Billy Bush-Trump recording, the one where Trump said that you could just grab the gold diggers by their p*ssy.
I thought “Well, that’s a bit of bragadacio.” Immature, locker room talk that isn’t really meant to be taken seriously. But the media — and the Dems — acted as though it WAS A CONFESSION OF MULTIPLE SEXUAL ASSAULTS!”
If you actually listen to the tape, it is Trump entertaining the guys on the “Access Hollywood” bus with some ribaldry.
This is what Trump said about the 2005 recording: “This was locker room banter, a private conversation that took place many years ago. Bill Clinton has said far worse to me on the golf course – not even close. I apologize if anyone was offended.”
But if you listen to the TDS afflicted, it is a “confession of mutliple sexual assaults.”
Okay. Name the victims, maybe? If Trump was in the practice of doing this, you would think that some woman, some where, would claim that Trump had “grabbed her by the p*ssy.”
So it’s a fantasy story telling, just BS, like Trump said it was.
Last year I saw a guy in Minneapolis, very agitated, walking around a convenience store. He was talking to himself, loudly, as though he was talking to someone else. Occasionally he would make eye contact with a customer at the convenience store and talk to them, smiling and chatting away, making normal hand gestures and posture changes, laughing occasionally the way that a person laughs when they are having a casual conversation with someone that they know.
But his words were complete nonsense. Not obscene, not violent, just nonsense. “Gone biddy hood fantastic listerine tennis shoes yup that bird over there,” stuff like that, but all the while his body language would make you think he was saying something like “Yeah, I remember your dad’s place on Clear Lake, we had some good times there back in the day, can’t believe I ran into you here, how is your dad, anyway?Still got the cabin?”
These TDS people, D’s and R’s both, are like that guy I saw in the Minneapolis convenience store. They look normal, they act normal, but as soon as they open their mouth, it is all madness.
August 26th, 2022 at 9:58 pm
[…] “Anti-abortion Extremist” Despite Her Own Extreme Pro-Abortion Record Shot In The Dark: The Best Of Hands, Let It Be Noted, and Never Forget The Political Hat: Stealth Veganism This Ain’t Hell: […]
August 27th, 2022 at 8:44 am
It will come as a surprise to absolutely no one that Biden announced the student loan debt forgiveness without having a plan for actually making it happen.
https://www.axios.com/2022/08/26/student-loan-forgiveness-in-hands-of-understaffed-and-overcommitted-agency?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top
August 27th, 2022 at 9:37 am
Trump’s followers don’t care — perpetually moving the goalposts is now standard. Logic and accountability thrown to the wayside.
If charged Trump could claim that he has low IQ and cannot read so he cannot be responsible for a security lapse.
August 27th, 2022 at 9:46 am
^^Notice no example of is given of the “Trump supporters.” This is because they live only in Emery’s soft head.
August 27th, 2022 at 9:53 am
^^ It’s like having an obnoxious loud drunk neighbor every day…
August 27th, 2022 at 9:57 am
Watching Swift and Woolly try to spin yet another narrative to paint Trump as the victim will break new records for SiTD flailing.
August 27th, 2022 at 10:38 am
^^Still no example of these mysterious “Trump followers.”
Emery is SITD’s very own Travis Bickle.
August 27th, 2022 at 11:11 am
^^ Trump and his supporters must be disappointed they have no names to threaten and intimidate.
August 27th, 2022 at 11:33 am
Coming up empty, again, Emery?
Somehow I am not surprised.
August 27th, 2022 at 11:57 am
In troll school tell you to NEVER DEFEND YOUR WORDS OR ENGAGE IN DISCUSSION.
This is because the purpose of trolling to disrupt and pollute comment sections. It is not to engage and persuade.
August 27th, 2022 at 12:58 pm
On the left:
WSJ Editorial, July 5, 2016
— excoriating DOJ for declining to indict Clinton for docs on private server
Jim Comey’s Clinton Standard
https://www.wsj.com/articles/jim-comeys-clinton-standard-1467759942
August 27th, 2022 at 12:59 pm
On the right:
WSJ Editorial, Aug. 26, 2022
— taking (embarrassing) line that MAL crimes involve just classified documents, and shouldn’t indict Trump for just documents.
The Mar-a-Lago Affidavit: Is That All There Is?
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-mar-a-lago-affidavit-is-that-all-there-is-donald-trump-fbi-justice-department-merrick-garland-11661547313
August 27th, 2022 at 2:18 pm
Please note the devolvement of trollbots into sock puppetry to appear bigger, because safety in number, to troll twice as hard.
August 27th, 2022 at 4:19 pm
*sigh* does Emery really want me to find some Lefty who urged leniency for Hillary’s secret server but now believes Trump needs to go to prison for mishandling classified documents?
Maybe said Lefty was named “Emery”?
August 27th, 2022 at 4:23 pm
Say rAT? Is “Swift” in the room with you rn? Does he talk to you all the time, or just when your alone? Do you actually hear him, or just txt with you? What does he say?
Whats “Swift” look like, rAT? Is he furry? Does he bite? Are you frightened by “Swift”?
tia rAT!
August 27th, 2022 at 4:48 pm
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