Re: Biden Thread
The saying "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it" encompasses all forms of bias here. But no one questions, as he has always maintained, that Manchin seeks to defend the coal, gas, and mining industries. That was baked in from the start.Methinks you are overlooking one key difference between PAC funds and money he makes in the fossil fuel industry: the former---in the United States, a political action committee (PAC) is a 527 organization that pools campaign contributions from members and donates those funds to campaigns for or against candidates, ballot initiatives, or legislation. (in theory, at least); the latter---goes directly into his personal bank account. A significant difference, no?
That was in the memo. As the linked article says in the headline, it's no surprise.[NEWS FLASH]
Just saw this:
Don't get me wrong, it's a shame that we are beholden to people like this, whose generational derelictions have cost civilization so many of its opportunities, but they've had a lot of cover from the tens of millions of average Americans eager to believe all the same things about "entitlements" and the power of industry and the evil of big government and so on.And how about this as a sad commentary about how fucked-up our government is:
Sinema and a handful of House members are the sticking point here, since IIRC they've already announced total rejection of Medicare price controls. So Manchin doesn't matter too much unless 'double dead' is a thing.Yet to see where he weighs in on drug costs....
Like so, but I seem to have read of even stronger opposition.
https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden...ea0da36ac3363a
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/0...on-plan-512907
I can't access this resource, but lol.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said Wednesday (Oct. 6) he isn’t sure where Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) stands on letting Medicare negotiate drug prices, but he has heard she is against it. Lobbyists for government drug price controls say, more than any other lawmaker, they don’t know how big of a barrier Sinema is to drug pricing legislation. Politico recently quoted two background sources as saying she opposes H.R. 3, which takes the most aggressive approach to Medicare price negotiation
Remember when I said that it costs the government money to hold this debt?$70.3 billion. That's the amount of interest the federal government collects on student loans on a yearly basis:
Too simplistic to say that's the only reason, but it's hard to ignore that $70.3 billion isn't just chump change...
For a more recent source:Democratic politicians often claim that the federal government makes a profit on student loans. However, the latest release from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) shows that the truth of that assertion depends on how you slice the numbers. Using fair-value accounting, which incorporates the big risks that taxpayers take when lending to students, the government is losing money on student loans. And this is no small loss. Over the next ten years, the federal student loan program will come with a $170 billion price tag.
Mr. Courtney’s calculation was one of several supporting the disclosure in a Journal article last fall that taxpayers could ultimately be on the hook for roughly a third of the $1.6 trillion federal student loan portfolio. This could amount to more than $500 billion, exceeding what taxpayers lost on the saving-and-loan crisis 30 years ago.The assumption that all this student lending would mean growing profits for the federal government and savings for taxpayers has been consistently off the mark.
The federal government extended $1.3 trillion in student loans from 2002 through 2017. On paper, these would earn it a $112 billion in profit.
But student repayment plummeted. In response, the government revised the projected profit down 36%, to $71.5 billion. The revision would have been bigger except for the fall in interest rates that let the U.S. borrow inexpensively to fund loans.
The phenomenon is worsening in recent years. For the fiscal year ended September 2013, the government projected it would earn 20 cents on each dollar of new student loans. For fiscal 2019, it projected it would lose 4 cents on each dollar of new loans, federal records show.
Congress approves the student loan program each year, doing so based on a profit assumption. Then, in subsequent years, it revises those profit estimates based on the repayments that actually arrive.
If repayments come in lower than expectations—as has happened successively in recent years—the Treasury Department fills the gap with cash infusions to the Education Department.
This process takes place outside of the budget review and outside of congressional oversight. Ever-larger cash infusions from the Treasury have been needed.DELEVERAGE THOU FISCAL CONSERVATIVES!!!!!students who took out federal loans in the 1990s had repaid, on average, 105% of the original balance a decade later, including interest. Since 2006, they had repaid an average of just 73% of their original balance after a decade.
aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh
Edit: Let me be clear, the government will not lose many billions off student loans - because there is no difference between a book loss from unprofitable loans and simply scratching an equivalent liability (as progressives propose); what it amounts to is the same - no money at all - since in principle the government has unlimited dollars to lend out and is not constrained by an inability to recover them. The real loss to the government is in administration, bureaucracy, which probably does take billions, but only a comparative few. Nevertheless, surely conservatives and moderates wouldn't endorse big government tyranny over the citizenry just because it 'only' costs billions.
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Maine for voting for Biden but also reelecting Collins.
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