Biden Thread

[Montmorency]

Promising midterm news: in a special election for NY-19, Democrat Pat Ryan defeated his GOP challenger by a bit over 2 points last night. Biden won this district by just a point in 2020, and many thought it would flip. This doesnt bode well for expectations of a red wave in November.

Currently 538 projects 47-53 Democratic Senators, with a likely scenario being all hold plus exchange in Georgia and Pennsylvania. Their House projection is 230/435 Republican seats on average. There are only two competitive governor's races, those in Kansas and Arizona.

Of course, what matters is how the model is shaping up in 2 months. The latest polling is always more applicable than a historical trend. Retail gasoline prices have been falling continuously for more than a month. Hopefully the global food, water, and energy crises don't reach another acute stage in the fall.


In policy news, Biden has fulfilled his campaign quasi-promise on student loan forgiveness. It's a fairly moderate change whose comparative virtue is that it provides ongoing relief to future students. Biden has actually aggressively pursued existing debt-relief and repayment programs, such as through the following: Borower Defense To Repayment; Total and Permanent Disability; ITT Tech Students; Public Service Loan Forgiveness. His administration's outreach around these obscure and traditionally uncooperative programs has already assisted potentially hundreds of thousands above baseline in clearing their debt. Recent polling suggests that half of Millenials and Gen Z endorse the more expansive versions of student debt relief. Biden's policy seems calculated to garner the support of at least half of Americans overall.

Hopefully the prosecution of Republicans follows a similar workmanlike trajectory.

Quick reference: The federal government owns most student debt (university, technical/trade school, etc.) in the country. This amounts to several trillion dollars of ballooning debt, much of it chronically non-performing (i.e. it never gets repaid and the government loses money holding it), held by some 40 million Americans.

Fun fact: From the 1950s to the 1970s the typical 4-year degree in America, even from private universities, cost about what one would expect from a similar current European education, though I see European universities are increasingly 'rising to American standards.' This is amusing to contemplate considering that debt relief is least popular among Baby Boomers (for whom college debt effectively did not exist).

Basic features: $10000 of debt forgiven for those with incomes under $125K, or couples with incomes under $250K. Rises to $20000 for Pell Grant recipients (available to low-to-mid income students). About half of all student debt holders should be released from their full obligations with these caps. The Sanders/Warren proposals to forgive $50000 in debt would have absolved almost all debt holders.

Long-term improvements: For those who still have to manage student debt, doing so will become almost easy.

The Department of Education has the authority to create income-driven repayment plans, which cap what borrowers pay each month based on a percentage of their discretionary income. Most of these plans cancel a borrower’s remaining debt once they make 20 years of monthly payments. But the existing versions of these plans are too complex and too limited. As a result, millions of borrowers who might benefit from them do not sign up, and the millions who do sign up are still often left with unmanageable monthly payments.

To address these concerns and follow through on Congress’ original vision for income-driven repayment, the Department of Education is proposing a rule to do the following:

For undergraduate loans, cut in half the amount that borrowers have to pay each month from 10% to 5% of discretionary income.

Raise the amount of income that is considered non-discretionary income and therefore is protected from repayment, guaranteeing that no borrower earning under 225% of the federal poverty level—about the annual equivalent of a $15 minimum wage for a single borrower—will have to make a monthly payment. [Ed. This currently designates around the first $30000 in income secure from debt repayment calculations for an individual, or the first $60000 for a family of four.]

Forgive loan balances after 10 years of payments, instead of 20 years, for borrowers with original loan balances of $12,000 or less. The Department of Education estimates that this reform will allow nearly all community college borrowers to be debt-free within 10 years.

Cover the borrower’s unpaid monthly interest, so that unlike other existing income-driven repayment plans, no borrower’s loan balance will grow as long as they make their monthly payments—even when that monthly payment is $0 because their income is low.

These reforms would simplify loan repayment and deliver significant savings to low- and middle-income borrowers. For example:

A typical single construction worker (making $38,000 a year) with a construction management credential would pay only $31 a month, compared to the $147 they pay now under the most recent income-driven repayment plan, for annual savings of nearly $1,400.

A typical single public school teacher with an undergraduate degree (making $44,000 a year) would pay only $56 a month on their loans, compared to the $197 they pay now under the most recent income-driven repayment plan, for annual savings of nearly $1,700.

A typical nurse (making $77,000 a year) who is married with two kids would pay only $61 a month on their undergraduate loans, compared to the $295 they pay now under the most recent income-driven repayment plan, for annual savings of more than $2,800.

Note the distinction between gross and discretionary income (the first is pre-tax).


EDIT: A low-salience provision of the ARRA stimulus Democrats passed in March last year is that all forgiven student loan debt is non-taxable at the federal level through 2025 (by default, the government treats forgiven debts as taxable income). Nice setup.

[Montmorency]

An important aspect of the current student loan system I forgot to mention is that during the process of nationalizing student debt 15 years ago, student debt was made less dischargable in bakruptcy than most (all?) other forms of personal debt for the lifetime of the debtor. Relevant to this example of the takedown in its finest form.

A Republican Congressman criticized student debt forgiveness on the grounds that doing so weakens military recruitment incentives, thus harming national security. There are programs that make shaking off student debt easier for military or other service members (N.B. Until the Biden presidency only perhaps a single-digit percentage of eligible debtors were able to take advantage of their entitlement.)

Leaving aside scrutiny of the ethical and factual dimensions of such a claim, it is absolutely delicious that this very Congressman has submitted legislation this very month that would eliminate the "costly and regressive" Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, the result of which would be to make almost all military service members ineligible for debt relief.

"Heads we win, tails you lose" as they say. These are ruthlessly-malicious cads who want to destroy the country they hate.



Of course, it's possible to use one's position toward a measure of public service rather than carnage. Talk about blue blood, but John Kerry makes a mockery of European claims to antique political dynasties. Well, not a mockery, but a stiff rebuke.

After months of research into Kerry’s ancestry, Burke’s Peerage, experts on British aristocracy, reported on Monday that the Vietnam War veteran is related to all the royal houses of Europe and can claim kinship with Russian czar Ivan the Terrible, a previous emperor of Byzantium and the shahs of Persia.

Burke’s director Harold Brooks-Baker said Kerry had his mother, Rosemary Forbes, to thank for most of his royal connections.

“Every maternal blood line of Kerry makes him more royal than any previous American president,” Brooks-Baker said. “

But what does this mean for America? After all, almost all our presidents can claim descent from royalty, particularly the Anglo-Saxon-Norman aristocracy, even Obama.

Similar research carried out on Bush ahead of the 2000 presidential race showed that he beat Al Gore in the royal stakes, claiming kinship with Britain’s Queen Elizabeth as well as with Kings Henry III and Charles II of England.

The Bush political family as political family, in American context, only dates to the early 20th century, the interwar years. John Kerry on the other hand is a direct descendant of John Winthrop, first among the founding Puritan elite of Massachussetts colony 400 years ago. Not only that, but his Boston Brahmin ancestors - besides OG John ofc - almost continuously found themselves in powerful and prominent political roles until the Civil War era (that I can identify).

[Hooahguy]

To follow up on even more good news, the special election for Alaska's single House district went blue- for the first time in almost 50 years!

Definitely doesnt bode well for the red wave.

[spmetla]

Also a credit I think to the value of ranked ballot voting. Tends to leave the fringe on the fringe where they should be, I hope it's adopted in more states.

[Montmorency]

Also a credit I think to the value of ranked ballot voting. Tends to leave the fringe on the fringe where they should be, I hope it's adopted in more states.

The winner would have won on the first ballot in FPTP in this spread as well, though there might be tactical voter adjustments in that circumstance. Score/STAR voting arguably delivers a more representative outcome as a preferential or approval-type system, grading candidates by cumulative points rather than a series of virtual runoffs.

Not that I would condone the specific outcome, but polling and other indicators strongly suggest that the Republican candidate Begich III* was slightly preferred to the Democratic winner (Mary Peltola) and overwhelmingly preferred to the other Republican loser (Sarah Palin). A score-voting or STAR system would have reflected that sentiment by electing Begich.

But while there are mathematically more representative systems than instant-runoff or ranked-choice, and ranked choice wasn't really utilized in the Alaska special election, it's still a better baseline than FPTP.


*His grandfather was the Democratic Representative At-Large of Alaska in the early 1970s until he died in a plane crash and was replaced with Republican Rep. Don Young, who remained in office for exactly 49 years until he died this March.


Brandon taking off the gloves lately?

[Hooahguy]

It was a great speech by Biden- calling a spade a spade was inevitably going to ruffle feathers among the GOP, though the outcry has been particularly hilarious since they went from "Sleepy Joe" to "Biden is Palpatine/Hitler." As Truman said, “I never did give them hell. I just told the truth, and they thought it was hell.”

Also applicable- "a hit dog will holler."

Now the Dems need to follow up on this with more forceful campaigning. Biden got us off to a great start, now time to bring it home. Call the MAGA GOP a threat to democracy, show voters concrete examples of how the GOP are going to end free and fair elections. Show the rhetoric and votes that the GOP deny the election results. Dont rely on the media for this job, we know they are more invested in the horse race.

[rory_20_uk]

I thought that Tyler Bowyer on Twitter said it best - "This is what we will have if you let Ranked Choice Voting and Independent Redistricting Commissions into your state."

Yes. a country governed mainly by moderates who lean more towards where the Democrats now are / where Republicans were c. 20 years ago.



I'd love such a system to come to the UK where candidates are chosen more on who they are than purely have them picked by the local and central party machinery.