this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2024

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A Boring Dystopia

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'Death Should Not Be the Only Relief': Seniors Lead Their First Action Against Student Debt (www.commondreams.org)

submitted 2 months ago by RvTV95XBeo@sh.itjust.works to c/aboringdystopia@lemmy.world

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[–] jpreston2005@lemmy.world 59 points 2 months ago (2 children)

former U.S. President Ronald Reagan had pushed for the current student loan system in order to make it more difficult for working-class Americans to attend university as a backlash to campus protests in the 1960s and 70s.

Americas Margret Thatcher. i.e. just, the worst person.

[–] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 31 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Don’t forget how he and his administration specifically ignored the AIDS epidemic in the 80s

[–] callouscomic@lemm.ee 25 points 2 months ago (1 children)

And killed things like the Fairness Doctrine and opened the doors for Faux News and our modern "news" landscape.

[–] lnxtx@feddit.nl 6 points 2 months ago

Tax cuts for the rich?

[–] demesisx@infosec.pub 10 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Identity politics might be causing you to blame the wrong person for the student loan crisis. Reagan certainly made everything he touched awful. I wont even argue that. He was objectively awful. But Biden’s legislation brought it into hyperdrive. Source: me (a person with $100,000 of inescapable student loan debt thanks to Joseph Biden.)

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/02/joe-biden-student-loan-debt-2005-act-2020

You know the country is lurching FAR rightward when Reagan is aligned with everyone in the Congress right now including the corporate Democrat in office. They ALL (both GOP and DNC corporatists) are on a mission to commodify every single basic human right in exchange for massive bribes.

[–] jpreston2005@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

I get what you're saying but let's not forget this important aspect:

The Republican-led bill tightened the bankruptcy code, unleashing a huge giveaway to lenders at the expense of indebted student borrowers. At the time it faced vociferous opposition from 25 Democrats in the US Senate.

But it passed anyway, with 18 Democratic senators breaking ranks and casting their vote in favor of the bill.

republican bill, that was opposed vociferously by a majority of democrats. The corporatists were the 18 that broke ranks to vote for it, but let's not lump in all Democrats. Democrats are still the better option by every measure.

[–] demesisx@infosec.pub 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

The BILL WAS

WRITTEN BY BIDEN HIMSELF.

edit: This is an unsubstantiated statement (though I previously read this in an article which has now disappeared from the web).

[–] jpreston2005@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

That's a blatant lie.

It was written by Chuck Grassley and cosponsored by 10 other republicans, and two democrats (Ben Nelson-NE and Thomas Carper-DE)

[–] demesisx@infosec.pub 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

I read somewhere that he wrote it. It was a reliable news article actually…aaaaaand it disappeared.

Anyway, he certainly was instrumental in helping write it. I think you’re trying to downplay his role in it. He was THE champion of the bill and Hunter got $250,000 paycheck from MBNA the following year. Explain that for us.

Here’s some quotes from an article on this subject:

But it passed anyway, with 18 Democratic senators breaking ranks and casting their vote in favor of the bill. Of those 18, one politician stood out as an especially enthusiastic champion of the credit companies who, as it happens, had given him hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions – Joe Biden.

Despite his protestations, it is indisputable that Biden was an avid supporter of the 2005 bill as a whole and of its overall thrust of tightening up the bankruptcy code largely to the benefit of lenders at the expense of distressed families who would find it harder to file for bankruptcy.

“Biden was one of the most powerful people who could have said no, who could have changed this. Instead he used his leadership role to limit the ability of other Democrats who had concerns and who wanted the bill softened,” said Melissa Jacoby, a law professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill specialising in bankruptcy.

https://jacobin.com/2022/04/joe-biden-student-loan-debt-bankruptcy-democrats

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mbna-paid-bidens-son-as-biden-backed-bill/

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/25/us/politics/25biden.html

https://oversight.house.gov/release/comer-releases-evidence-of-direct-payment-to-joe-biden/

https://www.propublica.org/article/bidens-cozy-relations-with-bank-industry-825

https://www.nationalreview.com/2008/08/senator-mbna-byron-york/amp/

[–] jpreston2005@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

Ok.

I never defended Biden, I said that it was disingenuous of you to lump all Democrats together with republicans like they're on the same side of the issue.

And looks like he has since evolved his stance on the issue, and is actively trying to help student loan borrowers. Which is 1000x more than what republicans would ever do.