Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit
There was no student loan forgiveness.
There has been several hundred billion dollars of it.

https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/biden-harris-adm...

Looks like very recent proposal and the money hasn't been forgiven yet? If they had the power all along, then why wait til the week before the election?
> Looks like very recent proposal and the money hasn't been forgiven yet?

No, look down at the bottom under "A Significant Track Record of Borrower Assistance".

> If they had the power all along, then why wait til the week before the election?

Judges blocked all the other ways they tried to do it.

They tried extremely hard to do it though, and wasted a lot of political capital on the issue. The fact that they tried so hard and couldn't get it done is a good example of what the GP was talking about.
I mean, you can “waste” capital on anything, if the other team is going to demonize whatever you do.

Obamacare was based on Romneycare, and Romney had to disown it. Let’s not have discussions on things that dont happen. There is nothing the dems can do which wont be spun into harm by the republican side of the media sphere.

That goes both ways too. I also don't find political talking points about the other side couldn't do particularly intriguing, but the Democrats did have a field day in 2019/2020 pointing out how little Trump actually did with regards to building a wall.

The most annoying part is that almost every time with an issue that couldn't be done, it should have been clear from the beginning. The idea of the government vacuuming up all (or most) student debt seems completely untenable right out of the gate, just like the idea that we would be able to build a physical wall across out entire southern border and make Mexico pay for it.

Its lazy politics all the way around. And that lazy politics wastes plenty of tax dollars and distracts everyone from issues actually worth talking about.

I mean, it definitely doesn’t go both ways. The repubs made an issue of a tan suit as I recall.

Again - the Obamacare-Romneycare example. One party tried to reach across the aisle, to bend over backwards to build common ground.

The republicans refused to cross the aisle, even when their points and desires were incorporated.

From the Gingrich era, it’s been a clear goal to stop any bi-partisan behavior. That only winner takes all policies and behavior is acceptable.

That dems started to do this, for DJT, is kinda sad. They should have started a lot earlier.

I request, that when policy is brought into the picture, let’s not forget that policy is fundamentally irrelevant to the Republican Party. It’s nice to discuss policy, yes. But policy is a treatment for real world issues in a working legislature. Not one where good policy must be rejected if it’s brought up by the Dems.

At this point, the game theory solution is for Dems to respond by also rejecting bipartisan efforts, and copying the republican playbook.

It's almost as if they're premise is invalid then.

This is a lot like liberals complaining about things Trump didn't do.

The Biden administration attempted to implement student loan forgiveness despite lacking any statutory authority to do so.

https://www.scotusblog.com/2023/06/supreme-court-strikes-dow...

The problem is he tried to means-test it, which made it a program that had to go through Congress. If he had just waved his hand and done it unilaterally, it would not have been blocked.