The law pretty clearly gave him the power to do it. The supremes probably should have struck down that law instead of just saying that it was misinterpreted, because the letter of the law is pretty clear on that one "waive or modify" seems to include loan forgiveness, and loan forgiveness is something the executive does for military service.
This probably comes down to me missing some pieces along the way than anything else, so I'll admit that I could very well be wrong. I'm still not overly bothered by Biden attempting it even if I don't agree with it. Just canceling student loans without correcting the issue of student loans being predatory to begin with made no sense to me.
This is more a broad criticism of socialism, and especially socialism in response to a crisis, rather than a criticism of Biden specifically. A convoluted process for testing who needs what was not really called for in this situation, and this ultimately is a problem with socialism that should be acknowledged openly. I think, to an extent, possibly for the first time I've seen in the US, it was actually acknowledged in light of the pandemic. And Trump and Biden's socialist responses were acknowledged as being necessarily sloppy and fast. Now is a good time to be planning for how to do that differently next time, and we're naturally not doing that. Biden isn't perfect, as I said before.
My problem is that we saw just how bad Trump's response was with regard to giving out money without any kind of oversight and then just proceeded to do it again. While we were working with a short time frame, we elect people so that they can make decisions and do it quickly (they don't I know). The relief shoud've been way more targeted until proper oversight could've been established. While I wasn't against getting money (who would be), it seemed weird that I would get relief money when my family was working and not struggling. We just took the money and put into a 529 for my son since we didn't need it and figured it was better to start a college fund instead of buying whatever.
I agree, we need to be planning how to deal with this again since we've thrown away the pandemic playbook that Clinton, Bush, and Obama all contributed to and refined. While it wasn't perfect, it was at least a playbook and Trump threw it in the trash because he thought he knew better.
You don't like the green energy initiatives but you want something done on climate change (mentioned later in your post)? You kinda seem to be at odds with yourself here. I get that perhaps you wanted something different, but it is something directed to a problem you're bringing up.
The inflation reduction thing was largely performative. The treasury was responsible for the heavy lifting.
Maybe you misread what I wrote, but I liked the green energy initiatives. I don't think they did enough, but I liked that they were there, even though I don't think they did much to combat inflation.
I do think the act should've been called something different though because the average American sees "inflation reduction" in the title and then proceeds to see inflation run rampant.
Inflation is one of the prices we're paying from the pandemic. It's not the worst price we could have paid. It was a known downside and calculated choice.
The pandemic contributed to it, but I don't think it's sustaining it. Yes, people got money but a vast majority of people didn't get enough money to really change anything. My family got $4,200 or something, which would've covered one month of living expenses. The extra $300 people were getting from unemployment didn't do much to bolster people's finances either. There's something more at play with inflation, but I'm not sure what it is. Part of me says it's just corporate greed raising prices because they can and blaming inflation, but I don't know if that's true or just a conspiracy theory.
I know some people got all kinds of money for various things (some were even in Congress like MTG) but it doesn't seem like that would be enough to cause unchecked inflation.
Now, we're trying to combat inflation by raising interest rates and all that's doing is hurting the middle class. People with ample money will either be able to pay cash for something or just not be too concerned about the interest since it doesn't inflate.
Let them work. It's what most of them want to do. This is one of the places where we might have some disagreement. My daughter is an immigrant, and I'm very much a pro-immigration open-borders kind of person.
I am definitely for a more open immigration policy and I'm all for allowing migrants to work since they keep the price of things down. I've always said, without migrants, things like strawberries would be vastly more expensive.
My problem is we have thousands of migrants coming in without any kind of plan, then we're just detaining them in crowded shelters while we process them at a snail's pace. Make it so people can apply for temporary work visas easier and let them come to work. That way we can control the flow of migrants better and ensure the ones coming to the US have some sort of plan to support themselves. But right now you see scores of people lining the streets without a job or a place to even stay. While I don't think they're criminals, if you're in that situation, crime becomes more appealing since you need something to survive.
I think we need to weed out visa overstays too. We can probably start with Elon Musk who I still don't believe is in the US legally.
This requires more support in congress than he has had at any point.
Even without Congress, he needs to be addressing it. I don't think the average American even understands what implications corruption in the Supreme Court have. Even the more liberal media outlets don't talk about it. Just like Trump undermining elections, a corrupt Supreme Court is a stain on our system of government.
Here's another disagreement. I'm very much a free trade kind of person. We need to entangle China's economy with ours so that they don't do the things you suggest. Not only do we benefit from trade with China, but they benefit. And this mutual benefit fosters peace. You and Biden are more aligned on this one than with me.
I see China as an enemy who will do something sooner or later. I think we need to start decoupling our economy from them now so when the inevitable attack on Taiwan comes, we're not left high and dry. China's leader will eventually start to lose the population (it's already doing so on some level) and when that happens, I believe you'll see them attempt the invasion of Taiwan. Granted, I think Taiwan will wipe the floor with China since it's a big body of water to cross, but the ripple effects will cause a ton of issues for the US economy.
I agree with free trade, but I think China isn't a good long-term solution and I don't think we should rely on them for things important to our defense. This is why I like the chip act that Biden pushed.
I also thought our response to China flying a spy balloon over the US was weak too. I don't think China got anything meaningful out of it, but I feel like we should've done something more than shoot it out of the sky and wag our finger. And while I don't think we should've flowing B-2s over Bejing, I think at the very least it warranted sanctions. We've had a really weak response to the Chinese spy posts setup in American cities too.
Whatever president we have (unless it's Trump) will be relying on our military for that anyway. The "strong leader", and I hate that phrasing, you're talking about needs to be present in our military ranks.
When I think of a strong leader for a conflict, I don't think they need to be in the military ranks. But I do think they need to be skilled in foreign relations and utilize diplomacy along with knowing when the right time to strike is. I don't think the US has been strong enough on Russia, at least not in a capacity that we can see. When the Bank of Utah can bankroll Russian oligarch jets and people with ties to the Russian oligarchs can fly in and out of the US, I don't think we're doing the right thing.
Granted, I still have very much a Cold War way of thinking regarding Russia since I don't think they ever really changed.
