Yesterday ended with enormous satisfaction in the amount I got done coupled with exhaustion and ennui. So I did the afternoon headlines, kicked of the contest thread on the Pit, and tuned out.
A lot of other people covered the ground I would have covered, so I'll summarize my responses thusly:
1) Fine, don't impeach him (even though he's pretty much flipping off the Supreme Court), but I won't vote for him either. "The Supreme Court blocked it, but that didn't stop me". If Trump had said that, our servers would have burned out. So much for restoring political norms. Nellie Bowles' newsletter today surmises Biden's staff likes it that's he's half checked out because they can have a Weekend-at-Bernie's presidency. "A fully awake Gavin Newsom might have his own ideas about things" indeed.
2) Ten years ago when my kids were looking to go to college, they got extensive reviews of what student loans were, what they were to cover, what the associated responsibilities were, where the possible pitfalls could occur, etc. etc. These presentations were ubiquitous in the high schools in our area, and the information came from the Federal government. To accept the loans, you had to sign off that you'd received this information. If you get all that info and you still take out a $12k loan and can't manage to pay it off in 10 years, that's your mistake, not mine, and the people who made a right decision shouldn't have to pay for it. At least have the common courtesy to look me in the eyes, say "please", and show you're taking steps that it'll never happen again. Nah, a big middle finger in our faces is easier.
3) "Fixing" the debt issue without fixing the underlying causes simply invites continual "fixes" because they're a lot easier to do than actually address the problems. Plus it gets people to vote for you to boot. My mortgage and business investment loans certainly are a "barrier to opportunity" to me, so where's my relief?
To end, I'll quote Charlie Cooke:
"[W]hat President Biden has done here represents an extraordinary violation of the social compact. This isn’t alms for the poor; it’s a brazen cash-grab by Joe Biden’s friends. Biden likes college graduates in a way that he doesn’t like small-business owners, plumbers, or waitresses, so he has decided to send the property of small-business owners, plumbers, and waitresses to those college graduates. That’s it. That’s the whole game. There’s no principle here; the debts owed by others remain untouched. There’s no reform here; the education system remains exactly as it was before this started. The game is exactly how it looks: Peter, general contractor, has been robbed to pay Paul, Ph.D. It’s shameless class politics — and not in that dishonest boy-made-good-from-Scranton way that Joe Biden likes to pretend. To the victors, the spoils."