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[Dostoevsky]

Just a note on the coal plant thing -- said profitability is more than a little influenced by pollution standards, so it's not quite accurate to say the government didn't have any role in that. And there are fuel efficiency standards that influenced Ford's decisions on muscle cars (not an outright ban, but overall fleet standards that make certain types of vehicles more tricky to fit in).

[nenjin]

Most of the "protectionism" in these bills is because a literal stated goal is "make it much harder for supply chain collapses to cripple the US economy in the future", specifically targeting a ton of weak points revealed by the twin shocks of a global pandemic and a shooting war in Europe. Another literal stated goal is to reduce the importance of China in the US economy, because the shooting war in Europe has shown that having large sectors of your economy heavily dependent on a potentially hostile country (in that case, the heavy reliance on Russian energy by Europe) is a bad idea.

Additional pipeline subsidies are being put in place because we're going to still need those for quite a while - even the most optimistic projections don't show EVs replacing new-manufacture consumer ICE vehicles until the 2030s, and commercial vehicles (particularly big trucks, a rather important element of running an economy) even further out than that. That doesn't even factor in oil and gas power plants (both of which are much better than coal) which will become even more important as EVs boost electricity demand (and even if you power them with an oil plant, EVs are an emission improvement over existing ICE vehicles).

Meanwhile, simple consumerism genuinely is doing a lot to shift things in the right direction. No government mandate caused Ford's entire EV line to be sold out before they even started serial production. Consumers did that entirely on their own. There's no government regulation requiring Dodge to discontinue their current (extremely inefficient and high-emission) muscle car range - the company looked at current trends and decided that the current line was not profitably sustainable. It isn't government mandates that closed forty percent of US coal plants in the last decade - they just weren't profitable enough.

Trying to accelerate the forces already pushing things where you want them to go is often easier, cheaper, and more effective than trying to awaken stalled forces or introduce entirely new ones. And that's exactly what this bill is doing.

So it's resources protection legislation selling itself as a climate change bill?

[bloop_bleep]

It's both. It's about "AMERICAN CLEAN ENERGY." Framing climate legislation as insuring the resource independence and security of the nation is a good way to sell it to conservatives.

[MrRoboto75]

Next you'll tell me the Patriot Act wasn't really about being patriotic...

[Starver]

Next you'll tell me the Patriot Act wasn't really about being patriotic...

IIRC, it was something to do with Mel Gibson.

(Which is not always a sentence that bodes well.)

[McTraveller]

How is the student loan forgiveness thing not posted yet?

/popcorn

[StrawBarrel]

It's cool beans.

Biden Announces Plan For Federal Student Loan Debt Relief
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNHmQdrlIZE
It's not wide sweeping change, but Biden estimates 43 million people are qualified for student loan forgiveness of either $10,000 or $20,000.

I'm personally very skeptical that Biden's administration will be able to implement any systematic change on this front. I hope at the very least Biden can keep implementing band aid solutions until we get a more progressive and more strong president.

[hector13]

Barely makes a dent in my wife’s student loan debt, but apparently of the 43m Americans with student loan debt, a third have $10k or less.

[Dostoevsky]

As a person who paid off a fairly substantial loan thanks to being able to live with a parent, I am a-okay with others getting a partial or even complete reprieve.

And yeah, I think most people have a fairly small loan because they 'only' have an undergrad degree and some situation with being able to pay less than full price (e.g. in-state tuition, scholarship, aid from the college, etc. etc.).

I'd argue there's the larger issue of tuition costs and colleges & money, but the student loan system is just one facet of that kettle of balls of wax.

[EuchreJack]

How is the student loan forgiveness thing not posted yet?

/popcorn

Damn, I actually qualify for this plan.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/politics/live-news/student-loan-forgiveness-joe-biden/index.html
Watch it not happen, or only cover government/non-for-profit employees before it gets implemented. I'll believe it when I see it (Trump was never able to get his grandiose loan forgiveness plans through either)

[Telgin]

As someone else who successfully paid back his student loans on his own about 5 years ago, I am also glad to see people's debts being forgiven here.  I wouldn't have minded more.  I wouldn't mind paying more taxes if it meant the government took control and started offering paid tuition like many countries do.

This is America though, so that either could never happen or it would lead to something even worse somehow.

Anyway, I agree with a lot of armchair analysts on the internet that this doesn't solve the fundamental problem that universities can essentially charge what they want and get away with it for a lot of reasons, but regardless it's good to see people getting help they need right now.

[MrRoboto75]

in like 5-15 years we'll just have the exact same problem with the next generation of students.

[Frumple]

Sure, but that's half a decade to a decade and a half of a huge pile of people not having to deal with the problem in question, which, like. The benefits to stress levels alone will probably save thousands, tens of thousands of lives, just from that, heh.

[EuchreJack]

Think of it this way: A large part of US economic growth is tied up in home ownership.  This legislation will allow more people to buy homes in 5 years.
Thus, this legislation will actually help the US economy.

[MrRoboto75]

Sure, but that's half a decade to a decade and a half of a huge pile of people not having to deal with the problem in question, which, like. The benefits to stress levels alone will probably save thousands, tens of thousands of lives, just from that, heh.

Ya didn't actually solve anything.  There's just going to be another huge pile of people that's going to have just as much education debt because tuition's still just as high as ever, you're just going to have to do this again.

Its like in futurama when they dump one giant ice cube in the ocean and declare global warming over.