At a recent Town Hall Elizabeth Warren “ proposed eliminating the student loan debts of tens of millions of Americans and making all public colleges tuition-free, . . . ” It goes something like this: “Households that make less than $100,000 a year would get $50,000 in loan cancellation, with the amount of relief getting gradually smaller as income level goes up, with households that make more than $250,000 not eligible for any debt relief.”
Even with making public college free for everyone, regardless of their finances, she’s also going to help for the non tuition costs. “It’s not just paying the tuition. It’s how they pay for books. It’s how they pay for the expenses of having a baby taken care of if they already have a child at home or being able to cover commuting expenses or maybe it’s a chance to live in a dorm and have the kind of college experience that other kids can.”
Add to that she is going to have free universal child care for every child from zero to five, and universal pre-K among other things. She’s going to pay for it by taxing wealth. Not income, but wealth. Her worth is about 8 million so she won’t be adversely affected by her tax proposals.
Everyone with a fortune of fifty million will pay two cents on each dollar above that amount. So if you are worth 100 million you’ll pay addition taxes of 2% of 50 million or 1 million dollars. If you have over a billion dollars you pay 3% on the money over that. So Warren Buffet is worth 85 billion dollars, he’ll pay about 2 billion five hundred fifty-one million dollars extra a year.
The U.S. has 540 billionaires. They’ll be paying at least 28 billion extra taxes per year. The money will come rolling in.
Understand Warren – she feels bad for all those who don’t have what others have when it comes to education. She wants a more fair system. That’s why she’s going to have the government pick up the fifty thousand tuition loans. I can see how knocking that amount off one’s debt would be pretty nice. But what about those who have scrimped, saved, and sacrificed to do what these others have neglected to do. Is it fair to turn our backs on those who have paid loans?
Warren has yet to deal with that issues. I suggest that we include those who have already paid off their loans in this handout. They also should get fifty thousand dollars. Then there are those who didn’t take loans but went on the money of their parents or others. How can we forget them? My proposal is that up to fifty thousand dollars be given to everyone still alive who has attended college over the last sixty years . (I know I’m not being fair to those who have passed on but you must remember they can’t vote.) Like Warren, I would limit this give away to household income which does not exceed a certain amount.
Not only that, commuting to college for some without automobiles is a real hassle. Obviously if you have to take public transportation you will not have the kind of experience other college kids with cars have. I’d give everyone who has a difficulty commuting a nice car that runs on electricity. I’d also pay the expense of baby sitters – if necessary for 24 hours – so that the college experience is not interfered with by having to worry about the child or children at home.
Where’s the money coming from? Come on, that’s easy. Rather than charging two cents I’d make it a nickel. What’s a nickel? Five lousy pennies. Recalling the old Salvation Army song, I would call it the “Throw A Nickel In The Drum and You’ll Be Saved Tax Plan.”
Certainly people with twenty-five million in assets can afford a nickel. I’d consider for billionaires making it a dime. We’d call that the”Hey Buddy Can You Spare a Dime?” program.
Since I haven’t yet decided to run for the Democratic Party nomination for president, although I’d fit right in being an old white guy, I hope Elizabeth will consider this more fair plan.
Wa-llahi! Warren is mildly socialist. Does she call for the nationalization of all corporate capital? Nope. She’s hardly a socialist, let alone a communist. Communists are the vanguard of socialist revolution. Like priests and nuns wed to Christ, communists pledge themselves to the struggle of making the future happen.
All praise to the faceless. You can’t be identified. All power to the dialectic!
Matt, you are the master of tongue and cheek!
“But what about those who have scrimped, saved, and sacrificed to do what these others have neglected to do. Is it fair to turn our backs on those who have paid loans?”
Matt…forgive me but I think you fundamentally misunderstand a couple of things. First, those of us who currently have struggle to pay our student loans…still scrimp and save and sacrifice in order to stay out of default. It prevents many people of my generation (born in the mid 80s) from achieving the same economic success your generation (I’m guessing you’re a boomer) had. When you went to school, you could work a summer job and afford tuition. Hell, you could skip college altogether and get a good job. That’s not the case today.
Wa-llahi! Warren is way too moderate. Liquidate the banksters, and, hedge-fund traitors, then, nationalize the capital of all billionaires. If they won’t cough it up, off to the GULAG Americana with them. Think of a long, cold, box-car ride to the potato fields of N Dakota. Hot diggity, that’ll be a great day!
All praise to Congressional Bolsheviks. All power to the dialectic!
Has anyone read the classic Russian sci-fi novel “We” ? It’s among the trio of great, 20th century dystopic novels along with”Brave New World,” and, “1984.”
No comment regarding “The Death of Stalin?”
Loved it. The fact the Steve Buscemi pulled off a great Khrushchev while retaining his Brooklyn accent was hysterical. I’ve watched it three or four times. Jason Isaacs was a perfect Zhukov. They were all great.
Abe: You’d enjoy reading “We.” Yevgeny Zamyatin wrote the novel in 1921. He was a Bolshevik, but, not a Stalinist. Zamyatin was forced into exile before the Great Purge and wound up in Paris about the time Nestor Makhno was hammering together sets and props for theaters in City of Lights. Birds of a feather flock together.
To John: I saw The Last Wave when it came out. I was working on a renovation job somewhere on Newbury Street and it just opened in that neighborhood. Maybe Exeter Street Theater. I don’t remember all of it but I do remember an old Aboriginal guy saying, “Who are you, who are you?” over and over again. It was a cool pic.
Lower taxes, don’t raise them. The government is too big. Reagan ran the Federal Government on one trillion. Now we have a 4.6 Trillion dollar bloated bureaucracy that functions poorly. We have to pay $500 billion on interest on the debt largely run up by Obama and Bush. Enact the Silber plan for college tuition. 2. The only reparations that should be paid are to the Irish for the blood they shed defending our country. 3. What about the Mueller report? Even the Post had to concede that Fox News had it right about no collusion. no conspiracy with the Russians. 4. What about the Ukrainian election? Poroshenko was about as popular as Dukakis. They voted for change just like the Americans did in 2016. Biden voted for the Iraq war. Bernie will kill him on that issue.
Ronnie Raygun–Grandpa of massive deficits and accomplishing the largest transfer of wealth since the end of slavery. Hey, if Ronnie can do it, why can’t I? How to go Bonzo.
Remember JFK’s “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what can you do for your country”. That’s not what’s happening today. It’s “freebee’s” the whole way and now that want to turn us towards Communism, all equal and only certain ones pay or work, the rest loaf and collect.
If you read of a “middle of the road politician” running for president, please let us know!
The Dems are too far left.
Elizabeth Warren is a fraud!
She and Bruce do not have a beer every night.
She and Beto should run for dog catcher.
She might catch a bumbling rabbit.
The quality of our graduates would deteriorate even lower than it is now. She is an idiot.
How about this plan? Churches and schools start paying taxes in line with the tax rate in their area. There is a few trillion into the tax coffers right there. Its not like they don’t have it.
Maybe the cost of higher education would be more manageable, if faculty like Warren herself weren’t paid $300,000.00 to teach a single course.
Wa-llahi! Coated One, what’s your proof of this assertion? I notice it comes without a corroborating cite.