"Paying back debts you owe the government' IS extra taxes if you should not have had to incur the debts in the first place.Paying back debts to the government is not "extra taxes."You are simply mistaken. Not that it will stop your repetition of taking quotes of the context of the discusion, and economic illiteracy.This is an indication you still have not read my response with a modicum of understanding. Because if you had, you'd understand that the phrase "argument rests on the implicit premise that " means your response is completely irrelevant.No, your bolded and italicised part is irrelevant.I bold-faced and italicized the part of my response you clearly did not understand. If you did, you'd know your response is nuts.Not to anyone who is even remotely economically literate. bilby is correct in that when the gov't forgives a loan repayment has the same economic impact on the borrower as a tax cut. The loan payment has the same immediate economic impact on the borrower as a tax payment.And when the taxpayer paid the cost for the student, it was with the student's promise to pay the amount back.No, it really isn't. It came out of past taxpayers pockets. It's done.It's going to come out of future taxpayers pockets.No, nothing is going to come out of the taxpayers' pockets.Calling it 7 days rather than a week doesn't change the situation.
It's going to come out of taxpayer's pockets.
The money was spent, in the past. It came out of the taxpayers' pockets then. It's a sunk cost.
Loan repayments to the federal government are themselves a form of taxation. Forgiveness is a tax cut.
Forgiveness of the repayments is just a tax cut, targeted at former students whose career earnings haven't been as high as was originally anticipated. And it cuts their currently elevated tax rate back to the same rate that others with the same income currently pay.
It costs nobody anything that they haven't already paid at the time those former students were studying.
"Nuts" is characterising loan repayments as a tax. It is not one.The whole point of income taxation is that everyone with the same income pays the same tax, regardless of what government services they might have accessed in the past. We don't charge people additional income tax because they commute more than average on interstate highways, or because they claimed SNAP benefits at some time in the past, or because they live in a place that was struck by a natural disaster and received federal assistance. We just look at income, and tax a percentage of that.
Unless they got educated at government expense, in which case we bizarrely demand that they pay extra taxes that other people with identical incomes do not.
That's just nuts.
In essence, bilby's argument rests on the implicit premise that any fees government-funded education should be income-based not service expense based.
bilby said:
Unless they got educated at government expense, in which case we bizarrely demand that they pay extra taxes that other people with identical incomes do not.
That characterisation is false and nuts. It ignores everything about how student debts are incurred.
Furthermore, bilby's argument is that debt-forgiveness has the same effects as a tax cut (not that it is identical to a tax cut) for the borrowers. He is correct on that point.
Whether it has the 'same effect' is irrelevant. bibly said:
Unless they got educated at government expense, in which case we bizarrely demand that they pay extra taxes that other people with identical incomes do not.
That's just nuts.
That statement is false and nuts.
No, it was not pointless. The point was that repaying a debt is not "paying taxes."The discussion is about the policy in the USA about debts in the USA. Hence your comments about Australia is truly pointless.
Bilby, and you as his enabler, wants to falsely equate paying back debts to the government with 'extra taxes', because there is a moral difference between paying back debts you incurred (fair) and being charged a higher rate of taxes for having used a government service (unfair).
Paying back debts you owe to the government is not extra taxes.
No, it's not. You are simply wrong.
I genuinely cannot understand why you take such an interest in whether or not student loans in the US might be forgiven to some extent. It seems absolutely inexplicable.
Because I have an interest in good government and sound thinking.
Also, you don't really have that firm a grasp on the implication of taxes, fees, government spending, the multiplier effect, or other basic economic principles.
I have made a moral argument, and I have corrected the gross mischaracterisation of paying back debt as 'government taxes'.
I am not interested in your assessment of my economic arguments because I didn't make any.