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Comment by TulliusCicero | Hacker News Reader

Agreed, from a systemic perspective, shit is broken in the US and needs to be fixed. The government should be paying more, and also controlling costs better (US universities spend a lot more than universities in other countries). Bare minimum, loans that are protected in bankruptcy should have a limit to how much can be taken out based on the median earnings of those who earn that degree, and this should be annualized such that you can't suddenly hit a limit halfway into your degree.

From an individual perspective, people should not be willingly going into large debt for poor or relatively uncertain financial prospects.

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> From an individual perspective, people should not be willingly going into large debt for poor or relatively uncertain financial prospects.

I don't disagree, but I want to highlight some factors that (IMO) at least partially absolve people who do take that route:

* We do a really pitiful job of teaching financial literacy in the US, especially below the undergraduate level. I suspect that many people see 30K debt after college and think that they can subtract that directly from their salary over a course of years, without factoring in taxes, interest above the principal, etc.

* At a societal level, we avoid crushing peoples' dreams: we all know that we can't each be this century's defining investigative journalist, art critic, &c., and yet we (socially) also understand that we can't get those successes unless lots of people strive towards those goals. Maybe this points to a fundamental error in how we value labor, but that's probably an even harder problem to solve for Americans than restructuring college tuition.

College loans were dischargeable in bankruptcy until Clinton changed it. Biden can have that repealed, but that would upset the bankerster gravy train and could jeopardize political donations by the banksters.

https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/economy-budget/28362...

Since politicians don't want to repeal the Clinton-era law, the logical choices for many students will be to skip college or to leave USA for college overseas. We are really harming our children with this debt.

Biden helped negotiate that bill.

As far as I can tell this was a bill written and negotiated in the GOP-controlled House, by the Education and the Workforce committee.

At the time Biden served in the (GOP-controlled) Senate, and not on the relevant committees there.

Do you have evidence that Biden specifically was involved in negotiating about this? Or do you just mean that, insofar as he was a member of the Senate, he “helped” by voting for a ~250 page bill that passed 96–1?

https://www.congress.gov/bill/105th-congress/house-bill/6

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/02/joe-biden-st... "it is indisputable that Biden was an avid supporter of the 2005 bill as a whole and of its overall thrust of tightening up the bankruptcy code largely to the benefit of lenders at the expense of distressed families who would find it harder to file for bankruptcy."

"he used his leadership role to limit the ability of other Democrats who had concerns and who wanted the bill softened"

"Senator Biden supports legislation that will fall hardest on women,” she wrote. “Why? The answer will have to come from him … He is a zealous advocate on behalf of one of his biggest contributors – the financial services industry.” -- E Warren in 2005

The other commenter was talking about a different bill. This one is from a GOP-controlled congress during the Bush administration, which would be even more absurd to blame on Bill Clinton!

This 2005 bill would have passed with or without Biden. If you want someone to blame, this ~200 page bill was written by Chuck Grassley (R) and sponsored by 10 GOP senators and two Democratic senators (Biden is not on that list). The House version was written by Rep. Sensenbrenner (R) and sponsored by 80 GOP members and 8 Democratic members. Then it was signed by George W. Bush (R). This is exactly the kind of bill you can expect when the GOP gets unified control of the congress and presidency. https://www.congress.gov/bill/109th-congress/senate-bill/256

It’s fair to criticize Biden for voting for this bill, especially in the context of the Democratic primary – Elizabeth Warren is much more aggressively pro-borrower, and in this case Biden was actually on the Judiciary Committee where this bill was debated so could have conceivably have spent his political capital making a big stink and trying (unsuccessfully) to sink it – but even then this article is pretty exaggerated / out of context: 2019 clickbait trying to attract views by speculatively scaremongering about intra-party differences.

That appears to be a bill passed by Congress and signed by Clinton, not simply an executive order or a policy decision by Clinton. I don't think Biden can have that repealed, there would need to be a new bill passed by Congress and signed by Biden. Unless there's something I'm missing. Per the article you linked to, it does imply that Congress needs to take action to change this.

Yes, this was a ~250-page bill proposed by GOP congresspeople and passed by a GOP-majority Senate and a GOP-majority House. The Democrats in those bodies negotiated what they could, and then the bill passed with veto-proof majorities.

It is ridiculous to say “Clinton changed this”.

Edit to add: If someone wants to see this changed, make sure the Democratic party maintains control of the House in the upcoming midterm elections and then start lobbying GOP Senators. Getting to 60 votes on a bill to help “woke college grads” is going to be an uphill fight in the current political climate.

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