People are still going to bitch about this administration not doing enough for student debt relief, and that’s understandable considering how long it’s been a problem and how little effort has gone into fixing it up until now. But just remember which party is trying to do something about it now and which party built the current SCOTUS that has blocked those efforts so far. Democrats’ track record is far from admirable, but the GOP is flat out telling you to your face that you will get nothing you want or need and you will like it when they are in power.
Besides that, consider that Republican policy in general is about obstruction, regressive judicial interpretation, and brazen inaction on social issues. As such it is possible for Republicans to achieve a lot of their agenda by just holding one branch of Congress or having just the Presidency and courts without Congress. Because they achieve most of what they want via state legislatures suing to get their activist judges to rewrite the law through legal precedent. Contrastingly Democratic policy is often about taking action to address things which requires both Houses of Congress and the Presidency to have a chance at success, particularly with the current courts making litigation as remedy a non-starter for them.
Knowing that, look at the makeup of our federal government over the last 30 or so years. You will see that Democrats had about 3 months of true supermajority under Obama (72 working days to be exact) and the rest of that term with a strong majority, and then two years of a split Senate for Biden’s first term with DINO Manchin and turncoat Sinema being part of that Democratic split. So we, the voters, have given Democrats two years out of the last 30 to actually have a chance to install an agenda. Just two. And those two years ended over 12 years ago.
If you want student loan forgiveness along with other things like abortion protections, voting rights protections, climate change action, and so on, you’re not going to get it overnight with Democrats. It’s going to be an uphill battle, it’s going to take participation in primaries to get DINOsaurs replaced with younger progressives who actually have a stake in these things, and it’s probably going to take a few consecutive cycles of sustained federal control. You will not get easy and satisfying victories with just one or two votes. But I can absolutely 100% guarantee you that for every second you let Republicans control even a single branch of government, even just one chamber of Congress, you will get NOTHING on any of those topics and in fact, those situations will be made actively and maliciously worse out of pure spite. And the following Democratic administration will be that much more behind the curve and it will require that much more time and effort just to get back to zero and to even begin addressing those issues in a meaningful way.
I normally hold my nose and vote for them, and most recently it has cost me my favorite cigars and pipe tobacco, being able to order vape stuff online, and my 3D printed gun hobby. I’ve been signed up for multiple financial services without my consent (might have to do with being a government worker idk), taking money from my paychecks until I can cancel them since most of the benefits of I’m not even eligible for and already have my own preferred versions of them set up.
I’m forced into a corrupted bottle recycling scam that forces me to store cans and then drive them to a recycling facility and stand in line for hours, instead of just putting them into the recycling can right outside my front door. The system is set up with a perverse incentive to make recycling as hard as they can get away with. I’m gonna get angry if I keep trying to think of more ways they fucked me over, but I’m sure there is more.
Edit: Oh yeah, the requirement for paper bags and having to pay for them even though paper bags are worse for the environment. I have my own reusable bag but when I forget it the paper bags tend to break on me. A rent control law with an absurdly high limit on the raises that both guarentees landlords will raise the price every year AND people will still be priced out of their homes anyway.
At this point you might be able to guess where I live. For all of that I got nothing of meaningful benefit. I really don’t know if I’m going to be able to do it next time.
I wouldn’t blame you for voting for a liberal Republican for state elections if you live in a very blue state. I don’t know if those exist. But if they do, so be it. I’m all for holding individuals accountable. And hard blue/red states can get very lazy about accountability.
But any candidate that doesn’t respect basic human rights can fuck right off. And I don’t know of a single Republican on the national stage that passes the smell test.
It seems significant that a GOP controlled committee is looking into one of their own. If he's found in violation he should not only be removed from office, but also tried and convicted. Think he'd worry then?
They need to ask Joel Greenberg and Jason Brodeur what they know about it too. Pretty sure they both had a part in laundering the money he used for that through Seminole county elections.
My friends from HS and I are all still very close and hang out a few times a year. For the most part we are all doing quite well career and financial wise. The exception is my good friend who studied to be a music teacher. He is brilliant and hard working, but has had to hustle twice as hard as I have for half as much.
For 20 yrs he has been paying on his loans for undergrad and a masters degree. He has had to take jobs in every corner of the country to try and get established. I saw him a few weeks ago and he announced that thanks to Uncle Joe, he was now student debt free.
My wife and I might grumble a little when we start writing checks again in a few months but I feel a lot better knowing that more support is going out to those who truly need it.
Transit is basically free in my city. Just look down on your luck and the drivers will wave you through. If they are running behind they will yell at you to “just get on” instead of paying because they care more about being on time than collecting $2.50 (minus credit card fees, minus admin fees, minus grift, minus whatever else).
It seems to work okay. They crazy folks and (extremely) smelly folks would get refused service even if they had $2.50 so I don’t think that is a valid concern.
Wait, what? Target barely even had a Pride campaign this year. They started rolling it out early, then backpedaled so fast and so far that there was basically nothing in June. Certainly nothing that classified as “sexual” to a sane human being. Also, if they’re still claiming there was anything actually trans-body-friendly in children’s sizes, that is pure fiction. As a trans, queer person, I would give Target maybe a C- for LGBTQ+ - friendliness, and that’s giving them the benefit of the doubt. These scumbags are not only morally bankrupt, they’re barking up the wrong tree.
Statements like that are why I tend to follow the idea that any government service should be provided to every citizen equally without exception.
We spend so much money in the US trying to make sure only the “correct” people are receiving things like welfare or Medicaid. If we just dropped the restrictions we’d likely be fairly close to being able to afford covering everybody with those programs.
This is exactly what Luxembourg did with their public transit recently. They realized they were spending more in upkeep/salaries/HR/computer systems/policy/etc, and just ripped it all out, and made it free.
That’s the reasoning behind an Universal Basic Income system: deciding who needs financial aid and who doesn’t, is more expensive than just giving everyone a fixed monthly payment and calling it a day.
That is, except for those who think nobody should get anything for free, and are trying to rip out the aid systems altogether.
Defecto “free” ridership has really hurt the local public transport system in the SF Bay Area.
Quite a lot of people refuse to take public transit due to risks of being harassed or witnessing open drug use. Easy to dismiss that as a guy personally, but I definitely think that creates an environment that’s hostile to many people who need to use or would otherwise be using public transit.
On the other hand, Margerite bus at Stanford has been free for decades, and it’s never been a significant issue there.
So it’s very difficult to generalize across different systems that have their own unique issues.
We have free transit in Albuquerque. It’s basically turned into a rolling homeless shelter. They hired security to manage it. My dad was one of those. He was attacked by someone using drugs on the bus and had the back of his hand bit off in a brutal attack. The busses here are VERY dangerous and I’d never step foot on one again.
I ride the Albuquerque buses to and from work. The worst I’ve seen is an intoxicated guy being thrown off by the driver. I’ve also seen a couple people kicked off for riding a full route, which I guess is how they keep people from riding all day. For reference, I’m a smallish woman, usually carrying a messenger bag. I’ve never been bothered.
What happened to @Dandylion’s dad is horrifying, though. That is exactly the kind of stuff that keeps me off public transit as well. “It never happened to me” isn’t really a valid argument.
I was thinking more like that solving the homelessness problem needs to be a part of improving public transit, and cities in general. Nothing made me want a personal vehicle more than being forced to ride public transit. Every day I’d look at the people passing us by in cars and say to myself “One day, that is gonna be me!”
It’s true that you’ll probably see something unpleasant on public transit once in a while but most folks aren’t going to share the experience of someone who is literally tasked with engaging with and managing the people causing problems on the bus.
It’s unfortunate though because in my experience transit feels a lot more pleasant when there are at least a decent amount of people riding with you. When people start to feel unsafe and stop riding, it can drive further people away if they have other transportation options.
Eeh? I’m a woman, I don’t have this problem on transit at all, either in Chicagoland or in SF. First of all, witnessing open drug use isn’t, like, the end of the world; it might make you uncomfortable, but it’s not dangerous.
Being harassed is a real fear, but I find that I’m more often harassed while I’m just walking around than in a bus, train, or the muni, and when I’m on board transit there are cameras and an operator to potentially step in!
Public transit is a public good. If seeing poor people and drug users makes us uncomfortable, the solution is to address the root causes of poverty and addiction, not to force poor people off of public transit.
You might not, and neither do I have a problem with it. I grew up low income and rode plenty of “sketchy” bus lines where fights would break out. I know when to remove yourself from danger.
Plenty of people I know have, or at least have that perception. My S/Os parents visited from out of the country, and they were harassed by someone screaming racist epithets at them and got scared, and ended up taking Uber the rest of the time they were here. They are old, retired, and we didn’t want to risk them getting uncomfortable. Obviously we have the privilege of doing that, but not everyone does.
Again, it’s not about being poor, it’s about antisocial behavior that destroys the public spaces. That goes for rich assholes too.
In Chicago the whole system was designed for you to pay before you get on. There’s a turnstile to get into the station, and you can only get on the front of the bus and tap before you enter. So fares are actually a large percentage of the budget (I looked it up, it’s about 35% pre-pandemic, post pandemic the numbers got all weird). I have no idea why the system is designed in SF where you can essentially “jump” on for free and never pay.
Speed, space, and cost usually. With busses it is way faster to board if you can just open all the doors at a busy stop and everyone paid on the platform or online. They just get on and sit down and go. The busses in Chicago let you pay by credit card (tap) to get on, which is not particularly common in the US, which helps with this.
It’s also much more expensive and challenging to build a system separated by fare and non fare zone. CTA runs a very old system that was designed ages ago so its pretty easy to keep it that way. Many newly built systems are dealing with expensive right of way acquisition and high construction cost. It’s way easier just to slap a few pay stations around and call it a day. Most people pay to ride voluntarily anyway, and those that can’t afford it weren’t going to pay if there was a fence in the way.
Source: enthusiastic about public transit and city politics, feel free to correct me please
They do that regardless of whether there are fares. In my neck of the woods, the suburbanites have fought like hell against installing light rail to connect downtown with the greater metro area because they’re worried about the “crime train”. Who cares if it would improve commuting for the majority of the population?
I’m so sick of these lying, perverted assholes. This isn’t “their opinion”, this is stochastic terrorism deliberately meant to put LGBT people in physical danger by associating them with pedophilia. It’s the exact kind of hatred the Nazis fomented against Jewish people. They know it’s not true, lying is a means to an end.
These people are genuine extremists who have to be stopped. It infuriates me that so many people still try to play the “both sides” bullshit. Democrats aren’t openly talking about eliminating entire groups of people, like Mark Rubio did.
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