2016 Presidential Horse Race

[Polish Leppy 22]

You have money buried in random places on your property, don't you?

You looking to stash some cash? Happy to help. No one does that better than the Amish. They're all loaded.

 

[yankeehater]

6M More Students With Bachelor's Than Jobs Available

I love how everyone is talking about getting people into college, but I am not hearing anyone speaking about job creation.

 

[fightingirish26]

I have always been under the assumption that free college/more affordable college has been more about reducing the crippling debt of college students rather than allowing everybody to go to college. Obviously, it would open up more opportunities for more students to go to college, but it's not necessarily about ensuring that everybody has an education rather than ensuring that nobody has to spend their entire life in student debt.

 

[wizards8507]

I have always been under the assumption that free college/more affordable college has been more about reducing the crippling debt of college students rather than allowing everybody to go to college. Obviously, it would open up more opportunities for more students to go to college, but it's not necessarily about ensuring that everybody has an education rather than ensuring that nobody has to spend their entire life in student debt.

That's a red herring. I graduated with $25,000 in student debt, a $15,000 car loan, and a $25,000 car lease. I earned a decent salary ($60K) and paid off all $65K in debt, including buying out the leased car, in three years. It wasn't that hard, I just lived beneath my income. The only reasons people are spending "their entire lives in student debt" is because they're studying things with no reasonable expected starting salary and they're lazy about paying it off.

 

[IrishSteelhead]

That's a red herring. I graduated with $25,000 in student debt, a $15,000 car loan, and a $25,000 car lease. I earned a decent salary ($60K) and paid off all $65K in debt, including buying out the leased car, in three years. It wasn't that hard, I just lived beneath my income. The only reasons people are spending "their entire lives in student debt" is because they're studying things with no reasonable expected starting salary and they're lazy about paying it off.

You mean the people who spent $200 k to receive a degree in "Medieval Poetry" from Sarah Lawrence won't get a job?!?!?!?

 

[fightingirish26]

That's a red herring. I graduated with $25,000 in student debt, a $15,000 car loan, and a $25,000 car lease. I earned a decent salary ($60K) and paid off all $65K in debt, including buying out the leased car, in three years. It wasn't that hard, I just lived beneath my income. The only reasons people are spending "their entire lives in student debt" is because they're studying things with no reasonable expected starting salary and they're lazy about paying it off.

This doesn't change the fact that it is a huge issue for a large amount of people. Also, if people graduate with $25,000 in student debt, they should be considered rather lucky.

 

[wizards8507]

This doesn't change the fact that it is a huge issue for a large amount of people. Also, if people graduate with $25,000 in student debt, they should be considered rather lucky.

What? $25,000 isn't lucky. Average in-state tuition is $9,000 per year. Even if you finance 100% of your education, that's only $36,000 after four years. If you can't wrangle $11,000 working part-time and summers, that's on you.

You have to try to have any more debt than that. I went to one of the most expensive schools in the country and my parents didn't have the money to pay. Existing financial aid infrastructure picks up the rest, especially for anyone with demonstrated need.

 

[kmoose]

I have always been under the assumption that free college/more affordable college has been more about reducing the crippling debt of college students rather than allowing everybody to go to college. Obviously, it would open up more opportunities for more students to go to college, but it's not necessarily about ensuring that everybody has an education rather than ensuring that nobody has to spend their entire life in student debt.

The average student leaves college with about $25,000 in student loan debt. The monthly payment on a $25,000 student loan is approximately $280 (assuming 6.8% interest and a 10-year repayment plan), which can cause financial strain if you’re not prepared for it. If you’ve borrowed more than $25,000, your payments will be even higher. There are also different repayment options that can change your monthly payment amount. If you don’t feel that you’ll be able to make the standard 10-year term payments, you can contact your lender to ask about other payment plans.

Fortunately, most student loans offer a six-month grace period after you leave college, before you have to start repaying your loan. Those six months are the perfect time to prepare your budget to make your loan payments.

Student Loan Repayments | Budgeting for Student Loan Repayment | Student Loans

I'm not sure you can characterize that as "crippling".

 

[fightingirish26]

What? $25,000 isn't lucky. Average in-state tuition is $9,000 per year. Even if you finance 100% of your education, that's only $36,000 after four years. If you can't wrangle $11,000 working part-time and summers, that's on you.

You have to try to have any more debt than that. I went to one of the most expensive schools in the country and my parents didn't have the money to pay. Existing financial aid infrastructure picks up the rest, especially for anyone with demonstrated need.

I guess this just has to do with where I come from. In PA in-state tuition is still expensive as hell.

 

[wizards8507]

I guess this just has to do with where I come from. In PA in-state tuition is still expensive as hell.

Only if you insist on State College campus though, right? My understanding is that the satellite campuses are much more affordable.

 

[fightingirish26]

Only if you insist on State College campus though, right? My understanding is that the satellite campuses are much more affordable.

Well, yeah. But at the same time not everybody can go to a satellite campus.

 

[pkt77242]

What? $25,000 isn't lucky. Average in-state tuition is $9,000 per year. Even if you finance 100% of your education, that's only $36,000 after four years. If you can't wrangle $11,000 working part-time and summers, that's on you.

You have to try to have any more debt than that. I went to one of the most expensive schools in the country and my parents didn't have the money to pay. Existing financial aid infrastructure picks up the rest, especially for anyone with demonstrated need.

Why only focus on tuition? What if you live to far away to commute and have to pay about 10K a year to live on campus and a meal plan? How about the fact that books cost about 1K a year now? What if you live close enough to commute but it is still a drive, say 20 miles? If you drive, you have the cost of a car, gas, insurance, upkeep, etc. I posted earlier that Arizona State University puts the average cost to attend it at about $27K a year. For many people their parents make too much for them to receive significant help (maybe they would get subsidized loans instead of unsubsidized) yet don't make enough to substantially help them.

Also many of the loans programs that help disadvantaged people are at risk due to the GOP. They want to freeze the amount of pell grants for 10 years (shockingly the cost of tuition will keep rising) they have talked about cutting the amount that goes to Pell Grants, they have talked about getting rid of subsidized loans, of getting rid of the income driven loan repayment, etc.

 

[Buster Bluth]

Christ people.

Who here actually thinks that if Bernie Sanders got elected he could get the states and Congress to get together and provide free tuition for state colleges? Forget about it. It's reasonable for him to get some interest stuff passed, but handing out free college will not happen.

I prefer to judge my candidates on things they can actually impact. Like foreign policy, where he's running against a warmonger.

I also know enough of you think that the biggest (or only, in my view) issue this country has is that Congress has tremendous difficulty passing a bill without the approval of their corporate/union/special interest donor daddies. So this primary campaign is basically just about an outsider versus perhaps the most insidery family in America.

If Sanders has a brain, and you're free to think he doesn't have one (maybe Ben Carson can check!), he'll use all of his political capital on reforms in election financing. So that's what the vote is for when you check Bernie Sanders' box.

 

[Cackalacky]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rhI6bMbhsDE
All of you HRC haters are gonna love this.

 

[pkt77242]

Dr. Ben Carson's prescription: Abolish Medicare - POLITICO

 

[drayer54]

I don't get the fascination with Carson. He's not exciting at all. None of his ideas are all that exciting. I just can't see him winning against the devil in a pantsuit.

 

[connor_in]

I Am Fun - The Onion - America's Finest News Source

Excerpt:

Perhaps it would be helpful for me to provide an example of a fun thing I do. I take part in levity. I enjoy jokes, which are fun. When the occasion presents itself, I have been known to make jokes of my own, thereby creating fun for those around me. This is because, like many other people I encounter, I have a sense of humor. A sense of humor is crucial to having fun and to being fun. When situations are humorous, I signal my recognition of the fun by laughing, just as you do. Just as most people do.

Although stating that I am fun and that I like fun establishes these qualities of my character sufficiently, I can also cite several instances in which I have demonstrated my fun side in public forums. I have been fun on broadcasts of late-night television programs. I have been fun on multiple social media platforms, wherein I can also be witnessed taking a carefree approach to life. If you have observed me in one of these settings, you have likely already concluded that I am a fun individual.

Furthermore, as indirect evidence of the fact that I have a fun disposition, I do not like things that are not fun.

 

[RDU Irish]

I don't get the fascination with Carson. He's not exciting at all. None of his ideas are all that exciting. I just can't see him winning against the devil in a pantsuit.

This is where I am with Carson as well. I fall asleep waiting for him to make a point. Yes I would vote for the guy over plenty of others out there but I really don't think he has the gravitas to carry the general election.

 

[GoIrish41]

I want to hear Carson answer questions tonight about getting rid of Medicare and Medicaid. Most of his support is from retirees and older workers, and this plan seems like it will hit pretty close to home for them.

 

[EddytoNow]

I don't get the fascination with Carson. He's not exciting at all. None of his ideas are all that exciting. I just can't see him winning against the devil in a pantsuit.

It's all relative. Carson fills a space between the say anything and offend everyone right wing republicans (the self-proclaimed non-politicians - like Trump, Fiorina, and Cruz) and the establishment, don't rock the boat, don't let the voters know what I'm really thinking, do nothing Republicans - like Bush, Christie, Rubio, and Kasich.

Carson has a softer, gentler way of saying he'd gut all the social programs designed to help the poor, the elderly, and the disenfranchised. His ideas are very similar to Cruz and the rest of the Republican candidates. He just expresses them in a calm, soft-spoken manner. He doesn't express himself in the loud abrasive manner of a Trump or a Cruz. Same message, but a less-threatening tone.

The Democratic appeal of a Bernie Sanders is similar to the appeal of Trump, Cruz, and Fiorina. For years the establishment Democrats have been telling their constituencies what they were going to do, but once elected they did nothing to uplift the poor and working class. Their loyalties have changed as often as the direction in which the wind has blown. Sanders' supporters are tired of all the rhetoric. They want some action. When Sanders speaks loudly at one of his speeches, he appeals to those Democrats who want to see some follow-through after the election.

The difference between the abrasive rhetoric of the left and right is in who is being blamed for the problems existing in the country. The left likes to blame the greed and indifference of the wealthy. The right likes to blame the lack of effort and initiative of the poor and working class.

Carson's appeal is that he presents himself as a decent, genuine human being. He is very likable. I like him. His demeanor, however, is inconsistent with the policies he proposes. If I were voting strictly based upon which candidate I like best, Carson would be a candidate I'd seriously consider supporting. However, when I dig deeper into the policies and agenda of Carson I cannot, with good conscience, support his agenda.

 

[connor_in]

I post this due to the discussion of Ben Carson and the fact that I just saw it on realclearpolitics

Why Ben Carson Can Win | National Review Online

 

[GowerND11]

This kind of thinking is why I can't support a candidate like Carson.

 

[connor_in]

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RvDz8z8h3Zs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[IrishJayhawk]

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RvDz8z8h3Zs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Nice. Well played, Marco.

 

[wizards8507]

Pretty clever. The big knock on Marco is that he's a bit robotic. This helps.

 

[ACamp1900]

His ears make Obama's ears look normal....

 

[pkt77242]

Florida newspaper: Marco Rubio should resign - CNNPolitics.com

he Sun Sentinel said Rubio is being paid $174,000 with taxpayer money to do a job he is not doing -- while he is criticizing others for doing the same thing.

"Two weeks ago, you took to the Senate floor to excoriate federal workers at the Department of Veterans Affairs for failing to do their jobs. You said, 'there is really no other job in the country where if you don't do your job, you don't get fired,'" the paper added. "With the exception of your job, right?"

The Sun Sentinel also pointed to fellow Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who both are also running for president and reportedly missed just a fraction of the votes Rubio did. Rubio missed roughly one third of Senate votes this year.

CNN has reached out to Rubio's campaign for comment on the editorial.

Rubio told CNN Sunday that he's missed past votes because he's campaigning, but the editorial board said that's an insufficient excuse.

"Sorry, senator, but Floridians sent you to Washington to do a job. We've got serious problems with clogged highways, eroding beaches, flat Social Security checks and people who want to shut down the government," the paper wrote. "If you hate your job, senator, follow the honorable lead of House Speaker John Boehner and resign it."

 

[connor_in]

Florida newspaper: Marco Rubio should resign - CNNPolitics.com

Blog: Rubio's missed votes will be no issue for Hillary (or Obama) to exploit

references

Marco Rubio defends Senate voting absences as Barack Obama's record was worse | Daily Mail Online

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/10/07/marco-rubio-is-missing-lots-and-lots-of-senate-votes-so-what/

Just FYI...personally I understand they will miss so,e, but wish they wouldn't miss so many. Can't find it now, but somewhere there was an article saying that anything he would vote for anyway, Obama would veto...thought it was funny with a bit of a ring of truth

 

[IrishJayhawk]

Blog: Rubio's missed votes will be no issue for Hillary (or Obama) to exploit

references

Marco Rubio defends Senate voting absences as Barack Obama's record was worse | Daily Mail Online

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/10/07/marco-rubio-is-missing-lots-and-lots-of-senate-votes-so-what/

Just FYI...personally I understand they will miss so,e, but wish they wouldn't miss so many. Can't find it now, but somewhere there was an article saying that anything he would vote for anyway, Obama would veto...thought it was funny with a bit of a ring of truth

Yeah. I don't think it's a huge deal. But it does carry a bit more weight given the recent rumblings about how much Rubio hates being a Senator.

 

[drayer54]

I think Rubio has the best chance of victory, but we shall see. I'd like to see him do well tonight. I'm not over the top for him, but it seems to me that he would look like JFK did next to Nixon when standing next to the old lady that wants to take your guns. He seems to get it more than the rest. We'll see.