I've heard Cantor interviewed and I think he'd do a good job at the Republican response.

I didn't get the promise of student loan amnesty I was hoping for last night.

The only response I can ever remember being any good--almost the only one I can remember, period--was Jim Webb in 2007.

Why was it good? Because Webb threw out the pablum that the hacks wrote for him and did his own speech. Granted, it helps that Webb is either the best or second-best writer in public life, depending on what one thinks of the president's prose.

But yeah, that speech is almost an impossible task.

jerseyhoya wrote:Big ups to whomever came up with the idea of having McDonnell speak in the legislative chamber in front of a live audience. I know it was weird and a little contrived, but less awful than previous versions.

eff McDonnell - we wanted The Trucker!!1!

"...and finally, if you didn't like my response, hey - my daughters are available!"

The other thing I liked, which I saw on Chuck Todd's twitter this morning though it doesn't appear to have made much difference in press coverage, was the GOP wanted reporters to call it the GOP address and not the GOP response. Of course it's not a response. It hasn't been a response for a long time (ever?), but that doesn't stop people from complaining about it not being a response. So they are trying to call it something different. 10-15 minutes of what we're about as a party is fine without pretending it can match in substance, style, rhetoric, etc. the hour the President just took in front of both houses of Congress. Take the free network time, and give a not yet national, but talented party figure a chance to talk about issues the Republican Party finds important in the current national debate. Putting McDonnell in front of an audience was a nice touch I think because the straight to camera method a) has proven to be a failure and b) is just such a weird transition from what people had been watching.

McDonnell really looks like a televangelist. Maybe not surprising given his Robertsonian origins.

Houshphandzadeh wrote:I didn't get the promise of student loan amnesty I was hoping for last night.

"To make college more affordable, this bill will finally end the unwarranted taxpayer subsidies that go to banks for student loans. Instead, let's take that money and give families a $10,000 tax credit for four years of college and increase Pell Grants. And let's tell another 1 million students that when they graduate, they will be required to pay only 10 percent of their income on student loans, and all of their debt will be forgiven after 20 years -- and forgiven after 10 years if they choose a career in public service, because in the United States of America, no one should go broke because they chose to go to college."

This is a much better deal than I got when I went to college; my deal was "pay back your loans or else".

It doesn't really change anything, though. If you have a reasonable loan debt, you'll pay it off long before twenty years. If, like me, you have crushing debt, you're still going to want to go above 10% of income to try and pay it off sooner so you can actually start saving for retirement before you're 45.

Houshphandzadeh wrote:It doesn't really change anything, though. If you have a reasonable loan debt, you'll pay it off long before twenty years. If, like me, you have crushing debt, you're still going to want to go above 10% of income to try and pay it off sooner so you can actually start saving for retirement before you're 45.

I might or might not pay off all my student loan debt before I hit 20 years out of college--it's 15 and counting, and I still owe a lot. (That I piled on new debt for grad school certainly didn't help.) But I've also started to save for retirement. It isn't a straight either/or. (Though maybe it should be.)

First, if you're not putting away at least what your company/institution is willing to match in a 401K, I'd like you to invite me over to come kick you in the nuts and then take all the money in your wallet.

Now, not all orgs match (mine doesn't, lousy start up), so then it becomes an issue of whether you think you can do better taking the market return over paying more than required each month on your loan at whatever your interest rate is. If your interest rate is around 4% and the market's getting around 7 or 8, then just pay what's required. If you're paying 6% interest and you think the market's going to give you about 6 or so, then it's up to you.

However, I'm having trouble seeing why you'd rush to pay things back if they promised that your loan would be forgiven after 20 years? I mean I guess the real goal is to make so much money that 10% of your income pays off a lot of debt each year, but failing that, what's the rush? Pay your 10% and then take whatever else you were planning to pay and put that towards retirement.

What if 10% doesn't even cover interest?

Well again, this is only if we're operating under the "debt is forgiven" but if 10% isn't covering all the interest, then it's not really your problem, it's the gov'ts.

I'm not sure if this would only apply to new students anyway and not to those currently with loans, but at the end of the day, if it does apply to you, I don't know how this is anything BUT a financial boon to you.

My most recent Stafford loans are at 6.8%

Woody wrote:My most recent Stafford loans are at 6.8%

Aren't there ways to reduce your rate?

Mine are 6.8, too

You can try to consolidate, but there's no one to give out the consolidation loans like there used to be.

Woody wrote:My most recent Stafford loans are at 6.8%

That's the thing that pisses me off. You can give the banks 0% interest, but are charging a fairly high 6.8%. If the parents need additional money to help out, the PLUS loan is even higher. And the people that can use the PLUS loan are the low risk, $150k-$200k income families that aren't eligible for aid with a couple of kids in college, and don't get tax breaks.

Are banks making money on student loans? I thought a few student loans companies went out of business, suggesting that the business isn't nearly lucrative as it appears to us.

Werthless wrote:Are banks making money on student loans? I thought a few student loans companies went out of business, suggesting that the business isn't nearly lucrative as it appears to us.

I don't believe it is lucrative and I think that's why you can't get a consolidation loan anymore.

maybe not when loans were under 4%

But at 6.8%, probably

I don't know what my rate is but I think it is pretty low. I consolidated them on June 30, 2006, while I was in the middle of a case race with my roommates. I was starting off 4th of July weekend with a bang, then my mom called and reminded me that I had a letter sent to our house in NJ that it was the last day for me to consolidate the loans at a good rate. So on my way to being really inebriated I did some googling and figured out how to consolidate my loans in a hurry so I wouldn't fall too far behind on the beers.

It's a wonder why I live at home with all the care I put into my finances.