Unequivocial Evidence that My Country is Deeply Messed Up

[BvBPL]

So the White House has this petition system that permits petitions that meet a critical mass of electronic signatures will receive a response from the White House.

Of course this famously led to someone setting up a petition to build a Death Star. That petition was addressed by the White House as it had reached the then critical mass of 25k signatures.

Now the White House has raised the signatures required to 100k. That's a pretty high bar, but it was passed and blown away by a week-old petition to deport Justin Bieber.

Okay, you may think, that's just a lark and no indication that of a severe problem with the US. Fine, but now consider that an actually well considered petition to make student loan payments tax deductible has only received some thirty six hundred signatures in the three weeks or so it has been up.

Contrast that with the petition to legalize cannabis that has earned twice the number of signatures in less than a week.

My country is apparently populated by stoners with an unnecessary obsession with a teenie bopper pop idol.

Get me out of this handbasket!

 

[Bugfatty300]

It's an internet petition. The white house website petition system is really a joke to begin with.

 

[BvBPL]

Jokes can still be indicative of problems.

 

[Aleksey_aka_al]

There are at least 103,000 individuals of sound mind and you should give them the authority to rule you.

 

[El_Machinae]

Your student loan payments aren't tax deductible? Is the interest portion at least?

 

[Dralix]

I have to agree with the OP, but perhaps for a different reason.

It seems that these days, people in the US think that they should vote on everything. I'm certainly not opposed to people getting their democracy on, but I thought the point was that we vote for the legislature, and they make the laws. If we don't like the laws they make, then we vote them out of office.

But these days, whenever there's a law passed that someone doesn't like, people scream about putting it on a ballot. Let the people decide if they want that law. So really, the White House isn't doing anything that isn't being done at the state and local levels.

I say enough already. We don't need to vote on every damn thing the government wants to do.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Your student loan payments aren't tax deductible? Is the interest portion at least?

The Republicans did all they could to strip tax breaks for the middle class long ago in a move to "simplify" taxes. The only interest that is still tax deductible is a mortgage.

Regarding the OP, I don't think 100k signatures to get an official response is too high. It's not like the rest of them are completely ignored.

 

[Farm Boy]

The Republicans did all they could to strip tax breaks for the middle class long ago in a move to "simplify" taxes. The only interest that is still tax deductible is a mortgage.

Regarding the OP, I don't think 100k signatures to get an official response is too high. It's not like the rest of them are completely ignored.

Your student loan payments aren't tax deductible? Is the interest portion at least?

Are you sure about that? We still get the interest tax statements every year. I made a vow in law school that I was forever going to pay a professional to do my taxes, but I was relatively certain that educational loan interest came off taxable income.

Edit: if I'm reading that petition correctly, they want the principal payments tax deductible too.

 

[Marla_Singer]

Well, I'm not even American, and I've been able to sign a petition to ban Internet Explorer on that platform.

 

[Bugfatty300]

Well, I'm not even American, and I've been able to sign a petition to ban Internet Explorer on that platform.

Too many people think these WH online petitions (that literally anyone can make/sign) are serious and actually mean anything. Shocker: the general public is more concerned with trivial matters than they are with more serious issues.

 

[Marla_Singer]

^^ Still. Internet Explorer should be banned.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I'm with farm boy in that I'm reasonably certain that at least some of your college loan interest is tax deductible. Why should the principle be tax deductible? Is the principle on a home loan deductible?

The bigger problem for me is the byzantine systems we have to service educational loans (my wife's loan servicer has changed 3 or 4 times in 3 years and not a one of them have been straightforward or easy to deal with) and the fact that educational debt cannot be discharged by bankruptcy.

Oh and the fact that getting a degree costs so damn much and is increasing by leaps and bounds.

 

[Dachs]

A much more serious indictment of America is that American education has produced somebody who can blithely misspell "unequivocal".

 

[peter grimes]

I'm with farm boy in that I'm reasonably certain that at least some of your college loan interest is tax deductible. Why should the principle be tax deductible? Is the principle on a home loan deductible?

Generally speaking, investment in pursuit of profit is tax deductible, or so I've been told. Accordingly,
capital expenditures by corporations are deductible.

So why shouldn't a human's investment in themselves in pursuit of a better life be tax deductible?

Clearly, I think it should be.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Are you sure about that? We still get the interest tax statements every year. I made a vow in law school that I was forever going to pay a professional to do my taxes, but I was relatively certain that educational loan interest came off taxable income.

Edit: if I'm reading that petition correctly, they want the principal payments tax deductible too.

You are right. School loans are still allowed, but the interest amount is capped at $2500.

 

[Neverwonagame3]

Hypothesis- The problem isn't with Americans per se, but the elites that run the country forgetting that:
A: Ordinary people are much stupider than they are
B: Ordinary people don't have as much education to use to address serious issues
C: Ordinary people don't have the time anyway, they have jobs

Real democracy is going to take a lot more than this to implement.

 

[BvBPL]

A much more serious indictment of America is that American education has produced somebody who can blithely misspell "unequivocal".

Perkins Elementary was not exactly at the vanguard of pedagogical thought nor did the greater community of Newark offer a reasonable exchange rate on ten cent words.

Generally speaking, investment in pursuit of profit is tax deductible, or so I've been told. Accordingly,
capital expenditures by corporations are deductible.

So why shouldn't a human's investment in themselves in pursuit of a better life be tax deductible?

Clearly, I think it should be.

At the rate my education is fast becoming worth less, I should be able to claim depreciation.

Hypothesis- The problem isn't with Americans per se, but the elites that run the country forgetting that:

Oh, sure, blame the victim.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I don't blame the US for wanting to deport Justin Bieber. Trouble is, we don't really want him back. However, he did surrender to the police in Toronto today, so who knows what will happen?

 

[bhsup]

Sentence him to manual labor at Cape Columbia. You guys really should take more advantage of the fact that you've got your own Siberia to send people!

 

[Tahuti]

Generally speaking, investment in pursuit of profit is tax deductible, or so I've been told. Accordingly,
capital expenditures by corporations are deductible.

So why shouldn't a human's investment in themselves in pursuit of a better life be tax deductible?

Clearly, I think it should be.

Seriously, as a Dutchman I say you this: Tax deductions on interest are the devil at work. We have mortgage interest rate reduction and the government could have saved a lot of money (~10 billion euros) if that did not exist at all. All it has done is that it increased housing prices, increased private debt (our public + private debt rate rivals that of Greece), increased public debt (as it dulled tax income) and effectively serves as a subsidy for banks.

Worst thing is that it is politically impossible to destroy, since homeowners have come to rely on it to pay for the extremely high costs of their mortgages, even though the housing prices were expensive due to the mortgage interest rate deduction in the first place. It creates a threadmill effect that is nearly impossible to escape from. Tax deductions on interest should not exist for anything.