07-03-2019, 01:27 PM
(07-03-2019, 11:13 AM)bfine32 Wrote: I can see how using the term irresponsible has a negative connotation and it is a word I should not have used. It was used to contrast them from others who paid as they went or sacrificed time/energy to obtain a scholarship. However, anybody that currently has Student Debt and is advocating for the Government to forgive that debt are trying to get out of an agreement that he/she entered freely and is 100% responsible for.
We're discussing Bernie Sander's proposal. I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume Bernie doesn't have any student loan debt. But, if he does the problem is worse than I thought.
When I went to college the first time I had an athletic scholarship, an academic scholarship, about $20K from my grandfather's life insurance, I worked a job, and I still had to take a year off between my junior and senior year to save up to finish my final year.
When I went to PA school I was divorced and paying child support on an E-6's pay. I had a car the MPs threaten to tow because they thought it was an abandoned vehicle and the AC didn't work and the driver's window was broken so I couldn't lower it to even get at breeze in TX, I rented a room in a stranger's house because it was cheaper than an apartment, and I donated plasma twice a week which gave me about $250 a month for beer money. Getting a second job was out of the question because 1) the commander would never approve it and 2) there was no time because I was in class between 07:30-16:30 five days a week followed by dinner, gym, and studying until bedtime and I didn't sleep three nights a week because I stayed up all night studying for a test.
By the time the Army medically seperated me without retirement I was 38 and I have unti roughly age 67 to build my retirement. I'm doing better than 80% of the country financially. To quote Trump, "That's sad."
I have no problem trying to figure out a way to make this easier for others.
Quote:By law when you join the Army you incur an 8 year commitment. This 8 years can be served on active duty, reserves, or inactive. Anyone who removes themselves from that commitment violated their contract. One of the most common is 4 and 4-4 years active, four years in the reserves. Someone who separates after their initial 8 year agreement. And is not the same as asking others to take care of your debt for you.
Look, you're the one who introduced forgiving the service commitments for ROTC cadets, not me. You're the one who suggested they were irresponsible for accepting an option offered by the military, not me. And Bernie Sanders' proposal isn't all about irresponsible liberal college kids asking you to take care of their debt for them despite your attempts to frame it that way. It's really about what can we do to try solve the problem of ever increasing tuition (aka capitalism at work) so the next generation isn't paying student loans for two decades after they graduate. And part of it involves loan forgiveness paid for by a tax on Wall Street transactions that neither of us knows how or if it will affect you. It was difficult for a poor kid like me to go to school and it's even more difficult now. I interact with nursing students weekly and the tuition they pay at for profit schools for an associates degree to become a CNA is obscene. And our Secretary of Education is making it easier for for-profit schools to further take advantage of students rather than protecting the students from the for-profit schools.
Quote:As to the retirement plans. As long as you entered/reenlisted with the understanding of your eligibility I see no issue, but that's a totally different matter.
You're the one who brought the issue of Sanders' proposal is unworkable because of the inherent unfairness. Yet, the military's retirement systems are inherently unfair to soldiers who retired with the same TIS/TIG based upon their BASD. And you have no problem with the military's inherent unfairness.
I know with 100% certainty you were completely unaware there was more than one retirement plan in effect when you joined because your recruiter never explained it.
