Wow, hey spusted pencils fully let it education tuck educated educators talking talking or talking. I don't know
it's whatever you want education. That's what we do. Dr. Johnny Dupinati, Jacob chairman of the
board, me, Dr. Tinslecker. Oh my goodness. Here we are again. The busted pencils seventh day of
Christmas producer Jacob, you said. Why yes, Tim, it's the fabulous busted pencils seventh show of
Christmas. Nice. And you can't see it listener because you can't see the festive overlay of the
video interface we have. It's pretty amazing. Jacob goes above and beyond to produce not just a
great busted pencil show, but he makes it a full festive experience for us hosting a hair with
them. I mean, Jacob, you went above and beyond for this home room. I'm pretty exciting as we're
getting closer to the big day getting closer. I thought I heard that that, you know, that composition
Jacob that you were that you would work so hard. Oh, do you want to hear their composition again? Yeah, let's know.
There it is.
Buss pencils. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Grattles pencils and bust them.
Don't miss it.
That's right. That's right there. You know, it's Christmas when you hear that song. You know,
it's like chestnuts roasting on an open fire. And
Buss pencils Christmas music, man. I love that. Jacob though
classes in session here on the seventh day of Christmas. And I love that you came in with,
you know, our own original music because, um, you know, Johnny will know that actually,
you know, this, this, this podcast radio show, you name it. Hey, it has always had music behind
driving everything we do. And so, you know, the whole idea here of of of our own original
Christmas music. I think it's a lot of fun, Tim, because the fun thing about it is that
you can, you can make a funny little song whenever you want. I mean, it's, it's no big deal.
But hopping on to an AI thing and writing out my original busted pencils Christmas chime
and having it not sound bad. It actually sounds like a fun song. That is too much power
for for one person to have. So I don't know if this is going to last forever, but
I'm happy that AI has empowered me on this beautiful home room edition of busted pencils.
Yes. Wait a day. Oh, man. Show till Christmas. You know, the seventh show of busted pencils
Christmas. Tim, it's Monday home room. It's a big time. Well, you know what? I love that. I love
that though the the personalized song with the overlay of the festivities. I added this weekend
you sent me the the track and I added it to my Christmas playlist. So it currently comes on,
you know, when everyone's chilling out and having like holiday kind of drinks and, you know,
and mingle in it comes on. Sit your beep down and learn. Learn. I love it. Big fan. So hey,
but Tim, we've been texting all weekend, you know, the news never stops. The news never stops.
And in fact, I mean, this one here, it's got me so upset that I didn't even realize what day it was
to start here, you know, thinking about it. No, no, okay. That's the model. It's a bottle, you know,
I mean, I cut my hair again. You can see what, you know, I must have sucked out a few of the
cognitive brain cells attached to the ends of my roots of my hair that I don't have many left
of anymore. But, um, Johnny, you know, it is the the giving season and, whoa, gotta love this gift.
The Department of Education settled a lawsuit and all is right with the world again,
because taxpayers, you get the most awesome of gifts ever. You don't have to pay for my student
loans anymore. My son's student loans, my daughter's student loans. You're off the hook this
Christmas because hey, the Department of Education agreed with a couple of the states while in the
Missouri, I forget who said that, um, you know, no, there is no such thing as a free lunch as a free
ride as, you know, well, there wasn't anything free. In fact, even the whole idea of getting a little
bit of relief on the taxpayers time, that's out the door. When I'm talking about Johnny, the save
program introduced by Biden by quote executive order, which, um, was not forgiveness. Let's just
remember forgiveness had already been beaten down. This was just a way to allow student loan repayment
to actually be a little bit more affordable. And, you know, you can catch a little tone in my
voice of going, I'm not sure that actually this was a gift to the taxpayers because
when the save program was in place, everybody was still paying back their student loans anyway.
So when you look at news stories right now that are out there celebrating the finalization of
this lawsuit, this is one of those things where it's like, man, what a way to wake up and go home
room. Man, that $500 a month, I didn't realize that because under the safe plan, I was paying
a hundred bucks a month. I spent 400 bucks on a Christmas gift for somebody. I got to take it back.
I'm a mess, Johnny. Well, Tim, no, I mean, it's, it's news and we're here to talk about all things
education related. And most certainly, you know, the enormous weight of student loan debt across
this country is a big topic in education until we figure it out until it gets solved because
repayment in most cases has already occurred. It's just all of the, like you've noted this before,
the accrued interests and all the, you know, twists and turns in the system for any listener out
there with student loans, knows just merely figuring out what your current balance is and everything.
It's gotten a little bit better till I go online and kind of check everything and stay up with it.
But it's been a mess. It continues to be a mess. And, and I, you know, I didn't, I didn't,
I wasn't too shocked by this story, Tim, you know, I don't expect this administration to do anything
for the working people of this country that's going to help them out. I mean, yes, they did say,
hey, we're here to help make, you know, grocery costs slower. And we're here to figure out how
working America can experience a higher quality of life. All these things that the current administration
said they were going to deliver. Um, they riled folks up on and, uh, and have not delivered. So
it's no shock to me that, you know, any of the, the, the allow, I don't know what to call
allowances. I don't like forgiveness because forgiveness implies that something wrong has happened.
And, and it's like, no, you know, taking out alone to go to public school so that you can contribute
to your community, especially thinking about it as, you know, somebody in public service, like,
you know, a teacher out there or, you know, anybody who's providing like their civic duty through
the employment and work that they do in their community. These are, you know, these are standard
practices around the developed world. And, uh, you know, we happened to, like I've said many times,
marketize education, right, create it as a commodity, not as part of a necessarily as a part of
a democracy, but as something you can buy. And, uh, what if I needed to get to a, uh, a job? Well,
if you can't buy it now, well, then you were going to have to take a loan and good luck repay
in that loan. And, and it's a mess that we got to get out of. We've had many shows about a
before Tim. Uh, and now here we are again, no shocker to me, you know, the, the, um, you know,
it's a, these stories like we said, uh, on some of our previously recorded shows lately are, are
about smuggling and ideology. This one, this one most certainly gets to, you know, throw some
punches at Biden. Well, yeah, come on. I'm like, you know, because here's the thing we're going to
get hit for going, yeah, you guys are always coming down on this administration. And well,
well, I mean, this ministry isn't doing anything to help make cost the living any lower.
When it's deserved, we do. But, you know, yeah, okay, I, I, I think it's just, um,
evil is not the right word. It's, it's just gross to actually go in and, and tell people who,
you know, had a little bit easier a time because they had a reduced rate to pay back. Not forgiveness,
not doing away with their balance, just the ability to pay less over time so that they could
quote, continue to have affordability. So the fact that they went after this so hard to get rid
of it is to me some form of just, you know, it's mean. It's just mean true meanness. And, but
come on, let's put the blame, though, why was this administration able to, you know, undo
something? Well, because the Democrats, and this can go for a lot of things. So everybody who's
mad at us, we're hitting on this administration. Don't worry. The slap down for the Democrats
is coming right now. So get ready. You know, fight on that stick because this is going to hurt
Democrats. But you're the reasons this is we're in this situation because when you were in power,
when you were in control, when you had full ability to fix Obamacare and put it into legislation
to make it the law of the land, you didn't. When it came down to actually protecting a woman's
right to choose and to codify that into law, when you have the majorities, you didn't. When it came
time to put forward student loan affordability in some form of forgiveness, you put that forward
in an executive order, all of these things that should have been created, put forward and put
into law. When you're the majority party, you have a mandate to take care of business, not
create situations that allow you to continue complaining and therefore use these as ways to get
reelected as opposed to doing the job the right way that you're supposed to do. And that's what
happened with every one of these issues. They kept them active and alive so that they could
quote, use them as reelection tools as opposed to actually doing the work for the blue collar
scholars out there. Yes, student loan, blue collar scholars, all of this. And so this is my
home room welcome seventh day of Christmas. Hey, up your, well, you know, what? I just, come on.
Yes, this administration is mean. They're mean. They told us they were going to be mean. The fact
is though is is that we could have taken away their ability to enact so much meanness. But
Democrats, guess what? Hey, Democrat, if, if you're winning, don't pick a Democrat to be on your
team because guarantees are going to figure out a way to lose it. Well, well, that's a lot to
you know, I don't know that I can say everybody. Yeah, everybody. Happy Monday. Good home room.
No, I didn't just, but just a, just a comment on this. I think, you know, I agree with
the sentiment here of, you know, there was a window. There was an opening to really, you know,
eliminate the student debt crisis to just, you know, you know, the instrumentalist in me,
like saying like, hey, it makes more sense to put more money back into our local economies,
even into not so local economies, more purchasing cars, more taking vacations, more meals out,
whether they're at local establishments or, you know, I would hope they are, but they could be
anywhere as a stimulus to the economy. It made all the sense in the world to eliminate the
student debt crisis or at least bring it up to, you know, a manageable, like, like task, like,
hey, what is the, where are you at in your debt repayment? How has it been going? How do we smooth
this out so that there's more money going into our economy, right? That made a lot of sense.
It was low-hanging fruit for anybody running for office. I actually, you know, in a past couple
of years ago, Premonition said, brace yourselves because it could come from either Republican or
Democrat running for office to say, that's part of their platform that they're going to, you know,
fix the student loan debt crisis. I mean, that would be a massive and certainly not unprecedented move.
Might I note, like Tim, I think, you know, I tend to shy away from, you know, if something's mean
or not or a group is mean or not, it's like, but I'll get into it. I think it is a little bit,
like, we're grasping for what can we call it when it's just simply non-logical, you know,
it's not unprecedented to do any kind of a bailout. I mean, we've experienced it whether it was in,
you know, the banking industry, whether it was been in, you know, automotive industry, it doesn't
come at the expense to taxpayers and economists have done the numbers, right? Take the feelings out
of it as much as I'm a feelings guy, Tim, you're a feelings guy, you know, take the, take the feelings
out of it and just run the numbers. You immediately, and you touched on this, Tim, we're going into
holiday season, all these things. You immediately put money into the economy when you lower or you
eliminate this crushing debt that people are, are, are children in their careers and
children in a lot of aspects of their lives. And that's money not going as costs of groceries
continue to go up as cost of, you know, anything like people listening to the show, you've gone
out to eat, you've seen the cost of engaging in community goes significantly up. And one way to
increase or stimulate, be a stimuli to our, our economy is to have more money available at,
you know, each pay for the working people of this country. Tim, the other thing that's, I just
want to point out is that's that that's also wishful thinking on our part because nothing about
the past few administrations has has done. And that's I think some of your sentiment here has done
much to really address the living conditions of working America. And instead has sort of written
out that, that, you know, you know, page out of the, the playbook of the culture wars of saying,
you know, who, you know, who's really making it hard for everybody? It's these people who went to
college and they spent all that money on college. Well, you know, college really isn't all it's
cracked up to be. And these people irresponsibly took on debt to do it. And so that's why things are
so expensive. So maybe you didn't get to go to college. Maybe you didn't go to college. Maybe
you chose not to go to college. Well, those college people are trying to get out of their agreement
to pay back, right? There's all this discourse out there that is anti college degrees, right? It's
really hurtful to the people. And some of it is because of that divide we have had Tim. We said,
like a college education doesn't make you any better than your neighbor. And what it means to be
part of the community, part of the neighborhood, it just might have been a necessary pathway
to what you chose to do. And the same thing can be said, you know, for someone who, you know, chooses
to be, you know, a landscaper or who really enjoys, you know, being a plumber, like a lot of my
buddies, right? And so, you know, they certainly most certainly felt like college wasn't the best
pathway for them. It didn't serve the ends to the means for what they did. But, you know,
one of the things that I always shake my head at Tim is we have to live with this. We are in a moment
where culturally it's been a little elitist to identify as a college graduate. And so some of
that is to be expected. I said, sometimes you just got to, you just got to bite down like you said
and take it. So those of you with student loan debt, and I'm included in that. This is a moment
where like, you know, we haven't represented our degrees in kind enough ways to say, hey, we're
all together in this. So there are a lot of people who are vehemently opposed. And I think that
part of that, Tim, you're saying is also that's a missed opportunity to share correct or truthful
information that is this doesn't fall on taxpayer. This doesn't fall on the working
American. It doesn't even fall on the rich. It absolutely is a nothing right off for the
government to say, this is a huge mess. We shouldn't have done this. There's just a little bit of
humility that affords them a ton of hubris in the future to say, hey, this was a bad decision
20 some years ago. Colleges, get it right now. Students, you know, whatever you choose to go into,
whether you're going to college degree route or whether you're going careers or trades,
we need you in our communities. And let's figure out how to boost our economy locally.
And in the everyday kind of ways, big numbers can do. So eliminating the student loan debt would
make all the sense in the world. The world watching us still is dumbfounded that we haven't
done that or figured this out. So again, a little humility to afford us some hubris
moving forward. It's like, hey, made a mistake. But guess what? Learned from it. And we made some
big adjustments. So Tim, I'm going to say is down as I am about these continued stories,
I'm optimistic because we got a new year coming and we've got new elections and we've got all
kinds of, I said before, you know, on the show, and I'll be saying it over our break because I
really believe it. I think this upcoming year is going to be a year where people start to see
through the tom foolery. And I don't mean like the left or the right. I mean, the masses,
like the people all in between who are like, wait a minute, this didn't work with this administration
or that administration. And they're just throwing darts at each other across the table. Let's figure
this out because we need this to be fixed. And it's not only student loan, it's our economy,
it's our quality of life in this country. It's our medical system. They're all related. Stop
blaming the people and look to you what your government can do, right? To make it so that we can
exercise our civic duty, be strong citizens, contribute in our communities and not be straddled
with all kinds of crippling debt. And I know that's a word I should probably not be using
with my awareness of ableism, which could be a whole class suffocating debt.
Well, okay, yeah, this is my god. This is one of those home runes where it's like, man,
before I go to first period, I'm going to have to jump in the bathroom and catch a smoke,
man before or catch a vape, you know, because this is way too long of a home room.
You know, here's the other thing. Okay, lawsuit is settled. Great. Okay.
I want to now see the the effect of doing this. Now that all the quote taxpayers are
quote off the hook, which is crap. But to me, this now means that
affordability, you know, for for for stakes and gasoline and automatically now we should see
in a drop in prices, because this student loan debt that the taxpayers had been just
forking out and making this economy stink, it's over. So I now want to see instant price drops
as a result of finally solving this horrendous idea to give people a break on their student loans,
because now it's been fixed and with this fix affordability should be right coming at straight
at you. But you know, now it's time for your moment of zen.
The cry of the poor is not always just. But if you don't listen to it, you will never know what
justice is.
Thanks for listening to busted pencils home room podcast today and remember to grab great other
podcasts filled with more busted pencils content, an Apple podcast Spotify and of course
on the civic media website. Hey, and don't miss this week's class and session on Wednesday
and find our special drop of producer Jacobs choice on Friday. And of course, pencil busters.
You can catch the busted pencils broadcast on Saturday at 3 p.m. Central time across all the
civic media network stations for one hour of your favorite blue collar scholars,
him and Johnny and keep busting pencils.