• papertowels
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    5 months ago

    I know a few teachers and one EMT. None of them have received anything close to a police officer’s salary since Biden took office.

    Just to be clear my claim was just that this action to the student loan forgiveness program benefited teachers cops, firefighters, and EMTs, but they instead chose to ignore everyone else benefiting and just choose to get angry at Biden that cops are included.

    As you’ve surmised, what you’re seeing is likely due to local, not federal politics.

    As a contrarian anecdote, my democratic local government removed qualified immunity for cops, and established a set of unarmed cops for non-life threatening work like minor traffic violations. I’d say that provides equal weight to your anecdote showing that the entire party is not blue lives matter.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      this action to the student loan forgiveness program benefited teachers cops, firefighters, and EMTs

      Cops receive substantially more support and benefit than a marginal amount of student loan forgiveness.

      This goes to wages and overtime, housing, medical, retirement… Teachers and EMTs don’t enjoy anything comparable. Only firefighters come close, and their departments are dwarfed by comparison.

      • papertowels
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        5 months ago

        This seems like a tangential point.

        My point is that Biden did not prioritize police like the other guy was saying - they’re eligible for loan forgiveness alongside teachers, EMTs, and firefighters, and they were trying to criticize this development by portraying it as prioritizing cops, which isn’t the case.

        If anything, as you point out, the other careers make less, therefore loan forgiveness like this proportionally helps teachers, emt, and firefighters MORE, because the flat amount of loan forgiveness is a bigger proportion of their salary. Roll into this the fact that teachers typically have to get a graduate degree, and I’m thinking that this action largely benefits teachers, not cops, who don’t need degrees for their work.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          My point is that Biden did not prioritize police

          The Safer America Plan is a $37B budgetary proposal to hire 100,000 new police officers, to provide training to existing officers, and to integrate offices between cities and states for a tighter domestic surveillance network. This goes above the original $10B in the American Rescue Plan for police and associated public safety programs, passed the year earlier.

          Show me the equivalent proposal for education, emergency medical, or fire prevention.

          If anything, as you point out, the other careers make less, therefore loan forgiveness like this proportionally helps teachers, emt, and firefighters MORE

          “We paid you less so you should be thankful for these crumbs” is some powerful neoliberal bullshittery.

          • papertowels
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            5 months ago

            “We paid you less so you should be thankful for these crumbs” is some powerful neoliberal bullshittery.

            Sure, sure, spin it how you want, but since this particular act helps groups a, b, and c, getting into a hissy fit and claiming that group b is being put first is blatantly wrong. Do you disagree that this probably helps teachers more than cops?