A U.S. judge has blocked Biden's new sweeping student loan forgiveness plan before his administration could even roll it out. What borrowers need to know.
This is like a sitcom husband calling a restaurant on Valentines afternoon for an appointment, obviously getting turned away, and then claiming to the sitcom wife it’s not his fault and she has to now pretend that he took her out to a fancy dinner after she cooks for him with zero notice.
Because he tried.
With a bare minimum of effort, knowing it wouldnt work.
If you know a woman in that situation in real life, you’d explain what gaslighting is.
But for some reason we still can’t criticize Biden, because he’s not trump, even tho he’s also not running.
Almost like neoliberals will always scream and moan that there’s some bullshit reason you can’t judge their strategies when they never work. They want us to just keep beating our head against a wall, because when Republicans win, so do the corporations that donate to them and neoliberals.
The GOP will always find some new way to fuck up the system. That’s basically what they do now, sabotage the political system to maintain undue control. Not even pre-existing Supreme Court precedents are respected anymore, the right to vote is under attack from countless sides, wrenches get thrown in everywhere …
But you complain that the Democrats still try to get things done and at least expose the sad the state of our failing system rather than just waiting around for bulletproof golden opportunities that are somehow beyond the reach of all this fuckery.
So bi-partisan country-wide reform of how cases are assigned along with enforceable ethics codes banning partisanship that all states agree to so that federal appeals are not needed and a Supreme Court overhaul on top before we even attempt to do anything other than bend over for MAGA activists who are passing regressive shady bills at an alarming rate…
Unfortunately changes like this don’t happen with a magic wand and require pesky things like working around the inevitable House obstruction by winning the election and getting more House seats (otherwise you’d no doubt decry a Republican House blocking it as yet another doomed attempt by Democrats to change things).
So your plan is ignore all of the corrupt appointments?
Until when exactly? Just let them die on the bench in a couple decades?
That’s not fixing anything, it’s ignoring the problem.
Exactly what I’m complaining about. I’m just not sure why I had to say the same thing twice. Is it still not making sense to you that fixing a problem works better than ignoring it?
There was nothing unconstitutional about the first executive action to cancel student debt. Such action was explicitly permitted by the HEROES Act, and only a bad-faith interpretation by an illegitimate court consisting of corrupt justices was able to find otherwise.
And there’s nothing wrong with this attempt, either. It’s just that Conservatives don’t want the government helping people in an election year. Debt cancellation is universally popular and only negatively impacts the politicians who aren’t in favor.
Congress (i.e. the GOP) won’t budge on this issue and this is at least the 3rd attempt he’s made to forgive loans. Only thing left to do is invoke his “King powers” to do it anyway.
“By the powers invested in me by the Supreme Court, as an official act President of the United States, I hereby forgive all student loans as delineated in this executive order. It is done. Finito. Come at me scrotus!”
Being immune to prosecution doesn’t mean that any executive order can’t be overturned. He just can’t be prosecuted for crimes committed as part of an official act. He could execute the conservative justices that are blocking the plan, but he can’t just make any proclamation he wants and expect it to carry the force of law.
Except SCOTUS has no enforcement mechanism. They make decisions and the presumption is that everyone else just goes along with it.
Not saying that’s the legal or moral thing to do but if a former President is being given preferential treatment for behavior which is essentially treasonous the new standard is if you’re not punished for it then it’s “legal”.
I guess my point was, if the forgiveness was stated right out and actually executed thereon. Then there would be no “plan” to block. It would be done. And sure, the gop could file another suit, and a conservative court could block it, but there would be nothing left to block.
Basically: it’s better to ask for forgiveness rather than permission, except SCOTUS has determined that the POTUS already has preemptive forgiveness.
Just a thought experiment. I’m not a constitutional scholar by any means.
The problem is that declaring the debt gone doesn’t make it gone if the court blocks the executive order. It’s not like they can just hit a button and set all accounts to 0. There isn’t a paper ledger they can toss into a fire.
If we’re getting creative about it and want to use some existing legal authority to take actions that might actually be able to stick, the president does have the near limitless power to order the minting of coinage. As I understand it, he could order the treasury to pump out commemorative student debt coins in denominations ranging from $100 to $50,000, and send them out directly to student loan holders, or maybe to student loan servicers on their behalf. This would carry huge political downsides since printing money to pay for things is pretty well known to lead to inflation, and even if this had no real world effect, the attacks tying the forgiveness to inflation would be relentless and likely persuasive to a lot of voters. But once done, it couldn’t really be undone.
As with so many things, a realistic long term solution will require legislation. If the Democrats take the House and hold the Senate, that’s a possibility. But the current deadlock makes it impossible, because even if a bipartisan solution were to be negotiated, the leadership of the House will not allow anything to go through that might be good for the people or the country, because that could also be good for Democrats.
The Court granted immunity to prosecution (which is fucking insane) but that doesn’t actually give him the ability to forgive all debts. If a court says “no, the debt isn’t canceled” and the debt is still on the books somewhere, the problem remains unsolved. About the only way he can use presidential immunity to fix the problem would be to take out the judges that are blocking it.
The courts don’t control the ledger, the executive does. Biden would likely have to apply downward pressure to get some random employee with access to delete the debt records. At worst they’d get prosecuted federally and Biden would pardon them.
It wasn’t the same thing, all three of them were different plans using different justifications based on different laws. One was a blanket forgiveness based on laws allowing for adjustments of student loans in emergencies. One is need based or other circumstance based forgiveness based on a much earlier law giving the department of education wide latitude to make adjustments. And one was adjustments to the income based repayment plans based on the laws establishing those (this has happened many times in the past, such as the establishment of the PAYE and REPAYE plans).
It’s especially egregious that judges are blocking the SAVE plan, as many similar adjustments have been made to income based repayment plans previously with no one taking any issue.
Well since you’re yet again blaming the Democrats for problems created by Republicans, how would you solve the problem of student loans in a way that would help Americans and would also get past the GOP?
This is like a sitcom husband calling a restaurant on Valentines afternoon for an appointment, obviously getting turned away, and then claiming to the sitcom wife it’s not his fault and she has to now pretend that he took her out to a fancy dinner after she cooks for him with zero notice.
Because he tried.
With a bare minimum of effort, knowing it wouldnt work.
If you know a woman in that situation in real life, you’d explain what gaslighting is.
But for some reason we still can’t criticize Biden, because he’s not trump, even tho he’s also not running.
Almost like neoliberals will always scream and moan that there’s some bullshit reason you can’t judge their strategies when they never work. They want us to just keep beating our head against a wall, because when Republicans win, so do the corporations that donate to them and neoliberals.
You’re misrepresenting the context.
Republicans are jurisdiction-shopping to find the most regressive and conservative judges they can find, and filing the cases there.
They’ve been doing that for decades…
Why do you and Biden think they were just gonna not?
Like, you think Republicans will just voluntarily stop using a loophole so we don’t have to bother trying to close it?
The GOP will always find some new way to fuck up the system. That’s basically what they do now, sabotage the political system to maintain undue control. Not even pre-existing Supreme Court precedents are respected anymore, the right to vote is under attack from countless sides, wrenches get thrown in everywhere …
But you complain that the Democrats still try to get things done and at least expose the sad the state of our failing system rather than just waiting around for bulletproof golden opportunities that are somehow beyond the reach of all this fuckery.
Nope, I’m saying they’ll throw out a half-assed attempt and say “we tried”
But they’re not trying.
Like at the complete inaction over decades with the SC since you brought them up.
So bi-partisan country-wide reform of how cases are assigned along with enforceable ethics codes banning partisanship that all states agree to so that federal appeals are not needed and a Supreme Court overhaul on top before we even attempt to do anything other than bend over for MAGA activists who are passing regressive shady bills at an alarming rate…
Good luck with that.
And your plan is…
Ignore the insane amount of partisian judges, both on the SC and junior courts?
When do things in your version get better?
40-50 years when they die off?
Wow fixing the Supreme Court and court system why didn’t anyone think of that…
Maybe Biden should have been appointing federal judges to balance out Trump’s appointments?
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/can-biden-top-trumps-number-of-judicial-appointments/
Maybe Democrats should propose ethics reform for Supreme Court? Maybe a change to term limits?
https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-reform-biden-harris-trump-ffd48f3a2023aeca841bb53c2147ef03
Unfortunately changes like this don’t happen with a magic wand and require pesky things like working around the inevitable House obstruction by winning the election and getting more House seats (otherwise you’d no doubt decry a Republican House blocking it as yet another doomed attempt by Democrats to change things).
So your plan is ignore all of the corrupt appointments?
Until when exactly? Just let them die on the bench in a couple decades?
That’s not fixing anything, it’s ignoring the problem.
Exactly what I’m complaining about. I’m just not sure why I had to say the same thing twice. Is it still not making sense to you that fixing a problem works better than ignoring it?
What would you sayd they should do?
What a load of horseshit.
There was nothing unconstitutional about the first executive action to cancel student debt. Such action was explicitly permitted by the HEROES Act, and only a bad-faith interpretation by an illegitimate court consisting of corrupt justices was able to find otherwise.
And there’s nothing wrong with this attempt, either. It’s just that Conservatives don’t want the government helping people in an election year. Debt cancellation is universally popular and only negatively impacts the politicians who aren’t in favor.
Congress (i.e. the GOP) won’t budge on this issue and this is at least the 3rd attempt he’s made to forgive loans. Only thing left to do is invoke his “King powers” to do it anyway.
“By the powers invested in me by the Supreme Court, as an official act President of the United States, I hereby forgive all student loans as delineated in this executive order. It is done. Finito. Come at me scrotus!”
- I wish
“No you don’t.” -SCOTUS
Being immune to prosecution doesn’t mean that any executive order can’t be overturned. He just can’t be prosecuted for crimes committed as part of an official act. He could execute the conservative justices that are blocking the plan, but he can’t just make any proclamation he wants and expect it to carry the force of law.
Except SCOTUS has no enforcement mechanism. They make decisions and the presumption is that everyone else just goes along with it.
Not saying that’s the legal or moral thing to do but if a former President is being given preferential treatment for behavior which is essentially treasonous the new standard is if you’re not punished for it then it’s “legal”.
Well how is Biden going to enforce it? He can day whatever he wants, but financial organizations will just turn to the courts.
Unless you’re saying he should send men with guns to wipe out debt somehow?
I guess my point was, if the forgiveness was stated right out and actually executed thereon. Then there would be no “plan” to block. It would be done. And sure, the gop could file another suit, and a conservative court could block it, but there would be nothing left to block.
Basically: it’s better to ask for forgiveness rather than permission, except SCOTUS has determined that the POTUS already has preemptive forgiveness.
Just a thought experiment. I’m not a constitutional scholar by any means.
The problem is that declaring the debt gone doesn’t make it gone if the court blocks the executive order. It’s not like they can just hit a button and set all accounts to 0. There isn’t a paper ledger they can toss into a fire.
If we’re getting creative about it and want to use some existing legal authority to take actions that might actually be able to stick, the president does have the near limitless power to order the minting of coinage. As I understand it, he could order the treasury to pump out commemorative student debt coins in denominations ranging from $100 to $50,000, and send them out directly to student loan holders, or maybe to student loan servicers on their behalf. This would carry huge political downsides since printing money to pay for things is pretty well known to lead to inflation, and even if this had no real world effect, the attacks tying the forgiveness to inflation would be relentless and likely persuasive to a lot of voters. But once done, it couldn’t really be undone.
As with so many things, a realistic long term solution will require legislation. If the Democrats take the House and hold the Senate, that’s a possibility. But the current deadlock makes it impossible, because even if a bipartisan solution were to be negotiated, the leadership of the House will not allow anything to go through that might be good for the people or the country, because that could also be good for Democrats.
Biden can just mint a trillion dollar platinum cost and pay the debt with it.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trillion-dollar_coin
The Court granted immunity to prosecution (which is fucking insane) but that doesn’t actually give him the ability to forgive all debts. If a court says “no, the debt isn’t canceled” and the debt is still on the books somewhere, the problem remains unsolved. About the only way he can use presidential immunity to fix the problem would be to take out the judges that are blocking it.
The courts don’t control the ledger, the executive does. Biden would likely have to apply downward pressure to get some random employee with access to delete the debt records. At worst they’d get prosecuted federally and Biden would pardon them.
Why would some random employee take that risk though?
So you thought there was a chance the third time he did the same thing it would work?
It wasn’t the same thing, all three of them were different plans using different justifications based on different laws. One was a blanket forgiveness based on laws allowing for adjustments of student loans in emergencies. One is need based or other circumstance based forgiveness based on a much earlier law giving the department of education wide latitude to make adjustments. And one was adjustments to the income based repayment plans based on the laws establishing those (this has happened many times in the past, such as the establishment of the PAYE and REPAYE plans).
It’s especially egregious that judges are blocking the SAVE plan, as many similar adjustments have been made to income based repayment plans previously with no one taking any issue.
Wish he would. He’s a lame duck. He’s got nothing to lose and forgiving all student debt would likely get more people to vote for democrats.
Well since you’re yet again blaming the Democrats for problems created by Republicans, how would you solve the problem of student loans in a way that would help Americans and would also get past the GOP?
Complaining about neoliberals and not voting will surely convince Democrats to court him.
/s is mandatory bruv
I keep having to learn that same lesson. One of these times it’ll stick.