Writes Adam Liptak (NYT).
During the first of two arguments on the program, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. indicated that the administration had violated separation-of powers principles by acting without sufficiently explicit congressional authorization to undertake one of the most ambitious and expensive executive actions in the nation’s history.
The chief justice, joined by other members of the court’s six-member conservative majority, invoked the “major questions doctrine,” which requires that government initiatives with major political and economic consequences be clearly authorized by Congress.
The law the administration relies on, the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act of 2003, usually called the HEROES Act, gives the secretary of education the power to “waive or modify any statutory or regulatory provision” to protect borrowers affected by “a war or other military operation or national emergency.”
Justice Elena Kagan, a liberal, said that language plainly authorized the administration to act in light of the pandemic, adding that the court routinely considered “really confusing” statutes. “This one is not,” she said....
“This is a major questions case,” the states wrote in a Supreme Court brief. Forgiving almost a half-trillion dollars owed to the Education Department, they added, is “undoubtedly a matter of economic and political significance.”
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84 comments:
redistributive change, shared responsibility (e.g. progressive prices)
Our government in DC can't even pass a budget because then the people would know what they were spending our tax dollars on.
DC is just a corrupt farce.
That includes the "Supreme Court."
It is all a joke at this point and collapse is inevitable.
“Forgiving almost a half-trillion dollars owed to the Education Department, they added, is “undoubtedly a matter of economic and political significance.”
If it meant DOE would go bankrupt and disappear, I’d be all for it.
Because of the pandemic?
Explain.
DC is just a corrupt farce.
The democratic/dictatorial seat of government is aptly located in the "district of corruption."
1. The Bernie Sanders wing of the party long sought free college for all...to make an army of Little Bernies
2. The pandemic was seemingly precipitated by the government / funding / gain-of-function
3. Describing the pandemic as an emergency beyond a bad flu season facilitated all sorts of weird draconian measures even when provably wrong. Fauci didn't support masking before he supported masking. The meaning of 'vaccine' had to be changed. Research of alternative medicines was blocked and ridiculed. Etc. Etc.
4. The Global Uniparty rewarded themselves for their own incompetence and defended their control (Why help China at all?!?!?) via a 3 year "opposite day" exercise.
5. Handing out $$$$$$$$$ to college students before an election served #1, #2, #3, and #4. It rewarded recklessly in debt Uniparty supporters and their Blue State families too.
Major questions, yes. Kagan knows this. Kagan is a member of the Uniparty and dreams of a world filled with sunshine, lollipops, and the Big Rock Candy Mountain. Let's stop digging for coal and dig for sugar to feed Uniparty supporters!
Interesting timing for this in light of recent
“national emergency” news, may it be thrown into the trash.
This will become reparations.
Wiping out student debt has NOTHING to do with the pandemic.
University Profs and Admins are Democrats most ardent supporters. They need to be taken care of. And they indoctrinate tens of thousands of new frothing liberals every year.
Forgive $400 billion, so you can run up another $400 billion. It's that simple.
These kids are victims of Ivory Tower liberals on so many levels...horrible.
Tried to comment on another article but the amazing Blogger keeps telling me it's an error. This is a test.
How much money makes it a major question? $400 billion is less than 10% of the federal budget. Since the debt would be repayable over 10 years or more, the effect on this year’s federal budget is less than 1%. Congress could have put limits into the HEROES Act, but didn’t. So is the conservative Supreme Court going to invent a limit?
Who would have thought the Commie-Pinko left would have blatantly violated the constitution, knowing the Supreme Court would be skeptical? Biden won the election didn’t he? (To quote Harry Reid)
Democrats to the people with student loans: You fucked up. You trusted us.
Congress could modify the bankruptcy laws to allow the discharge of student debt and transfer of that debt to the colleges and universities. That would be constitutional. But, Congress and especially the progressive, I mean neobarbarian, members of Congress would never support that.
50 shades of inflated asset schemes, including unaffordable homes, unaffordable college, unaffordable energy, etc. through shared responsibility (e.g. progressive prices), and sustained through labor (e.g. immigration reform) and environmental (e.g. Green solutions) arbitrage. NOW that China, in the wake of Slavic Spring, Arab Spring, Afghan Spring etc, is at risk of a Sino Spring, will they continue to sequester deficit effects from liberal policies in single/central/monopolistic solutions?
"invoked the “major questions doctrine”
A stretch. $400B used to be major; but with the debt at some $30T, it's peanuts.
"or national emergency . . . Justice Elena Kagan, a liberal, said that language plainly authorized the administration to act in light of the pandemic"
Right. The mere possibility of voters being unhappy with insufficient Dem bribes is an emergency. But even for Dems citing the pandemic is a bit of a stretch, since Biden himself already declared it over, and of course Congress has already shoveled trillions at voters.
Why would the liberal judges not be skeptical?
Where in the United States Constitution Article II does it give the Executive branch the power of the purse?
Which Constitution do these liberals protect and defend? Same thing with liberal judges in WI. They just ignore what they don't like and change whatever they want.
Who is playing this game? %41 Drop out rate! Sucker bet by any name.
Elena Kagan.. adding that the court routinely considered “really confusing” statutes.
WOW! if Elena finds laws "really confusing”, i'd Hate to think what the Wide Latina thinks of them.
As if the Wide Latina was capable of thought
This case will tell me what kind of Justices Kagan, Jackson and Sotomayer will be. If they OK THIS, then they will OK any government overreach that is economic in nature or at least is not explicitly touching current liberal sacred cows of abortion, gay marriage and insert your culture topic here.
This is clearly unconstitutional and goes against anything the founders would have ever conceived (which per liberal jusdicial logic, is important because the founders would have never imagined a machine gun and a tank, so the logic goes). The president can't spend a trillion dollars without congressional approval. How in the world is that controversial? And a law passed 20 years ago doesn't change that.
BTW, let this be merely the latest lesson for Republicans of the now well worn rule: do not give a political power to your political allies you would not trust in the hands of your political opponents. I'm sure they never imagined a Democratic president would abuse the HEROES Act the way Biden is. But there you are. Put expiration dates on every law that spends money, for the love of God.
Is anyone curious the Feds, during the Obama administration, assumed command of the student loan program and then the Shufflin' Joe administration initiated "waiving" repayments? Is there a common denominator between the two? Scratching my head here.
...plainly authorized the administration to act in light of the pandemic
Is there anything COVID-19 cannot do?
The only reason old Joe reauthorized the state of emergency even though there is none.
The war in Ukraine doesn't count...
Richard Epstein has pretty much stopped giving SCOTUS legal opinions because no principles seem to apply any longer. He was a legal expert for a while.
"While money doesn’t talk, it swears"
John Roberts will be "deeply skeptical" until he isn't. Years ago, when I sat on a school board one of my fellow trustees (and friend) would approach me (and other board members I later found-out) before a public meeting and tell me how he was going to vote on an issue on the published agenda. He did this repeatedly over many years. I never responded back to his statements (that would have been both illegal and unethical) but that never stopped his opining. When the official, public meeting began and the issue came-up he almost always, say 80% of the time voted the opposite of what he told me earlier. Occasionally, during a meeting when each member had the opportunity to discuss an agenda issue prior to the vote, this person would make statements that appeared to indicate how he would vote. Then when the vote came, he'd vote the opposite of what he'd said publicly. I always thought my friend should have been in Washington D.C.
Who is playing this game? %41 Drop out rate! Sucker bet by any name.
A sucker, yes, and an artificially low unemployment rate. Forward! and don't spare the babies, grannies, and other "burdens" of State.
Let's not forget that one of the advantages of forgiving student debt to keep the College grift going for liberals is that they will continue to push mRNA shots on young people.
You get never ending war in Ukraine Support. Transgender support. mRNA obedience and attendance mandates...
$400 billion is nothing to these people.
Is there anyone out there employed by the University grift that is just a little embarrassed at all this bullshit or is the does the fruit just taste that good???
The crushing majority of people with student loans did NOT suffer under Covid. Their jobs continued. The exceptions are people who borrowed heavily ffor garbage degrees in useless idiocy like Urban Lesbian Poetry.
Meanwhile, i borrowed over a quarter million to start my farm business, and paid it all off in under 12 years without accepting a nickel of the USDA subsidies for which I was eligible. In the process I created several obs and spent over a million dollars with local businesses.
Most Leftes and Democrats have no idea how to CREATE wealth. All they can do is to Redistribute, Seize, and Destroy it. Envy, resentment, and greed are an especially toxic mix, especially when coupled by an authoritarian drive to control and punish others.
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The fact this (most likely) won't be a 9-0 decision reveals just how screwed up our 'justice' system really is.
Free ice-cream always gets the votes. Maybe this time the Supreme Court will honor their oath and uphold the Constitution.
The looting of the Treasury proceeds...
All you have to do is make sure everyone gets their piece of the action. The loan forgiveness thing does not, so it won't have the popularity it needs.
The Supreme Court has already demonstrated that it's not prepared to be the "adults in the room" with regards to Obamacare; they're more concerned with being popular and being invited to all the right parties in the National Capitol District.
Here is something that I think ought to be done, as a policy: None of the Supreme Court Justices ought to be allowed to live within easy driving distance of the capital. Each ought to have a district somewhere across the nation, where they have to live and actually spend all their time. The court ought to only meet in person at a rotating circuit court such that each session is in a different region, and then only for deliberations and testimony. All other time for the justices ought to be mandated to be in and among the people of their assigned district region.
The way we're doing it? We're asking for a de-facto national ruling caste to grow up around Washington DC.
Do the debt free left-winger college graduates support the idea?
Would they not deserve an equitable refund ?
Would not every American with credit card or mortgage debt deserve equity?
Would this generosity, along with the ancestral slavery reperations have any effect on the value of the dollar?
Shall indebted black collegians qualify for both programs?
I read “waive a provision” as, at most, giving the DOE secretary authority to waive a payment coming due during his/her tenure.
Not allowing anything beyond that.
$400B used to be major; but with the debt at some $30T, it's peanuts.
And that's how the debt got to $30 trillion, 400 billion at a time.
The emerging 'major question' doctrine is a weak substitute for a non-delegation doctrine that's much more than the tissue-paper delegation test the Court uses now. How I wish the Court would resurrect a real non-delegation doctrine - one based on a strong enforcement of separation of powers - and the sooner the better.
the HEROES Act, gives the secretary of education the power to “waive or modify any statutory or regulatory provision” to protect borrowers affected by “a war or other military operation or national emergency.”
Has the SC ever examined the constitutionality of this provision in the Heroes Act?
Could they do that here?
This executive action (necessarily, obviously and therefore deliberately) divides the country into two irreconcilable camps. On one side, the people who paid their way through college —draining their savings and their families’ savings, working overtime, *repaying the loans they incurred.*
On the other side, people who borrowed their way through college with E-Z government money (in loans that cannot be discharged in bankruptcy) and have not repaid them —but which are magically waived. Because one old man has decided that we are in a national emergency.
I’ll give you a national emergency: the demoralization —and the de-moralization— that will arise as people in the first group realize how badly they have been screwed, and how unfairly the second group has been benefited, for less than no reason.
Why should any of us bother to take seriously our debts, certainly our debts to the government, after it has torched $400 Billion of perfectly legitimate paper?
Biden declared the emergency will be over. Won't that moot the question? No emergency, no emergency spending.
The only way student loan forgiveness makes any sense is if colleges fund it, using their endowment programs. They created this problem.
I hope folks have been making payments the last couple of years while monthly installments have been suspended. All goes to principal.
@Left Bank — So are you saying that Congress delegated its spending power? That would seem to be the consequence of no limit.
Let's remember that this is not actually about saving people with worthless degrees from a lifetime of debt. That could be accomplished by allowing Student Loan debt to be discharged in bankruptcy. What this is actually about is allowing the diploma mills to keep the racket going.
Justice Elena Kagan, a liberal, said that language plainly authorized the administration to act in light of the pandemic
Question for the Justice: What DOESN'T the pandemic allow the government to do and, if anything, how is that materially different from this action?
I don't like the idea of any president having the authority to spend half a billion dollars on something Congress hasn't voted on. That's crazy.
Well, he's shoveling cash to the Ukraine at the rate of $100+ billion per year, so maybe he's just hitting his stride. I don't recall any widespread majority taxpayer support for that adventure, either - but that ain't stopped him.
"Here is something that I think ought to be done, as a policy: None of the Supreme Court Justices ought to be allowed to live within easy driving distance of the capital. Each ought to have a district somewhere across the nation, where they have to live and actually spend all their time."
That's a start, but it should be expanded to the entirety of Congress. Each member needs to have an office in his home district where he is present from 9-5, Monday through Friday. If they need to talk to the other congresscritters, they can use the intertubes.
"This executive action (necessarily, obviously and therefore deliberately) divides the country into two irreconcilable camps."
You left out the "never went to college" camp. Just sayin'.
"Most Leftes and Democrats have no idea how to CREATE wealth. All they can do is to Redistribute, Seize, and Destroy it. Envy, resentment, and greed are an especially toxic mix, especially when coupled by an authoritarian drive to control and punish others."
Governments consume wealth. They cannot create it. Only individuals can create value from nothing.
Now, I know folks here will think I'm giving Biden too much credit, but I think he might have done this to quiet a faction of his party that thinks you can just will things into being. And, he gets to grab votes by floating it just prior to the election. Cynical? Sure, but politics is cynical. I mean, do you really think Hawley and Cruz aren't elitists? Check their CVs.
This could easily misfire for him. Lots of folks could sit the next election out if this doesn't happen.
I don't mind Congress authorizing the executive to have broad powers in a state of emergency, even dealing with urgent financial issues of a large nature. I would say that it's a stretch to declare covid in a state of emergency 2 years in, but let me put that to the side for a moment.
If the president issued an executive order on $400 billion to deal with an EMERGENCY ISSUE, I could at least somewhat get behind it.
But student loan forgiveness isn't that. It didn't reach a tipping point, it's not related to the national emergency, and it's been a partisan policy discussion point going back 1-2 decades at least.
It is crystal clear that this was an executive power grab aimed at bypassing congress.
It's not obvious how "deeply skeptical" applies when there are no rules.
At least we no longer have to suffer posts where the idea is SCOTUS lefties decide cases according to law...
Living, breathing…Gradually…then all at once…
If you spend a dollar per minute, it takes you 32,000 years to spend a trillion dollars. Now do it 30 times and add the unfunded liabilities of Medicare and Social Security.
Ugly. And crazy. I'd like to think that Biden is stupid, but I am afraid he is cynical, empty and immoral.
The first clue to whom the HEROES targeted is in the acronym itself. The college students during the pandemic were not the "heroes" that Congress had in mind. And that act clearly was not written to allow a broadbrush forgiving of government guaranteed debt. What Biden was attempting to do was spend money Congress has not authorized to be spent, or to be spent on this particular executive order. This should be 9-0 decision, and that it will only be 6-3 at best is an indication that the law really doesn't matter much any longer to half the country.
This is win-win for Biden: He gets to escape the ire of all the people who saved responsibly and paid for their educations or repaid their loans, and he can blame the evil Supreme Court for not being able to loot the treasury for all the would be freeloaders.
As long as they confiscate all CCP financial holdings in the USA as reparations for the COVID-19 virus from CCP ... I'm ok. I figure CCP holds 20+ trillion... let 'em pay or debts and then we can forgive others their debts.
Biden needs congressional approval to play their roll of America's Sweet Daddy.
I don't see any other outcome here.
Unless the umpire in chief can summon another Obamacare style rabbit out of his hat.
The Democrats are channeling Richard Nixon -- “When the president does it, that means it’s not illegal.”
Four years from now comes another crop of indebted graduates. What happens to their loans?
R C Belaire said...
Four years from now comes another crop of indebted graduates. What happens to their loans?
that will be 2027.. That's AFTER 2024; it will be Donald Trump's problem
Kagan is being disingenuous. The student debt crisis is unrelated to the pandemic and the pandemic is over. It’s citation as the legal justification for this order is clearly pretextual.
Governments consume wealth. They cannot create it. Only individuals can create value from nothing.
A good government, which we have not had since at least before 1928, can effectively create wealth by limiting itself to what governments are supposed to do: Provide for the national defense, enforce laws and contracts, punish criminals, respect the Constitution. But the rarity of good government and the histories of successful nations suggest that corruption and collapse is inevitable. Qui custodiet ipsos custodes and all that.
Wait ... is this the same corrupt court that runs a Star Chamber called FISA? Where the government gets to come and make cases against people. And those people aren't represented in that court, or even present? They have no lawyers present and cannot attend the proceedings. No chance to defend themselves against corrupt government agents?
Is this that "court?"
Who cares what such a court rules? Such a court has sacrificed its authority. That such a court even exists still is an affront to the Magna Carta. Nobody should pay any attention whatsoever to such an abjectly corrupt institution.
Spit on them.
Spiros: "The Democrats are channeling Richard Nixon -- “When the president does it, that means it’s not illegal.”
Not exactly.
The democraticals believe when a democratical President does it, that means it's not illegal.
And they control the levers of federal law enforcement to ensure that the double standard holds.
I'm surprised everyone forgot to mention the unconstitutional waving of evictions for delinquent rentals and mortgages flopped. Same "covid emergency" same transparent pandering for votes. Wasn't that unceremoniously dumped by the SCOTUS after the midterms?
“So are you saying that Congress delegated its spending power?”
Congress appropriated the funds that were lent out and authorized loan guarantees to third parties who were making student loans. What we are talking about now is collections, not spending.
In any case, can’t we all agree that there is a large element of predatory lending involved in these student loan programs? A predatory lender shouldn’t have a reasonable expectation it can demand repayment no matter what, even if it is the Congress of the United States.
Even Nancy Pelosi thought it was unconstitutional before she got the Memo. I thought Kagan had a bit of backbone. Sellout like the rest.
Owen said...
This executive action (necessarily, obviously and therefore deliberately) divides the country into two irreconcilable camps. On one side, the people who paid their way through college —draining their savings and their families’ savings, working overtime, *repaying the loans they incurred.*
On the other side, people who borrowed their way through college with E-Z government money (in loans that cannot be discharged in bankruptcy) and have not repaid them —but which are magically waived.
--
You forgot folks who didn't go to college being on the hook for this.
Make it dischargeable in bankruptcy. At least then it will be means-tested.
(I really wish it could be laid back on the schools. What happened was, there was a recognition that a degree would result in X more dollars of lifetime earnings, and the schools raised their prices to pre-harvest that income. They're the ones that became wealthy out of the poor financial decisions of 17 and 18-year-olds. Let them pay it back.)
All household debt run up over the past three years should be forgiven. All of it, it’s an emergency right? I mean the poor person who makes 40k a year and ran up debt the last three years because of covid should not have to pay it, right?
Wasn't that unceremoniously dumped by the SCOTUS after the midterms?
SCOTUS basically said, "Yeah, it wasn't legal, but since it ends in a month we're not going to do anything about it."
My longstanding proposal:
Anyone with federally backed student loans can request to have it halved and capped at 60k. Interest set at 1 percent. However, in exchange, the requestor forfeits the ability to take the Standard Deduction for a period of twenty years. Plus, end all federal loans going forward. Current students get one more year and that's it.
In any case, can’t we all agree that there is a large element of predatory lending involved in these student loan programs? A predatory lender shouldn’t have a reasonable expectation it can demand repayment no matter what, even if it is the Congress of the United States.
The predators are the colleges, not Congress and the American people. You want to punish the American people because irresponsible people took out loans they can't repay to pay the exorbitant price of college.
Left Bank: "In any case, can’t we all agree that there is a large element of predatory lending involved in these student loan programs?"
No.
There are predatory academic institutions staffed to the gills by leftists and the student loan program is used to increase the number of students and number of future democratical activists by increasing the number of useless degree programs (everybody gets in!) and then tax payer dollars get laundered thru to the democratical party in the form of donations from the overpaid staff members.
And at the end of it all the taxpayers will be on the hook for the bailout and the whole cycle will begin again.
Thanks for asking.
I'm all for it, as long as the banks kick in repayment of all of the high interest rate payments that they received, and the universities exhaust their endowments first, and butcher all of the sweet salary and pensions as of those professors and admins that profited from it as necessary.to make up the difference. it was a scam from the beginning, and perpetuated in large part by the government, and they deserve blame, but not my tax dollars to correct it.
If I were on the Court, I would hold that the administration’s determination that loan forgiveness program was “necessary in connection with a war or other military operation or national emergency” (which is the operative language of the Heroes Act) was arbitrary and capricious and illegal under the Administrative Procedures Act. That would avoid the constitutional issues entirely. However, it would entail throwing Chevron deference completely overboard. Win/win.
Left Bank of the Charles said...In any case, can’t we all agree that there is a large element of predatory lending involved in these student loan programs?
I think we can all agree that colleges are too expensive and young people are being crippled by student debt, but "predatory lending" is the wrong language to use.
College is too expensive. There are a number of (mostly bad) reasons for this, but the biggest reason is the too-easy availability of financial aid, and this situation was created by the government.
However, student loan forgiveness will do nothing to solve the systemic problem. Quite the contrary, just as with amnesty for illegal immigrants, it aggravates the problem. It will encourage colleges to gouge deeper and sets the stage for more ruined lives and the next, bigger student bailout.
It seems like it has to be a spending bill to authorize this, which has to originate in the House and be passed by both chambers then signed by the President. How can it NOT be a spending bill?
A guy who listened to the thing said he thought the government lawyer did a great job. It was like she was playing whack a hypothetical.
Has Congress done anything about this?
However, it would entail throwing Chevron deference completely overboard. Win/win.
My understanding is that Chevron is already basically dead, thanks to WV v EPA. SCOTUS isn't outright killing it, but will do so through a thousand cuts.
If you want solutions. Rather if Democrats actually cared about the students.
Just match every $2 forgiven by the University, with $1 govt forgiveness. I find it curious the Dems never stop claiming they are going to soak the rich, but somehow have ignored University endowments.
That still ignores the millions that have paid for their own education
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Kagan, Sotomayor, or Jackson ever voted against the interests of Democrat politicians and for the best interests of the people of the United States?
If the Democrats thought that student loan forgiveness was so important, they could have added it to the Inflation Reduction Act and voted to approve it, the way that legislation is supposed to be done. Apparently, they didn’t want to have to be on record as voting for it. Can’t imagine why that would be.
here are a number of (mostly bad) reasons for this, but the biggest reason is the too-easy availability of financial aid, and this situation was created by the government.
And let's not forget the whole FAFSA process where a students family has to divulge their entire net worth to the government (and the school) which means the schools have no downward pressure on pricing due to the avoidance of having to negotiate. Nowhere else do you sign up for 100's of thousands of dollars of purchasing without the ability to negotiate.
Freeman Hunt: It is $400 billion, that's 40% of a trillion almost.
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