"President Biden will announce a new effort on Monday to reduce or eliminate student loan debt for millions of borrowers, an election-year attempt to..."

So begins the first sentence of the NYT article by Michael D. Shear, "Biden Will Try Again to Wipe Out Student Loan Debt for Millions of Borrowers/The Supreme Court blocked President Biden’s first attempt at large-scale student debt relief last summer."

The sentence piddles out tautologically:

... revive his goal of providing large-scale relief for Americans struggling to pay off their college loans, a person familiar with the plan said Friday.

Biden is reducing or eliminating debt in order to reduce or eliminate debt. Noted, and thanks for mentioning that this is happening in an election year.

But the word "attempt" doesn't fit. If what he's attempting to do is to reduce or eliminate debt, then how is the reduction or elimination of debt just an attempt to reduce or eliminate debt? A reduction or elimination of debt is a reduction or elimination of debt. We have the modifier "election-year": It's an "election-year attempt." That's such an awkward way to avoid having to say that what's being attempted — with our money — is to win the election. 

The student loan case is out: "The court agrees with the states that the HEROES Act does not authorize the debt forgiveness plan."

I'm quoting SCOTUSblog.

Here's the opinion: Biden v. Nebraska.

Another 6-3 conservative liberal split. The Chief Justice writes the main opinion, there's a Barrett concurrence, and Justice Kagan dissents, joined by Sotomayor and Jackson.

Excerpt from the majority opinion:

"Members of the Supreme Court’s conservative majority seemed deeply skeptical on Tuesday of the legality of the Biden administration’s plan to wipe out more than $400 billion in student debt because of the coronavirus pandemic."

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. 

"Is this the end of it? And if so, why couldn’t the Biden administration foresee it being blocked so easily by the courts?"

"Why did they not have stronger legal cards to play with instead of having 43 million filers on a legal and emotional tightrope?"

A Reddit discussion of the current state of the student loan forgiveness program.

Why did Biden get 43 million hopes up?  You can hear the poignancy in the question... or do you think that's phony? Everyone knows the answer to why it was done despite the lack of "stronger legal cards." It's just a question of how outraged they will feel and who they will blame. At least some people will curse the courts — those damned conservatives  — and some will forgive Biden for toying with their feelings because it was worth it, given the modest Democratic Party success in the 2022 elections. You could also say the more obvious it was all along that the program would not hold up in court the less sense it made to invest serious expectations that you'd be getting that $10,000/$20,000 some day.

Biden says he got the student loan forgiveness program passed by Congress.

Here is the full clip for all you clowns who say it’s out of context. Biden first falsely claims he “signed a law” to cancel student loan debt, then says he “got it passed by a vote or two.”

??????? pic.twitter.com/JKdKde24db

— Jake Schneider (@jacobkschneider) October 24, 2022

I've got precisely 10 TikToks for you to "labor" through today. Some people love them.

1. Everyone has 4 obsessions — here are 4 weird ones.

2. Analyzing the student-loan forgiveness program with Biblical references. (Freeze the frame at 0:42 so you can read the text. The first 2 are parables that you've probably already contemplated in this context.)

3. Is it really so bad if men these days don't live for adventure?

4. Broadway Barbara's Fosse Tutorial.

5. When the sports car pulls up to the red light and blocks the crosswalk, there's one way to win.

6. You approach a woman in the park... and she turns into a bird.

7. Inspired by found poetry.

8. Won't the dog just love the new puppy?

9. Deducing that today is the day he's going to propose.

10. Six degrees of corn.

"A majority of the dollars of student loan debt are owed by a small fraction of borrowers who, on average, have high incomes."

"They often borrowed to go to professional schools for degrees in law, medicine and business. They don’t have much trouble handling their payments, and their default rates are low. By contrast, a majority of people holding student debt have moderate incomes and low balances. Many have no degree, having dropped out of a public college or for-profit vocational school after a few semesters. They carry little debt, but they also do not get the benefit of a college degree to help them pay off that debt. Defaults and financial distress are concentrated among the millions of students who drop out without a degree....  A full 30 percent of first-generation freshmen drop out of four-year colleges within three years.... Delinquency and default leave a longstanding blot on credit records, keeping borrowers from buying homes and cars, renting apartments and getting jobs. By allowing borrowers to once again get access to credit, housing and job markets, forgiving loans can therefore have a real effect on lives and the economy.... I once thought forgiveness to be an expensive Band-Aid, a distraction from fundamental reform. But I have seen so little progress on these issues that I now think we must make amends to those we have harmed...."

From "Why I Changed My Mind on Student Debt Forgiveness" by Harvard econprof Susan Dynarski.(NYT).

ADDED: Dynarski fleshes out something I said 5 days ago when someone questioned me for saying, seemingly flippantly, "It's only $10,000":

"And drove down to Newark, Delaware where my dad worked at an automobile agency. And I walked in and I had my spikes."

"And because the reason I was going down, when your dad works at an automobile agency, the great advantage you get a new car to go to the prom or a good used car.  You think I’m joking. I’m not joking. And so I went down to my 51 Plymouth with beach towels for seat covers. And I had my uniform on, my spikes off. I ran in and the woman’s name was Mary, who ran the place. I said, 'Mary, where’s dad?' She said, 'He’s out in the lane going into the repair shop.' I’ll give you my word, true story. And my dad was a well dressed, refined fella. And I walked out and my dad was pacing back and forth between the big garage door, going into the repair shop and the door going out of the showroom. And I looked up, he said, 'Oh, Joey. Honey, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.' I thought God, something happened. This is before cell phones. So I thought something happened to one of my brothers or my sister or my mom or something. I said, 'What’s the matter, dad?' He said... 'I went to Charlie and asked to borrow the money.' He said, 'He won’t lend it to me.' He said, 'I’m so ashamed. I’m so damn ashamed.'"

 
Said President Biden, quoted in "President Biden on Student Loan Forgiveness Transcript" (REV).

"Worse than the cost is the moral hazard and awful precedent this sets....

"Those who will pay for this write-off are the tens of millions of Americans who didn’t go to college, or repaid their debt, or skimped and saved to pay for college, or chose lower-cost schools to avoid a debt trap. This is a college graduate bailout paid for by plumbers and FedEx drivers. Colleges will also capitalize by raising tuition to capture the write-off windfall. A White House fact sheet hilariously says that colleges will 'have an obligation to keep prices reasonable and ensure borrowers get value for their investments, not debt they cannot afford.' Only a fool could believe colleges will do this...."

Says the Editorial Board of The Wall Street Journal, in "The Half-Trillion-Dollar Student-Loan Executive Coup/Biden’s student-loan write-off is an abuse of power that favors college grads at the expense of plumbers and FedEx drivers."

"Widely canceling student loan debt is regressive. It takes money from the broader tax base, mostly made up of workers who did not go to college..."

"... to subsidize the education debt of people with valuable degrees. Though Mr. Biden’s plan includes an income cap, the threshold does not reflect need or earnings potential, meaning white-collar professionals with high future salaries stand to benefit. Student loans, moreover, are a poor proxy for household income: An analysis by policy researcher Jason D. Delisle found that, in 2016, students from high-income and low-income families were just as likely to take on debt for their first year in an undergraduate program — and students from high-income families borrowed the largest amounts...."

That's the Editorial Board of The Washington Post.

Elsewhere in WaPo, the columnist Alexandra Petri is mocking the Americans who complain about other people getting the money. From "Stop improving things right now! Everyone must suffer as I did!":

How far into the NYT article "Biden to Cancel $10,000 in Student Debt" must we read before we see anything about the President's power to do such a thing?

Here's the article, "Biden to Cancel $10,000 in Student Debt; Low-Income Students Are Eligible for More/The debt forgiveness comes after months of deliberations in the White House over fairness and fears that the plan could make inflation worse ahead of the midterm elections."

I suspect that less than 1% of Americans, if surveyed now, could correctly answer the question: What legal basis did President Biden cite for his power to cancel student debt? I don't know the answer, and I'm not even sure he did cite any basis for this giant arrogation of power. I don't think he said: The President has the power to do anything he can get away with. Or: We'll find out when the people go to the polls in November. Or: The joke's on you because no one has standing to challenge it.

I just want to see how far I need to go into this NYT article before I find anything in the general area of an answer to my question.

Paragraphs 1-3: Nothing. There is this interesting quote from Biden: "All of this means people can start finally to climb out from under that mountain of debt." If you're under a mountain of debt, does $10,000 change your life? He didn't say it would, only that you could "start" getting out from under it. 

"Biden to cancel up to $10,000 in student debt for most borrowers and $20,000 for Pell recipients"

WaPo reports, based on what "four people familiar with the matter said."

Biden has drawn the ire of activists and some student loan borrowers who were growing tired of promises of a decision that stretched over more than a year. Biden had previously expressed reluctance to grant forgiveness to people who attended elite universities, while moderate Democrats and Republicans derided the policy as fiscally irresponsible....

"Supporters of debt forgiveness argue that targeted relief is inadequate and that broader relief would help to close the [racial wealth] gap."

"Black college graduates, on average, owe $25,000 more than their white peers. More than half of Black borrowers report that their net worth is less than the balance of their student loans. And Black borrowers are more likely than their white peers to drop out of school before receiving a degree. But across-the-board debt forgiveness will not help. As a recent report from the Brookings Institution concluded, only targeted policies based on race or socioeconomic status 'can address the inequities caused by federal student lending programs.'"

Writes the NYT Editorial Board in "Student Debt Is Crushing. Canceling It for Everyone Is Still a Bad Idea."

"Will those later [student loan] debts be forgiven, too? If not, the plan would create a generation of student loan lottery winners..."

"... with losers on either side. People who had already paid back their loans would get nothing. People with future loans would get nothing. People with debt on the day the legislation was enacted would be rewarded. If, on the other hand, the legislation creates an implicit promise that all kinds of future student debt will also be forgiven, it could have unintended consequences. The Sanders and Warren plans control the cost of public undergraduate education by setting tuition to zero and keeping it there. So financing public higher education would become a matter of the federal government and states deciding how much they want to spend on higher learning. The universities would have no pricing power, because there would be no prices."

From "Canceling Student Loan Debt Doesn’t Make Problems Disappear/Plans from Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren could have unintended consequences" (NYT).

"I’m calling for something truly transformational: Universal free public college and cancellation of student loan debt."

Elizabeth Warren goes big.

She's distinguishing herself, and she needs to — having languished at the bottom of polls.

She's also the only presidential candidate calling for the impeachment of Trump, as far as I've been able to see. From "How 2020 Democrats Are Gaming Out Trump Impeachment Quandary" (NYT):

Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has worked for months to find traction in a crowded Democratic presidential primary, stepped forward on Friday with a call to arms: President Trump must be impeached.

What followed, generally, was conspicuous silence.... After sidestepping the explosive issue of impeachment for months by citing the inquiry by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, most of the other 17 Democratic presidential candidates have responded to the special counsel’s report with tentative remarks about impeaching Mr. Trump, demands for the unredacted Mueller findings, calls for further hearings or attempts to simply change the subject.

Anything, that is, to avoid clearly answering the question of whether lawmakers should remove the president from office....

The Democratic contenders see the Mueller report mostly as a way to build their fund-raising and supporter lists and, ultimately, as a 448-page blunt instrument best used for thwacking the president in next year’s campaign for his behavior.

So they're being super-bland but promising to thwack Trump with a blunt instrument later. Noted. He thwacks back, though, you know. Bigly.

"Women in China are sending naked photographs of themselves holding their ID cards to peer-to-peer lenders as collateral..."

"... Chinese state media have reported, in a trend that may involve thousands of people."

“An investigation by Beijing Youth Daily [the official newspaper of the Communist Youth League] shows that in some money lending groups, female university students’ ‘naked holding’ has already become an open secret,” it wrote, referring to the practice of women photographing themselves naked holding their ID card as a guarantee of repayment.

This reminds me of how I learned the word "collateral." I first noticed it when I was 14 (in 1965), listening to my new Bob Dylan album, "Bringing It All Back Home": "They asked me for some collateral/And I pulled down my pants." (That's from "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream," a song about American history.)

By the way, that Chinese scheme sounds like sex discrimination.

"The problem is that the cost of a law degree is now vastly out of proportion to the economic opportunities obtained by the majority of graduates."

Writes lawprof Brian Z. Tamanaha, in a NYT op-ed:

... How did we get into this mess? And how do we get out?...

First, consider the loan system....

Then there’s the problem of the American Bar Association-imposed accreditation standards.... [B]y imposing a “one size fits all” template, these standards ensure that there is little differentiation among law schools — no lower-cost options and no range of choices comparable to what exists at the undergraduate level among community colleges, teaching colleges and research universities.

One solution to this problem is to strip away the accreditation requirements that mandate expenditures to support faculty scholarship — for example, deleting the requirement that the bulk of professors be in tenure-track positions, removing limits on teaching loads, not requiring paid research leaves for professors, not requiring substantial library collections and so forth....  Law students would then be able to choose the type of legal education they desired and could afford.

Tamanaha has a book: "Failing Law Schools."

"Occupy Student Debt."

Nice poster... but what's going on? There's this:

The Occupy Student Debt Campaign, organised by members of Occupy Wall Street, planned rallies in at least a dozen cities including the college towns of Ann Arbor in Michigan, Madison in Wisconsin, and Newark in Delaware, the home of the lender Sallie Mae.

Madison, Wisconsin? Here we go again...

Here's "the Barackness Monster" doing 5 minutes of...

... I think it's comedy.



Doesn't he have a job?

Dialogue chez Meadehouse at about 4:00:

ALTHOUSE: Does this go anywhere?

MEADE: No. It doesn't go anywhere. It's embarrassing. It's a comedy vehicle for Jimmy Fallon, and it puts Obama in a beta position.

At 4:29, his voice even cracks — like a pubescent teen. Look at his eyes. He looks like he knows it's a disaster. It seems that he's supposed to be doing some sexy Barry White style intonations, but he's obviously decided not to. It's a far cry from the actually very cool Al Green tribute he did back in January. It's like he wanted to recapture some of that charm, but it was so not happening.

"End Student Debt."

Makeshift signage, viewed from my law school office window, just now, at the University of Wisconsin—Madison: