House Republicans sent Biden a letter telling him that forgiving student loans was bad because it takes away leverage from the DoD in recruiting. They really said out loud that making it harder for people to pay for college is important to convincing more people to join the military? https://gallagher.house.gov/sites/e...nt/09.15.22 Ltr to POTUS re Student Loans.pdf As you know, some of the most successful recruiting incentives for the military are the GI Bill and student loan forgiveness programs. The idea that the military will pay for schooling during or after completion of a service obligation is a driving factor in many individuals’ decision to join one of the services. A recent estimate showed that as many as 178,000 servicemembers were eligible for some type of forgiveness. By forgiving such a wide swath of loans for borrowers, you are removing any leverage the Department of Defense maintained as one of the fastest and easiest ways to pay for higher education. We recognize the loan forgiveness programs have issues of their own, but this remains a top recruiting incentive. Currently, a mere 23 percent of the population is eligible to serve in the military. Even fewer of those have a propensity to serve. At the end of last month, the Army had only reached 66 percent of its recruiting goal for the year. The Navy, only 89 percent. It is no secret that each of the services continues to battle hardships in recruiting and now these problems will be exacerbated by removing the uniqueness of this benefit.
Student-loan companies have 'illegally hampered' debt relief for borrowers in targeted repayment and forgiveness programs, consumer watchdog says Last week, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released a report analyzing the behavior of student-loan companies when it came to carrying out targeted loan-forgiveness programs, facilitating servicer transfers, and engaging with borrowers who hold institutional student debt, or debt owed to a specific school. Specifically, the agency found that loan servicers "illegally hampered borrowers' access to federal student loan payment relief and cancellation programs including Income-Driven Repayment, Public Service Loan Forgiveness and Teacher Loan Forgiveness," a press release from the CFPB said. It added that those actions blocked borrowers from accessing the debt relief they qualified for. "In many instances, examiners have identified servicers that have failed to provide access to payment relief programs to which students are entitled," the report said, adding: "In most cases the conduct constitutes the same unfair, deceptive, or abusive act or practice regardless of what entity holds the loan."
Federal judge strikes down Biden administration's student-debt forgiveness plan I am glad this was struck down, at least for now. Also glad it was after Election Day!! A federal judge in Texas on Thursday struck down the Biden administration’s student-debt forgiveness plan, imperiling a key administration priority that would have canceled up to $20,000 in student loans for tens of millions of borrowers. The Biden administration’s plan is an “unconstitutional exercise of Congress’s legislative power” that also failed to go through normal regulatory processes, Judge Mark Pittman of the Northern District of Texas wrote in a 26-page opinion. “No one can plausibly deny that it is either one of the largest delegations of legislative power to the executive branch, or one of the largest exercises of legislative power without congressional authority in the history of the United States,” Pittman, an appointee of former President Donald Trump wrote.
Well true. But Two wrongs don’t make a right. It just doesn’t make sense that a president can unilaterally commit such a large sum of money unless it is truly an emergency. Also, it is terrible policy.
I disagree that it’s bad policy. I would rather bail out working Americans than large corporations with terrible management like airlines and auto manufacturers.
I don’t follow the logic that because one was bad then we should do the other which is bad also. “Bailing out” mostly upper middle class Americans at the expense of working class Americans is terrible policy. As I’ve said before I’m not against some level of reform, refinancing and perhaps targeted forgiveness.
You don’t think that teachers, police officers work? Why do you assume that these borrowers are upper middle class? It appears that you’ve bought into the right wing hype on this issue.
Republican Trump "judge" finds a way to Republican results. It's an utterly absurd lawsuit and an even more absurd ruling. I'm happy to explain why. In law, in order to have standing to sue, a plaintiff must prove injury, causation, and redressability. The plaintiffs in this lawsuit fail on two of the three grounds. First, an injury must be concrete and particularized. It cannot be a generalized grievance. What does that mean? It means that you have to harmed in some sort of special way. You can't be harmed in a way that most or all of society are. For example, suing a company because their power plants are polluting the air in this country would be a generalized grievance. Suing a company because their polluted waste water is leaking directly on to your land would be a concrete and particularized injury. In this lawsuit, neither plaintiff alleged a sufficient injury. Both alleged that they suffered a "procedural injury" because the Biden admin didn't go through notice and comment and that they had a concrete interest because they have loans that will not be discharged by the student loan relief program. Problem is that the "procedural injury" is a generalized grievance, and not being eligible for the program is also a generalized grievance. Neither is concrete enough for a sufficient injury. Even putting that aside, they fail on redressability. Why? Their asserted injury is that the program isn't BROAD enough. Basically, they're arguing that Biden should forgive MORE loans. But the remedy they asked for, which the Trump "judge" granted, is for a ruling that Biden cannot forgive ANY loans and vacatur of the program. You can't say you're harmed by Biden not forgiving more loans and then claim your remedy for that harm is to block Biden from forgiving any loans. That remedy does not redress your injury. The only real remedy they could ask for, if we were to accept they had a sufficient injury (they don't), is for the "judge" to make the Biden admin go through notice and comment to consider granting them loan relief. Problem is that the "judge" ruled that Biden isn't required to go through notice and comment because the statute explicitly says he doesn't have to do that. So they actually LOST on that issue. How did they win? They argued under the so-called "major questions doctrine" (basically a Republican fiction that allows them to strike down executive policies they don't like) that the statute didn't authorize the loan program, so the "judge" should kill it. Except that argument and remedy do not redress their harm, so they don't have standing to make it. Basically, whatever your thoughts on this program are, this is a ridiculous and laughable decision from a partisan Trump appointee that completely disregarded settled law in order to strike down a program he dislikes. That's not supposed to be how our judiciary works, but more and more it is exactly how it works. Partisan hacks inventing ways to get partisan results. If this program is illegal, they need to find somebody with actual standing to challenge it. And if they can't do that, their option is to convince voters to punish Biden for it. But we've now reached a point where people think the courts exist to strike down anything they dislike that the other party does. And certainly, the courts are there to protect our individual rights. But they aren't there to get rid of policies just because they disagree with them or think they're unwise. Yet, that's exactly what this Trump "judge" did, and it's exactly what Trump "judges" have been doing since Biden took office. And yes, Democratic appointees did the same thing when Trump was in office. They definitely overstepped in cases. Difference is that the Republican Supreme "Court" was there to block their decisions from taking effect. Now, the Republican Supreme "Court" is letting these ridiculous Trump "judge" decisions take effect and stand for years. Why? Because it's all about power and politics. The judiciary has become as political as the other branches.
thanks for taking the time to explain that and to the extent I understand it, it makes sense. I certainly don’t disagree that the judiciary and has become blatantly political and will always find some reason throug any particular judge to move an outcome forward. At a higher level, this program seems constitutionally problematic because you have the executive branch by passing the legislative branch in the allocation of hundreds of billions of dollars. But I can’t tell you the legal and procedural path for that challenge to be advanced. Also as I’ve said I think it is terrible policy and generally bad politics, which I think you do not agree with.
It's really no different from when Trump declared a national emergency for immigration and then used the special statutory powers that came with that declaration to reallocate military money to building "the wall." Biden used the COVID emergency declaration to forgive student debt. The statutes are different, but the means of doing it are the same. Congress could, of course, close the loophole, but they don't seem particularly inclined.
Would not there be the potential for the judiciary to overall such an action as above and beyond the intent of the individual statutory powers of the act he is supposedly acting on?
That's basically what happened. But the act authorizes exactly what he did. Should the judiciary be in the business of rewriting statutes that don't violate anybody's individual rights because they don't like the policy? No. Make Congress do its job.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/18/supreme-court-student-loan-forgiveness/ The Biden administration on Friday asked the Supreme Court to reinstate its student loan forgiveness program, saying its creation was well within the authority of the education secretary and that a lower court decision putting it on hold “leaves millions of economically vulnerable borrowers in limbo.” The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit decided 3-0 on Monday to side with a coalition of six Republican-led states that requested that the court table any debt cancellation amid its ongoing litigation. The injunction is to remain in place until further notice from the court or the Supreme Court, according to the order.
My son is one of a growing student body watching all of this. He is a sophomore and his little group talk all the time about costs and the future and they think Biden stepped on a trigger plate hooked up to a 10 MT nuclear bomb. Loan forgiveness for who? Just a subset of students or all students, past, present and future? It seems Biden is buying votes for a sliver of the entire loan program. Some think he may extend that to all students, including those not yet in college. Considering the massive cost of even 1% of the loan forgiveness, no way could this be extended to all past, present and future students without bankrupting the US. The best way to really fix this is address the costs. Of course Biden is a career politician, been one for longer than half this country has been alive. He's never had a real job so he's clueless about a lot of things related to the common worker. Like most democrats, he would rather throw money at the forest fire rather than figure out a way to put the fire out. Loan forgiveness will only cause costs to increase even further because the universities know they'll get paid regardless if a course is $100 per credit hour or $10000 per credit hour.
