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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.