🇺🇸 SCOTUS Slaps Down Loan Handout

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SCOTUS

SCOTUS Slaps Down Loan Handout

President Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan was struck down by the Supreme Court last month as unconstitutional because he didn’t get congressional approval before putting it in motion. The plan would have forgiven some borrowers up to $20,000 in student loan debt.

Reporting from the Right: Justice Roberts uses Pelosi's words against Biden in smackdown of student loan handout Houston Keene, Fox News

Reporting from the Left: Here’s the latest on Biden’s new student loan debt relief plan Gerren Keith Gaynor, The Grio

From The Flag: Biden had campaigned in 2020 on helping student loan borrowers and announced his plan shortly before the 2022 midterms. He’s now pursuing a new student loan plan, but student loan repayments resume later this summer, following a pandemic pause. Here’s more from both sides.

RIGHT-LEANING SENTIMENT

Biden’s Attempt At an End-Around Gets Stopped Cold

• Democrats can still forgive student loan debt — they just need to pass a law in Congress to make it happen.

• It’s inaccurate to suggest the HEROES Act, which was aimed at helping members of the military, allowed for mass student debt cancellation.

• The court determined student loan forgiveness’ "staggering" political and economic impact was not supported by the HEROES Act.

Democrats could still forgive student loans with this one trick Timothy P. Carney, Washington Examiner: "The Supreme Court struck down President Joe Biden’s obviously unconstitutional attempt to forgive half a trillion in student loan debt. This should surprise nobody, given that virtually everyone admitted the president does not have the authority to do this. ... 'People think that the president of the United States has the power for debt forgiveness,' Pelosi once said. 'He does not. He can postpone. He can delay. But he does not have that power. That has to be an act of Congress.' Yes, there is a branch of the federal government that actually has the constitutional authority to pass laws, and it’s not the executive. Congress could pass a law that does exactly what Biden’s executive order pretended to do. ... If their bill really is that popular... they can defeat enough Republicans for opposing it and thus take back Congress and immediately pass their bill in January 2025."

Justice Barrett Helps Restore Constitutional Order Andrew C. McCarthy, National Review: "The HEROES Act, which was enacted in the post-9/11 War on Terror era, predominantly for the benefit of military personnel, authorized the Education Department to forgive the student loans of narrow categories of borrowers (e.g., those who’d been killed, become permanently disabled, or gone bankrupt). The act empowers the DOE to 'waive or modify' loans as the 'Secretary deems necessary in connection with a war or other military operation or national emergency' ... Based on this text, President Biden deemed the Covid-19 pandemic a national emergency. ... Indeed, contrary to the HEROES Act, there is no real causal link in Biden’s boondoggle between the disaster cited and harms addressed. Instead, college students are a voting bloc of importance to Democrats, so progressives were scheming long before Covid to reward them with debt forgiveness and deviously used the pandemic as a pretext to do so."

One more opinion piece from the Right: Why the Supreme Court got it right on student loans Ilya Somin, CNN Op-ed

LEFT-LEANING SENTIMENT

Oh, the Hypocrisy! Judicial Activism from the Right

• President Biden’s plan was permitted via the HEROES Act, something former President Trump used to suspend payments during COVID.

• The court’s decision is nothing more than an exercise in raw power and bears no resemblance to actual law.

• Two terms come to mind post this decision: “judicial activism” and “legislating from the bench.”

The Supreme Court rewrote the law so that it could stop student loan forgiveness Erwin Chemerinsky, LA Times Op-ed: "In striking down the Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness program, the Supreme Court ignored one of the most basic principles of law: When the text of a law is clear, it must be followed unless it is unconstitutional. A federal statute, the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act of 2003 (HEROES Act), explicitly authorizes the Secretary of Education to 'waive or modify' student loan obligations. That is exactly what President Biden did in his loan forgiveness program, but the court, ruling 6-3, decided that he lacked authority under the law to take this step, which would have helped more than 40 million people. In the early days of the COVID pandemic, then President Trump used the authority under this statute to suspend the need for most borrowers to repay student loan obligations. Biden, on taking office, continued this relief. He then made it permanent..."

The Supreme Court’s lawless, completely partisan student loans decision, explained Ian Millhiser, Vox: "Let’s not beat around the bush. The Supreme Court’s decision... canceling President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness program, is complete and utter nonsense. It rewrites a federal law which explicitly authorizes the loan forgiveness program, and it relies on a fake legal doctrine known as 'major questions' which has no basis in any law or any provision of the Constitution. If you were counting on loan forgiveness... you will not receive it because of a decision the Court handed down... in a 6-3 vote entirely along party lines. ... There are legitimate policy debates to be had over the Biden plan’s efficacy, fairness, and necessity. But one thing that should have been straightforward was its legality. A 2003 federal law known as the Heroes Act gives the secretary of the Department of Education sweeping authority to 'waive or modify any statutory or regulatory provision applicable to the student financial assistance programs'..."

One more opinion piece from the Left: The Supreme Court’s conservatives are doing exactly what they claim to detest Michael A. Cohen, MSNBC

FLAG THIS

Americans Split on Student Loans

Polling conducted in April found that 47% of respondents supported President Biden's plan to forgive student loan debt. Just over 4 in 10 said they didn't support it.

Borrowers who still owed on loans backed it 87% of the time (Reuters/Ipsos).

In a separate survey, respondents were nearly evenly split when asked if it was a good idea (43%) or a bad idea (44%).

Along party lines, 78% of Democrats said it was a good idea, as did 34% of Independents, and just 11% of Republicans (NBC News in September ‘23).

FLAG FINDS

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