• 0 Posts
  • 3 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: June 22nd, 2023

help-circle

  • None of what you said is accurate or good arguments.

    1. You’re wrong in this instance, but a lot of people who have votes to gain have been saying this, so I understand why you think that.

    The people saying that the President is allowed to wipe out student loans broadly are based on a misreading of the Higher Education Act of 1965 at 20 USC 1082(a)(6) . https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title31/subtitle2/chapter13&edition=prelim

    The mentioned part of that act provides the provides the president (via the Secretary of Education) with the authority to:

    “…modify, compromise, waive, or release any right, title, claim, lien, or demand, however acquired, including any equity or any right of redemption.”

    But that quote is taken out of the broader context of the act. The preamble to that section limits the authority to operating within the scope of the statute.

    It means that Congress can authorize a loan forgiveness program, (see Public Service Loan Forgiveness, Teacher Loan Forgiveness or the Total and Permanent Disability Discharge), which then means the U.S. Secretary of Education can forgive student loans as authorized under the terms of those programs.

    Without authorization by Congress of a specific loan forgiveness program, the President does not have the authority to forgive student loan debt. The Supreme Court unanimously decided that all the way back in 2001 in Whitman v. American Trucking Assns., Inc. when they put limits on what exactly Congress can delegate to the executive branch.

    Also, the part of the Act referred to in the preamble is Part B of Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965, which applies only to loans made under the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) program.

    There is similar language in Part E for the Federal Perkins Loan program. There is no similar language for Part D for the William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan (Direct Loan) program.

    1. I was protesting when the banks were bailed out. I was also protesting the business “loans” being forgiven. Attacking someone’s argument by building a strawman of who you want the others reading this to believe they are is a logical fallacy.

    2. My point is exactly this. We’re treating a ruptured appendix with Advil.

    3. See point 1.


  • Let me preface this by saying I’m open to being wrong and that I don’t expect others to share these views. I still owe on my student loans and am not excited to continue paying them. Also, I’m listing several reasons here, so even if someone pokes holes in one or two, I’d encourage to see if there are still one or two solid reasons to be opposed to the specific method of student loan payoffs that was ruled unconstitutional.

    1. From the beginning, the Biden administration knew this wasn’t a constitutional way of paying off loans. Their hope was that no one would have standing to bring a suit. In general, I’m not in favor of doing unconstitutional things in the hope we can get away with it. That’s a door I don’t want the Republicans to have access to either.

    2. This program was initially proposed as COVID relief but does nothing to help those most impacted by COVID. It DOES however, help a huge class of potential voters. From the start this hasn’t been about helping people, it’s been about gaining votes.

    3. Paying off existing student loans is an expensive measure that does nothing to address what got us here in the first place. We are paying too much for degrees that don’t provide the benefits and opportunities they once did, and that’s not going to change if we cancel existing debt. All it does is out us right back here in 5-10 years.

    4. There’s a right way to go about this stuff. Congress should be the ones doing this, not the president. Unfortunately we have a congress that would much rather assign their work out to other people to take care of and that’s part of what has gotten us in the mess we’re in in the first place. I prefer a weak Office of the President, as we don’t always have who we want in that office. Sometimes this means things move slower than we’d like, but I’d rather that than letting whoever is president at the time take huge sweeping actions unchecked by Congress and the Judicial Branch.

    Now, just to piss off anyone who wasn’t already upset with me, I think Trump is a crook and I hope he goes to jail for a long time.

    Anyway, I’m not trying to start a fight, just give some reasons why I personally am happy with this SC decision.