Student-loan-debt-forgiveness plans by --biden-administration

For all those looking for legal justification for the BH plan

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/10/12/2022-22205/federal-student-aid-programs-federal-perkins-loan-program-federal-family-education-loan-program-and

A talking head on FOX said the form was too easy, so there will be fraud… Q How do you do fraud for forgiveness? You’re not get cash like the PPP, Income limits will be cross checked w/ IRS

I guess the talking head is upset b/c if their intent is to make it hard to apply/roadblocks like the predatory lenders.

More legal delays and review.

2 Likes

This is the best news I’ve seen since Dobbs. Thank goodness this has hit some sort of roadblock, for now.

from the article:

“And, the administration will continue to fight Republican officials suing to block our efforts to provide relief to working families.”

This is what pisses me off the most. This gov’t handout is the least targeted towards “working families” that we have ever seen. There sure are a heck of a lot of well off college grads that aren’t supporting a family that would get a $10,000 handout and a whole heck of a lot more working families that aren’t going to see a dime. The gall on this liar to characterize it this way makes me angry.

“We continue to encourage working- and middle-class Americans to apply for debt relief,”

No you’re not you liar. You are encouraging people with graduate degrees with plenty of income and ability to pay off their loan to apply, because you refused to exclude the people that don’t need this relief.

4 Likes

In some Oregon discussion groups, the WH has succeeded at spinning the giveaway as “the government decided not to profit from college graduates.” So, it isn’t debt relief or a handout; it’s preventing the evil government from extracting money out of poor college grads.

1 Like

Soooooo…they’re going to collect from these graduates the amount loaned plus the interest costs of financing the government’s debt while these loans were outstanding?

If that claim was remotely accurate, the government would be sending these college graduates additional bills, not cancelling what’s owed. :roll_eyes:

Although I guess it does make sense to find out that they consider “profit” to mean any time you lose some amount less than literally everything.

1 Like

The claim isn’t just inaccurate, it’s nonsense… Political spin to justify a giveaway of this magnitude when inflation is very high because of all the handouts --from both sides-- over the years.

Anyway, you know things are challenging for the democratic candidates when Bernie himself is scheduled to visit Portland next week, campaigning to get out the vote.

2 Likes

Key Pt

How likely is their challenge to be successful?

The main obstacle for those hoping to foil the president’s action has been finding a plaintiff who can prove they’ve been harmed by the policy, experts say.

“Such injury is needed to establish what courts call ‘standing,’” said Laurence Tribe, a Harvard law professor. “No individual or business or state is demonstrably injured the way private lenders would have been if, for instance, their loans to students had been canceled.”

Legal experts say the GOP-led states will struggle to prove they have that necessary standing.

The Education Department, in order to protect its broader loan forgiveness policy, has now said that FFEL borrowers need to have consolidated their loans by the end of September to have qualified. [They can no longer do so to qualify.](Who Are the Federal Student Loan Borrowers and Who Benefits from Forgiveness? - Liberty Street Economics)

This will make it harder for the GOP states to make their case that the president’s plan will cost the private lenders a considerable amount of business, said higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz.

“The state attorneys general lawsuit was the strongest of the lawsuits until the U.S. Department of Education pulled out the rug by eliminating their legal standing,” Kantrowitz said.

How much could this delay forgiveness?

All the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals did on Friday was freeze the president’s plan until it decides whether or not to keep the plan on hold for the duration of the states’ appeal, explained Stephen I. Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law.

“That’s not a big decision unto itself,” Vladeck said.

The real question, he said, will be what happens later this week when the court rules “what the status quo should be while the states’ appeal runs its course.”

“I think it’s an uphill battle for the states given the district court’s conclusion that it lacks standing,” Vladeck said.

Can I still apply for forgiveness?

Absolutely. The U.S. Department of Education is urging student loan borrowers to carry on seeking its relief.

“Tonight’s temporary order does not prevent borrowers from applying for student debt relief at studentaid.gov,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement on Friday. “It also does not prevent us from reviewing these applications and preparing them for transmission to loan servicers.”

Key point is only private lenders have standing, tax payers, state govt, my conservative uncle, friends here don’t. If not I have a long list of govt. spending I want to challenge

So am I understanding this correctly? A bunch of different people think this is illegal, but no one has standing as being harmed by it to bring a case to stop it? Who’s responsibility is it to cry foul when the government breaks it’s own laws? Surely in this case “standing” cant be limited to the same government that is choosing to break the law in the first place?

Can Congressional Republicans bring a case, based on their authority being illegally usurped? If Democratic Congressional leadership objects/blocks such a case, that has the makings of a conspiracy…

yes, with standing you have to show direct harm, like a private lender who might beforced to forgive w/o compensation. (they eliminated that group and I left that program thanks to this thread)

Feel free to protest outside the ED or courts though or write your Congressman/President :wink:

I can’t believe none of the student loan servicers are crying foul. Can’t they prove they are going to lose money? Don’t they make money off people paying their loans over time (or else what is the point of being a servicer)? What about GiftOfCollege.com? They sell gift cards to grandparents so junior can pay his loan. And they charge fees. If millions of people have $10,000 forgiven, it seems pretty basic to me that they will sell fewer gift cards.

I think the problem here is that there are a bunch of people/organizations/companies being harmed, but it would be bad press for them to be the one to slam the brakes on millions of people, many of those being the exact people they service. But what about the publicly traded ones? Don’t they have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders to do what is best? Or does having a fiduciary duty not include suing the federal government when you think they are doing something that you might be able to stop them from doing on constitutional grounds?

But I go back to the question, are the servicers being harmed by this? If not, how come? Based on this link, they get a monthly fee from the dept of ed as long as the loan is outstanding. With forgiveness, clearly a bunch of loans are going to be paid off early and they are going to receive a lot fewer fees. How are they not pissed about this? If I were a direct shareholder, I would be pretty upset that they aren’t fighting this.

They’re now extending the 10/31 PSLF waiver. I should cry foul since I got my paperwork in :wink:

Good article re: legal standing:

That’s only a “good” article as far as it highlights the idiocy behind the support for this program.

Although there are few good arguments that the debt relief program is illegal, a federal judiciary dominated by Republican appointees could still strike the program down

“Few” is more than “none”. And all it takes is one valid argument to legitimately strike it down, there’s absolutely nothing partisan about it.

Again, the order is temporary — it appears designed to pause the program while the court figures out whether or not to strike it down

Who the heck is this neophyte author? This doesnt “appear to be designed” to do anything - that is the exact, entire, and only purpose of a temporary injunction.

The program is almost certainly permissible under a post-9/11 law known as the Heroes Act,

The Heroes Act was enacted in 2003, not long after the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center…promises financial assistance to members of the military who “put their lives on hold, leave their families, jobs, and postsecondary education in order to serve their country.”

the law also gave the secretary of education broad authority to provide relief to student loan borrowers impacted by future military operations or disasters.

How can you possibly reconcile these statements? I’m pretty certain that “having stupidly borrowed too much money” doesnt constitute a disaster for the purposes of the Heros Act.

Nevertheless, opponents of Biden’s loan forgiveness program have a very good chance of prevailing eventually, as the Supreme Court’s GOP-appointed majority has spent the last several years seeking to maximize its own authority to invalidate executive branch actions it might disagree with.

This pretty much speaks for itself, regarding how messed up the Democratic perspective is. “Screw laws and legal arguments, if the courts dont let us do whatever we want it’s obviously just petty political retribution.” Perhaps instead, the executive branch should try respecting laws, so that the courts do not need to keep invalidating their attempted actions… And perhaps the media/authors should stick to the legalities, rather than be so hellbent on priming the outrage for when the legalities play out.

3 Likes

It’s not like democrat appointed judges in lower courts ever issued nationwide injunctions on programs Trump tried to impose as president.

1 Like

and few in GOP complained about executive/ agency spending over reach with Trump
Kabuki theater that keeps the masses distracted

turns out that buying off a demographic to win an election is actually a smart move, even if they never see a penny of that money

2 Likes

I am curious if the administration will continue to fight as hard for loan forgiveness now that the election is over and the carrot has served its purpose.

4 Likes

Just like abortion. They pretend to care every 4 years, and then do nothing about it.

They will. Democrats really do think mothers don’t have any responsibility for their unborn children unless they want that responsibility.