As expected, I knew you would question the source/details of propublica’s report. I expected nothing less.
ETA: Guess I was way off base. I presumed you to be more analytical, and since you’ve “Proclaimed yourself to be a Republican” (apologies if it wasn’t you), I expected some sort of skepticism to a report for an ultra-liberal organization, especially one loaded with donor-attractant wording.
That’s only half the equation. The “swamp” part is rendering decisions based on the will of said donor, which there hasnt been any indication was the case.
It doesnt make it “right”, but also we need to remember that until relatively recently, such side perks were considered part of a public service position. It was having a quid pro quo arrangement that made it corruption. These days, no one cares about effects and they get stuck solely on the optics regardless of the context.
Not really. A politician believes killing unborn babies is wrong and proposes laws accordingly. A Supreme Court judge decides if abortion is a federal government/constitutional issue or not, regardless of their beliefs about abortion itself.
Going in, Justice Brown is the one who indicated far more willingness to use the position to push political social agendas than any other appointee (at least based on my limited recollections). Beyond that, such accusations have mostly been from liberals pissed at losing yet another decision. Even when Roe was still relevant (with conservatives opposing it), the legal argument against it was that the court overstepped, not that their personal beliefs on the issue itself were wrong.
Since we’re talking about Thomas, a quick recap appears to be
it wasn’t his child, it was his “great nephew” whose tuition was paid.
ProPublica reported Thursday that Crow paid tuition for Thomas’ great-nephew Mark Martin.
A bad look, but here’s some perspective on that from one of the top scientists in evolution and genetics. A great nephew is pretty far removed.
The evolutionary biologist J.B.S. Haldane, when asked whether he would lay down his life for his brother, replied, 'No, but for two brothers or eight cousins”
Maybe 32 or 64 great nephews?
the left wing press made much of his “lack of disclosure” of this tuition payment without mentioning that under the ethics laws for the SCOTUS until a few months ago (spring 2023) this type of things was not a required disclosure (and now it is, for future such items). So he didn’t break any ethics laws and they’re trying to make him look bad retroactively. I mean, one would hope he would avoid any appearance of impropriety also, but that’s different than an ethics violation.
unless I’ve missed it, the donor in question did not have a personal court case that was heard under Thomas and for which he failed to recuse himself. This was the best the press could find in decades of service and hundreds of cases.
the court declined to hear an appeal from an architecture firm that wanted more than $25 million from Trammell Crow Residential Co. for allegedly misusing copyrighted building designs. When the court issued a one-sentence order denying the petition, there were no noted recusals — indicating that Thomas participated — and no noted dissents. The Crow family had a non-controlling interest in the company at the time
So a unanimous court decision to not even hear a case that involved a business where the donor had a small stake. I guess that’s something, but it sure isn’t much, either for the donors interest nor for deciding the case, which had been done at the lower court level.
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lastly, and clearly most importantly, the left wing press is clearly racist in all these attacks. And they told me Black Lives Matter? Not if they don’t like his politics. Surely Thomas is one of those Black white Supremacists I’ve been hearing about. Clayton Bigsby isn’t alone anymore.
The HEROES Act allows the Secretary to “waive or modify” exist- ing statutory or regulatory provisions applicable to financial assis- tance programs under the Education Act, but does not allow the Sec- retary to rewrite that statute to the extent of canceling $430 billion of student loan principal. Pp. 12–26.
The natives are not happy. Interesting that in this article, no one mentions the root cause of this problem, which is the outrageous cost of college attendance. This cost has skyrocketed far above inflation precisely because these loans insulated the borrowers from thinking they have to pay. The real story is how the colleges abused the system to their financial gain.
It’s not Nov 2024 yet, so clearly we need another vote buying student loan giveaway scheme, ideally one that will take at least 1.5 years to be declared unconstitutional so when it fails, the Big Guy will be already re-elected.
He said he had directed his team to launch a new program to cancel student debt using a different legal authority, the Higher Education Act of 1965.
The Higher Education Act, progressive groups and some legal scholars say, gives the secretary of education broad authority to “compromise, waive or release” debt. Some legal scholars contend that Biden should have relied on the law in the first place because it stood a greater chance of passing muster at the high court.
and there it is… just like i thought.
Shugerman argues that the Higher Education Act is the best option for debt cancellation, but he added that it could take as much as a year to execute because the law could require a lengthy rule-making process. That would mean that debt forgiveness might not occur under this scenario until after the 2024 election. Such a move would also inevitably face litigation.
We’ll take your votes now, and deliver nothing later but you better vote for us just in case. I remember a cynical read on this saying the reason they went with the HEROES law instead of the HEA one was specially so they could drag this out as a voting issue (not to actually forgive any debt).
Requires a rule making process? That in itself makes it more legit. I’d bet that process is what prevented it from being the first choice to begin with; the end result might be more durable, but that process will stop the attempt long before getting to that end result.
The 12 month “on-ramp” to credit reporting of delinquent payments will essentially extend the payment pause until the next election. If there is no consequence of not making the payment, there is essentially no payment due.
Also by then the new SAVE repayment plan will be ready to go. With payments at only 5% of disposable income ( income above 225% of poverty level ), this program is expected to cost more over the next 10 years than the loan forgiveness would have. I feel like the HEROES act forgiveness was just to distract everyone from the real handouts.
Paying $100/month, you’ll never pay off $20,000 in 20 years, let alone $200,000. So why not borrow $200,000 and have it forgiven vs. pay part of your college yourself and only borrow a fourth of that if you in the end are just making a payment irregardless of your loan balance. Colleges will love this.
Incorrect. A plurality of decisions are always unanimous. In this term that just concluded, nearly half of the decisions were unanimous. There were 58 cases in this most recent term and only 11 resulted in 6-3 vote splits. And only 5 were 6-3 on ideological grounds. The media may want to make the court out to be a bunch of political actors that can never agree on legal interpretations, but the facts about their decisions paint a completely different picture.
How do you feel about the new IDR plans counting all the loan payments for forgiveness, regardless of type now. That is much more relevant to the “old timers” like myself who have paid for 20+ yrs and still have $80K left. I’m now glad that the SC struck down broad forgiveness.
I know how I felt when I paid into the “wrong” loan program for 10 years and didn’t get the forgiveness I thought the law allowed, so I am in favor of “fixing” the issue of years of payments that weren’t counted to now be counted towards forgiveness. However, I am not super keen on opening up forgiveness to everyone that has just paid the minimum on a loan for a set amount of time regardless of their balance or their career. If someone gets an english degree from a private school and ends up with a random $20/hr job doing nothing related to their degree, and they barely pay $50 a month towards their 100k loan balance through an income based repayment plan, I don’t think it’s the responsibility of the taxpayer to take on the balance of that loan after 20 years. My understanding is also that it’s too easy to game the income based repayment system by filing your taxes as married filing separate. I worry that these programs reward decisions we don’t necessarily want to reward. I am also 100% opposed to counting the years of covid loan deferment/forbearance toward payments made.
All that said, I bet that if these new proposals came up for a vote in congress like the old ones did (Public Service Loan Forgivness was actually part of an Act passed by congress and signed into law), they would pass with bipartisan support. Aside from opposing some of the generosity, my main opposition is that they aren’t going through congress, but simply just going through Biden’s department of Education. I believe they are unconstitutional for that reason, but because similar programs already exist that were passed by congress, they don’t seem anywhere near as unconstitutional as the $10-20k giveaway was.
I appreciate the return well wishes @jesselivermore and @Honkinggoose. My work has been much more involved this past year that I had to take a break from internet forums. Sadly, it is still that way, so I don’t think I’ll be able to return to my level of engagement from before. But after the SCOTUS ruling I just had to come back to this particular thread! I’m actually surprised at how few new posts there were here after the ruling.
The relief is a result of fixes to the student loan system’s income-driven repayment plans. Under those repayment plans, borrowers get any remaining debt cancelled by the government after they have made payments for 20 years or 25 years
