The Biden administration filed an appeal today to the Supreme Court asking that it cut the malarkey and reinstate President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness program. The program was put on hold Monday by an injunction from the Eighth US Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis. In a separate case, the administration is also appealing a different ruling by a federal judge in Texas; that’s the one involving those two jerks who are upset that not everyone gets everything they want, when other people get some of what they want, and it’s not faaaaaaiiir. That appeal is going through the Fifth US Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.
In the new case sent to the Supremes, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said the hold on the loan program
leaves millions of economically vulnerable borrowers in limbo, uncertain about the size of their debt and unable to make financial decisions with an accurate understanding of their future repayment obligations.
And then probably some 23-year-old intern from the Federalist Society glanced up and muttered “if they wanted to plan for the future, they should have made more responsible decisions, like I did when I got into Yale as a legacy.” Then he went back to working on the crossword in his copy of Convenient Stereotypical Foils for Lazy Bloggers Before Their Vacation Weekly.
NBC News explains the case involves claims brought against the loan forgiveness program by Republican attorneys general in six states; the lawsuit had initially been dismissed in federal court when the judge ruled the states didn’t have standing to sue, because they weren’t harmed by the program. The appeals court then
disagreed, focusing on a Missouri agency that services federal student loans. The state argues that the agency would lose revenue if loans are forgiven.
See? A completely ruinous program, if you squint just right. The big problem in challenges to the loan forgiveness program has been finding anyone who can credibly claim to be harmed by someone else having their debts forgiven, but rightwing foundations and law firms are nothing if not enterprising in scraping up plaintiffs if there’s a chance to wreck a popular federal program.
The Biden administration has temporarily stopped taking applications for debt forgiveness while the cases work their ways through various courts. The plaintiffs in the six-state case say Biden lacked the authority to direct the federal Department of Education to forgive loans without Congress passing a law to spend the money. Should the Supremes decide that the plaintiffs do have standing, it seems likely they’ll be all pissy about the lack of congressional authorization, and the administration might well be smacked upside the head by an appeal to the power of the purse.
Besides, only Republican presidents have unlimited executive authority, as established in the landmark case Obvious Straw Man v Exhausted Blogger Who Should Know Better, Is That What You Went Into Debt For, Mister Hotshot Rhetoric Guy?
In conclusion, just wait’ll you see what we come up with about Hunter Biden’s laptop, man.
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