I simply cannot grasp how a judicial system that's entirely based on standing, suddenly decides that 6 random states that have 0 stake in this whole FEDERAL student loan thing have standing to sue over this forgiveness plan
It's corruption. This isn't a fluke, it's that the "justice" system revolves around what's best for the already powerful elites. It happened because the powerful wanted it to happen, the court just exists to provide the theater to control and placate the masses.
The only reason activist judge gets thrown around a lot is because the fascists have been screaming it for several decades while they stack the courts with activist judges. There screams have also caused the other side to fill courts with moderates so they’re not seen as stacking the courts.
What is also interesting to me is the Supreme Court has rejected pretty much all forms of standing for establishment clause violations.
You could be a religious Muslim rightfully upset that your local government is making public statements about Jesus being lord and you would have no standing since they wiped out offended observer standing.
I am really getting tired of many of these cases where they are based on theoretical harm. It’s like my mother-in-law arguing about 5 things that haven’t happened yet. Possible. Probable. Reality.
I think they threw most of them out for standing, but of course they just needed one. The most bs was the other case they decided where a person pre sued the state since she couldn't even start a wedding service without the ability to discriminate due to their religious beliefs.
As others have noted with this court, standing is used when convenient.
I'm against student loan forgiveness, but I agree. All evidence seems to say that the plaintiffs had no standing. The case should have been thrown out.
Although I'm happy with the result, the means are not worth the ends. This is a corrupt faction of judges ignoring and applying law where it suits their broader agenda.
Missouri proved they have standing via direct injury:
"At least Missouri has standing to challenge the Secretary’s program. Article III requires a plaintiff to have suffered an injury in fact—a concrete and imminent harm to a legally protected interest, like property or money—that is fairly traceable to the challenged conduct and likely to be redressed by the lawsuit. Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S. 555, 560–561. Here, as the Government concedes, the Secretary’s plan would cost MOHELA, a nonprofit government corporation created by Missouri to participate in the student loan market, an estimated $44 million a year in fees. MOHELA is, by law and function, an instrumentality of Missouri: Labeled an “instrumentality” by the State, it was created by the State, is supervised by the State, and serves a public function. The harm to MOHELA in the performance of its public function is necessarily a direct injury to Missouri itself. The Court reached a similar conclusion 70 years ago in Arkansas v. Texas,
346 U. S. 368."
Except that MOHELA didn't sue and didn't want to sue in the first place. No business has a constitutional right to make a profit. If all debtors transferred their loans to a different company tomorrow, MOHELA would go bankrupt and they'd have just as much standing then, I.e. none at all. Furthermore, as I said, MOHELA didn't sue, the state of Missouri did. MOHELA doesn't pay a single cent to the state of Missouri, so exactly how is Missouri being injured here? The fact that MOHELA would make less money changes nothing to the "public function" Missouri is supposed to provide here. It can still continue to offer student loans. So I ask again, where is the injury? None of this gives Missouri the state any standing
Meanwhile, last October, MOHELA admitted in a letter to Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) that its executives “were not involved with the decision of the Missouri Attorney General’s Office to file for the preliminary injunction in federal court.” The Missouri attorney general had to obtain documents from MOHELA through state sunshine law requests in order to use them in the lawsuit. As I wrote last month, if this is successful, “the Supreme Court would be allowing the plaintiffs to win their case thanks to an unwilling conspirator.”
The internal documents from MOHELA reinforce this. They were obtained through those same state sunshine laws by the Student Borrower Protection Center.
Like 180 million women in America and they all have less rights than my dead body will and they have no standing meanwhile a corporation that didn't want to go to court was forced to by parts of the government and they have standing for theoretical harm.
"The Court’s first overreach in this case is deciding it at all. Under Article III of the Constitution, a plaintiff must have standing to challenge a government action. And that requires a personal stake—an injury in fact. We do not al-low plaintiffs to bring suit just because they oppose a policy.
Neither do we allow plaintiffs to rely on injuries suffered by others. Those rules may sound technical, but they enforce “fundamental limits on federal judicial power.” Allen v.
Wright, 468 U. S. 737, 750 (1984). They keep courts acting like courts. Or stated the other way around, they prevent courts from acting like this Court does today. The plaintiffs in this case are six States that have no personal stake in the Secretary’s loan forgiveness plan. They are classic ide-ological plaintiffs: They think the plan a very bad idea, but they are no worse off because the Secretary differs. In giv-ing those States a forum—in adjudicating their complaint— the Court forgets its proper role. The Court acts as though it is an arbiter of political and policy disputes, rather than of cases and controversies."
They claimed they had standing. All the liberal justices disagree. This was a partisan lawsuit from the beginning and conservative activist judges on the SCOTUS are legislating from the bench with this ruling and ignoring decades of standing precedent.
This quote from Pence is so unbelievably infuriating.
Joe Biden’s massive trillion-dollar student loan bailout subsidizes the education of elites on the backs of hardworking Americans
Good to know all of the millennial and gen z college graduates earning less than $125,000 per year and struggling in an awful economy are "elites" and not "hardworking Americans."
Since I'm now apparently an elite, do I get a membership card in the mail?
Just another way the GOP is gaslighting the American public. American public distrusts the “elite” which the GOP represent or are part of themselves so they attempt to change what “elite” actually is. All of the lower and middle class people fight each other over a few thousand dollars while millionaires and billionaires siphon millions to billions from them through government handouts or record profits/“inflation”.
Hardworking Americans are rich people. It's a code. Poor people aren't hard working because they are poor. If they were, they would be rich. All of the mental gymnastics is just that, and it is ridiculous.
Although the language is very imprecise, a university graduate will make $720,000 more over a 20 year period than a non-university graduate, spend four years out of the labour force not paying taxes and then will also have a higher life expectancy drawing from the public pension longer.
Tell me why it’s reasonable for people who didn’t go to university to help foot the bill for people who did?
This is the exact type of resentment members of the GOP are trying to sow among marginally different income brackets to promote infighting rather than pointing the finger at the actual "elite" class. You shouldn't have to be saddled with massive amounts of debt to simply get an education. Adjusted for inflation, college tuition has increased nearly 750% since 1963. Source.
Why not tax the rich to pay for programs to support the lower and middle classes? Or subsidize education?
a university graduate will make $720,000 more over a 20 year period than a non-university graduate
That $720,000 difference over 20 years is less than a one-year salary for thousands of CEOs. Based on this list, there are 2,721 CEOs who earned more than $720,000 in 2021 (you have to scroll all the way down to page 137 to find a CEO earning less than $720,000).
It's a drop in the bucket.
spend four years out of the labour force not paying taxes and then will also have a higher life expectancy drawing from the public pension longer.
If university grads earn more, wouldn't their higher tax contributions quickly make up for the four non-tax-paying years compared to someone earning less without a degree? Not to mention it isn't uncommon for students to also work while in college.
Regarding life expectancy, this is the same blame-game criticism. What impact would affordable healthcare have on life expectancy? Or a higher minimum wage?
Tell me why it’s reasonable for people who didn’t go to university to help foot the bill for people who did?
You could make the same argument for any type of program that distributes tax dollars to others. "Why should my hard-earned money go to someone sitting at home on welfare?"
The federal government clearly has no problem throwing obscene amounts of money at corporations, whether they need it or not, so why not divert some of that aid to the people?
When I took out my student loans, I knew what I was signing up for, and I never expected — or wanted – the government to step in and waive them. After seeing the massive amounts of money the government handed out in the form of PPP funds, including potentially $200 billion fraudulently (source), my view changed. If billionaires were getting PPP loans for millions of dollars, why shouldn't a bunch of college graduates get $20,000 each?
It's obviously not an actual either-or question, but ultimately, if the government is bailing out billionaires, banks, etc., then yeah, fuck it, help your middle class college graduates.
$125,000 seemed like a pretty fair cutoff for the loan forgiveness. If $124,999 is the maximum you could've earned to still be eligible, I feel like you're generally living pretty comfortably, but still not "elite." I mean, I make half that with a bachelor's degree in journalism, so I was thrilled my remaining $20k in loans could've been waived.
Thats not what communism is and even if it was, you literally just tried to say caring about other people is bad regardless of what its called. This is part of the problem.
Yikes man, as a gov't worker who gets paid less than my counter-parts in my industry: there are people who work for less in a capitalistic system for the betterment of others and are proud of it. You have no idea what you're talking about.
E: not every person has blinders about "what's in it for me." And it's not "communistic" to do so.
Now that student borrowers aren't getting a "free ride", I want PPP loan recipients to be required to pay back the full amount, plus say, 9% interest, retroactively. Why should my tax dollars pay for your free business loan?
I'd say 70% if I had to guess (not a real stat) as someone watching outside of the US.
Dems, although not being neonazi bigots still have a lot of scum inside. For example undermining recent Right to Repair. Getting bought out by tech companies, especially ISPs locally. And let's not forget about them siding with railroad companies during strike.
5 rich people sign a paper saying it’s cool if they die in a shitty submarine, they do, and we spent millions trying to find them.
Not that I don't agree with the sentiment, but this isn't exclusive to the rich. There have been numerous cave diving incidents where people intentionally do stupid things like ignoring warning signs or breaking past locked gates only to end up in trouble and require a huge rescue operation to get them out and/or recover their bodies.
we Americans are granted a lot of freedoms - not that many countries offer similar freedoms. you could try to leave & go elsewhere but just because the grass looks greener, it doesnt mean that it is.
Yeah the freedom to have your womb owned by the Catholic Church, the freedom to die of an easily treatment condition, the freedom to spend your life in debt.
"America touts itself as the land of the free, but the number one freedom that you and I have is the freedom to enter into a subservient role in the workplace. Once you exercise this freedom you've lost all control over what you do, what is produced, and how it is produced. And in the end, the product doesn't belong to you. The only way you can avoid bosses and jobs is if you don't care about making a living. Which leads to the second freedom: the freedom to starve"
So if I want my freedoms as a gay man I should just move? Rather than us just being better? It's cool to praise the US and our freedoms, but the second we see the opposite we just tell people to leave, and yet we are supposed to be the good guys? Lol
Student loan forgiveness doesn't go far enough. We need to overhaul the higher education system to rein in the cost of tuition. I mean, regardless of where you stand on student loan forgiveness, can we at least all agree that a bachelor's degree costing anywhere near six figures is absurd?
Are Republicans the ones constantly renovating and building new facilities on campuses across the nation? I don't think I've seen my university stop major construction for like 15 years.
You are quoting two different "America"'s there, for one. SCOTUS isn't even an elected body, so I'd hardly consider them "America" outside of their power to dictate our state of affairs.
Basically, we're forty years deep into supply side economics, sometimes referred to as Reaganomics, Trickle Down economics, or Horse and Sparrow economics (the latter two are generally considered derisive by proponents of this model). The idea is that if we set our policies so that outcomes are optimized for capital holders (business owners, investors, etc), then they can generate more wealth faster, and increasing the sum total of available wealth will improve life for everyone; somebody please correct me if I have it wrong. Of course, how this has actually played out is that money's just being funneled from everywhere into a handful of pockets to the detriment of everyone and everything else, and it's never enough.
I'm not a Marxist, but I do appreciate his view as a historical determinist. What I think is interesting is that if you look at what Marx said would be done to fight the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, we're doing basically everything on that list. I think Reagan was a true believer and honestly thought he was doing the best for his country that he could, even if he was incredibly wrong at practically every turn. It seems to me that supply side economics is really just a fancy way to run an extractive economy under the pretense of free markets.
Sorry but I'm having difficulty piecing what you said with why knocking 20 grand off student loans got shot down. How does it tie into a tendency for profits to fall? And targeting policies such that our business leaders generate wealth faster? If we're to target e.g. tax deductions towards benefiting these wealth-bringers, shouldn't we be offering tax credits to our education system to increase the total wealth of the nation? Math and Science should be absolutely FREE, and if economics courses were free I'd probably have an easier time having this conversation with you instead of trying to figure out what you're even saying so that I could respond lol
To be fair, while this would cancel a lot of debt (up to $10,000) for most people, it actually does nothing to cut the cost of college for future students.
I say this as someone who has about $5,000 in student debt left and a wife who has over $20,000. It would have been fantastic for us, but in the end it doesn’t do a single thing to help reduce the cost of education.
To be fair, while this would cancel a lot of debt (up to $10,000) for most people, it actually does nothing to cut the cost of college for future students.
I say this as someone who has about $5,000 in student debt left and a wife who has over $20,000. It would have been fantastic for us, but in the end it doesn’t do a single thing to help reduce the cost of education.
To be fair, while this would cancel a lot of debt (up to $10,000) for most people, it actually does nothing to cut the cost of college for future students.
I say this as someone who has about $5,000 in student debt left and a wife who has over $20,000. It would have been fantastic for us, but in the end it doesn’t do a single thing to help reduce the cost of education.
Well, for one, forgiving student loans wouldn't "reduce the cost of education."
It would increase it. It's just a windfall for universities and loan holders. It did nothing to curtail costs, or address the way student loans are handed out, and their nondischargeable status.
We'd be right back here in 10 years, regardless, because "forgiveness" doesn't do anything to address the underlying problems of student loans, which will continue to be handed out, guaranteed by the gvt, and nondischargeable.
ok, this definitely does not resolve the cause of the issue but it does help. It's like if I get a deep-ish cut I'm still going to switch out the bloody bandage on the way to getting antibiotics...
This plan required an act of Congress, the president acted unilaterally and illegally in instituting the plan. The president isn't a dictator, he must go through congress for quite a number of things.
Except this wasn't enacted by the president but by the Secretary of Education under the Biden administration and the power was given to them by congress as part of the HEROES act.
If the supreme court wasn't corrupt, they might have still struck this down but not under the cases that reached the supreme court. The fact that they found the original cases to have standing is actually insane and it's likely to open a can of worms because they were basically:
"it's not fair for only certain groups to benefit from government programs."
Do you know how many things are going to be challenged now? And, for it not to create chaos, these new challenges will have to go to the supreme court again where they will have to do mental gymnastics to backpedal on why their decision applies here but not on whatever weird future cases. Jesus what a circus.
Strange though how the previous president doing the exact same thing but with ppp loans for businesses was all fine and dandy. Yes, yes, totally not a political judgement at all, nothing to see here
You join like six people I personally know, either is a close friend or family member.
For some reason this one feels so deeply personal, that I feel motivated to vote like hell. I'm so over being held hostage by maniac Boomers who are losing their minds. We are the bigger generation now. Let's go kick their asses!
There are a lot of variables there. Adding interest-bearing debt to someone with no income is a great way to put them behind, they’ll still have rent and other necessities to buy in addition to the student loan payments. That debt can quickly snowball if other problems come up, especially if you’re unlucky (hospital bill in the US?). Generally when you start your career after graduating, you aren’t making the average salary for your position. You have no experience so you have to take what you can get. You also aren’t owed a job, college degree in hand or not. I say this with personal experience - a bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering from an accredited university, and research experience and internship experience from while I was in university.
The HEROES Act ... does not allow the Secretary to rewrite that statute to the extent of canceling $430 billion of student loan principal.
The authority to “modify” statutes and regulations allows the Secretary to make modest adjustments and additions to existing provisions, not transform them.
This is the exact wishy washy stuff that would let one supreme court uphold and another strike down. You can modify it, but not that much! Stuck down! Lol our legal system is a joke.
eh, the people that are affected who are talented and capable wont be affected (aka STEM graduates) - it's the people who decided to pursue "useless" degrees like liberal arts, journalism, education, etc and cant find a job in their field (because they dont exist in numbers like STEM jobs do) who are adversely affected.
those degrees are popular because they're easy to get - but these days you need to have a useful degree and be good at it in order to be competitive. otherwise you work at a Starbucks and whine about student loan repayment options.
The courts are ALL ABOUT technical justification dude. You can't just "it's the right thing to do" in court.
Ackshually the president didn't have standing to make this ruling.
ACKTUALLY ACKTUALLY the states didn't even have standing to bring the case.
The problem is that the Supreme Court followed the rules when it came to something that fit their agenda, but ignored it when it didn't.
If the SC had followed the technical details like they should have, then the Presidential ruling would have stood until or unless an injured party brought suit.
You can’t just “it’s the right thing to do” in court.
How about outside the court? How about in discussions about the ruling? People are using those technicalities to justify the "rightness" of the decision and its effects. That's the bullshit bad faith I'm talking about.
So this completely shuts the door for potential federal student loan forgiveness, right? Man, I was actually still holding out hope. I didn't understand what I was agreeing to at 18. Loan forgiveness would've had such a significant positive impact on my life (+ those of my family and friends). I'm not sure why I thought something like this ever could've passed :')
I was 16 when I took mine out. My dad was also a dipshit qanon conspiracy theorist who thought the government would have collapsed by now so he coerced me into taking out max loans. Funnily enough, 20k worth, the exact amount that would have been wiped
I'm so pissed that it seems like Congress doesn't do jack shit and when the president wants to do anything good for people the supreme court can just shut it down.
The supreme court is legislating from the bench and it just shows how broken our system is.
They'll give unlimited tax breaks to the rich but deny any sort of help to people struggling to pay bills.
things that pass in Congress are often referred to as "having bipartisan support" for a reason - it's because the balance of power is usually split between the ideological factions.
absolutely nothing is preventing you from running for Congress right now, though it's a bit early and you'd have to qualify (age and residency requirements). YOU could be the instrument of the change you desire.
Lets be honest - the plan was an overreach. This had to pass through congress. So SC is not wrong.
But it couldn't pass through congress because of lobbying. Which was bribery made legal by SC. Which was a very controversial decision. But if Roe could be overturned, we should focus on getting Citizen United overturned. And America will be great again.
But for that US should be united. And that will not happen because all the oligarchs domestic and abroad make sure of that and they lobby secretly and hard. You have Saudis, Chinese buying corporations influencing US decision making. You have Russian interference. European banks also service these oligarchs, so its in their interest too. Now other countries with oligarchs are jumping in too. And they put smokes and mirrors in front of you to keep you off from the real goal - creating issues where there should be none. To keep America divided.
So its a long attrition based slug war which can only be fought when we love our fellow Americans and stop listening to hate everywhere around us. And realize that all politicians are evil, so you have to keep them pressed. They will not share power, we the people have to be strong and take the power from them.
But what's good for the economy is good for the people. You know, trickle down and stuff. Totally works, trust me bro. Just give us a few billion more, this time it'll rain down gold on you. Absolutely sure!
These people are incapable of not being disingenuous. They're allergic to good faith. The hypocrisy has become so ingrained in these people that calling it out hasn't been an effective counter to them for years, if not decades. They simply do not care.
They care. They care about making sure that the benefits of socialism is exclusively for the elite and wealthy and totally denied to the average citizen.
After the 2008 sub-prime mortage crisis, Hedgefunds and Banks didn't stop with their predatory behaviour, they simply shifted it around. Student loans were a prime target for that. As well as commercial mortage backed securities (CMBS) rather than the mortage backed securities (MBS) from that bubble popping in 2008.
With COVID making work from home inevitable and CMBS becoming a huge risk factor as well as student loans possibly being forgiven, the financial elites have been rotating to survive another day until they can resume squeezing your pennies out of you again so they don't have to go under.
Just a piece of the shit pie that the US financial markets are. It's just a huge rackateering ring. I'd be immensely surprised if student loans were ever forgiven or university costs socialized again in the future. It's just too lucrative to fuck young people.
The prohibitive cost of higher education and the factual uselessness of high school diploma keep young warm bodies going into the military. This is important for the nation that spends the most on its military, globally, and secures its global hegemony in large part through said military (but also of course cultural 'coca-colonialism')
Fun fact, one of the major reasons the elite of the 13 colonies wanted to separate from the British Empire is that a lot of them would get huge loans from banks in London under the name of a fictitious company in a given colony, close up shop, move to a different colony and repeat.
It's why the original astroturfed riots were organized in Boston and well as why the Sons of Liberty were created. Because among other things, the Stamp act would have prevented the main method they used to execute the fraud.
See the book: Crucible of War by Fred Anderson. It starts dry but is absolutely worth it.
Capitalism has robbed us of more than we could ever even imagine. To the point where most people don't even realize they've been robbed. It's tragic.
We live in a society where amoral, faceless corporations are more valued than actual human life. And those corporations have so much power over people, and their cognition, that the majority have been tricked into consenting to this perverted system against all of their interests. And I would love for someone to explain to me why there should ever be a distinction between the people producing something, and the people/corporations that own the means of that production. Why should these be two different groups, and why in the FUCK would the class that doesn't do any actual goddamn work, make 300x more money? It's fucking disgusting.
But on the other hand, they said they were going to lower taxes. And also, trans people exist, so........
Capitalism has robbed us of more than we could ever even imagine. To the point where most people don't even realize they've been robbed. It's tragic.
Capitalism isn’t perfect, but it’s the reason our standard of living is higher than ever. Every time we try anything else, millions of people die. I’m not sure how many more people need to die for people like you to accept reality. We need to improve capitalism, not turn to authoritarianism.
Biden suspected this would happen, hence why he was previously doing student loan forgiveness in smaller increments. But people kept pushing him to do the entire thing and claiming that he was actively against students because he wasn't. No, he knew this happening was a high possibility.
And this case sets much bigger precedents than the specific subject, precedents in two areas.
The specific claim that the Secretary was "transforming" the law rather than tweaking things is asinine, especially since the HEROES Act was incredibly vague in the first place. So this sets precedent that any usage of a law outside of explicitly what it says (difficult to even determine when a bill is so vague) gives leverage to reverse any executive action in enacting the law. Which will just allow massive conservative obstructionism even more on everything.
The entire case having standing as it is. Why do 6 states have standing to sue on something done in regards to federal loans? The idea that states can sue on any federal issue now is concerning to the extreme.
We're also advocating for fixes. Like free public college.
This was a bandaid because the executive can't simply do that without a law. Some aid is better than no aid especially to young people already in enormous debt.
Free college is not a fix, that is another handout. Unless the underlying mechanisms are controlled then costs will continue to inflate. The only thing you people are advocating for is to get yours and fuck everyone else....like the boomers. Be better people.
Honestly the public has no business financing private tuition debt. If it was cancelling only state tuition debt or enhancing the funding for those programs, I’d be ok. Otherwise, as a mostly liberal individual, this doesn’t bother me.