The Supreme Court seems to be on the path to blocking President Bidens legal right given to him by congressional statute to provide relief to students.
Another Supreme Court failure.
The Supreme Court has turned into a 6-person autocracy that is there to protect the wealthy and the wants of corporations. It is now the arm of the Republican and Neoliberal minority. I have written several articles detailing how Republican and Neoliberal policies would remain because of the powers that be concentrated in the non-democratic branch of our government, the courts.
The Supreme Court seems to be on the path to blocking President Bidens legal right given to him by congressional statute to provide relief to students. The New York Times reported the following.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court’s conservative majority seemed deeply skeptical on Tuesday of the legality of the Biden administration’s plan to wipe out more than $400 billion in student debt, heightening the prospect that the justices would thwart efforts to forgive the loans of tens of millions of borrowers.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. indicated that the administration had acted without sufficiently explicit congressional authorization to undertake one of the most ambitious and expensive executive actions in the nation’s history, violating separation-of-powers principles.
“I think most casual observers would say,” the chief justice said, that “if you’re going to give up that much amount of money, if you’re going to affect the obligations of that many Americans on a subject that’s of great controversy, they would think that’s something for Congress to act on.”
The court’s three liberal members said Congress had already acted, by passing a law in 2003 that authorized the secretary of education to address emergencies.
“Congress could not have made this much more clear,” Justice Elena Kagan said, adding: “We deal with congressional statutes every day that are really confusing. This one is not.”
By the end of about three and a half hours of arguments in two separate cases, the court’s conservative majority seemed likely to dash the hopes of the 26 million borrowers who have already applied for loan relief, including millions who have received approval. If the administration is to prevail, it would probably be on the ground that none of the plaintiffs in the two cases had established standing to sue, but that outcome did not seem likely, either.
How comes there is never a complaint when our government bails out corporations with our tax dollars? We have no problem helping Ukraine and other Western countries when they are in dire straits. They don’t pay U.S. taxes, but we do it because, often times it is the responsible thing to do.
The Conservative justices are moving out of their lanes. When they say it is not fair to those who did not take our loan, those who could not get loans, or those who found some manner to go without loans at all, they miss the point. It is not in their purpose to discern that. Congress gave the president the authority to do it. And if there is any doubt, most in Congress polled support the President’s action.
