this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2023
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United States | News & Politics
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Are there any legal experts who could chime in to help me understand the why of this decision?
If these loans are held by the executive branch, why aren't they allowed to cancel their own loans? Is there really a federal law on the books against this?
No this isn't really it in this case. There was a law passed by congress called the heroes act. It explicitly gave the power to the executive branch to "waive or modify" loans in response to national emergencies. Corona virus pandemic was legally declared a national emergency, so Biden invoked the law to waive and modify the loans. The supreme court is really out here in left field, bending over backwards as to why the executive branch can't use the heroes law in this way. John Roberts wrote some ridiculous stuff about how "waive" and "cancel" aren't the same or something. The conservatives claim to be "textualists" but this is a false front, they just claim whatever partisan republican priority at the time they feel like.
The pandemic caused serious financial burden to the average American, and the only reason why it wasn't significantly worse for millions of people is because the federal government paused interest and repayment deadlines for federal student loans.
Loan forgiveness is another method of providing relief for people whose economic means took a hit as a result of the pandemic, and is something a lot of people were counting on the day it was announced. If this is unconstitutional, then so were paycheck protection program (PPP) loans that were forgiven by the Fed due to the pandemic as well. The only difference between the two is that the GOP likes big business owners who benefitted from PPP loans (and several GOP politicians and their families took out millions in PPP loans that were forgiven) and they don't give a shit about college students who aren't likely to vote red.
This is just another way the conservatives are "sticking it to the libs", so they have something to brag about during next year's election.