No, it was a conditional statement. Didn’t you read the “If”?
The basic point, in case I need to explain it again, is that the artificial distinction you were trying to draw between the government deciding to change the amount people owe on taxes and the government trying to change the amount people owe on student loan debt is nowhere near so meaningful as you seem to believe.
There’s a major difference between a law enacted by Congress, and signed by the President, and an executive order or agency rulemaking. See Checks and Balances, and Separation of Powers.
A major EPA rule recently got shot down, as did some of the pandemic regulations. This action appears to be on the same shaky ground, relying on the HEROES act to allow the EdSec to “grant students relief from loan requirements during specific times of crisis, such as wartime or national emergencies.”
COVID is no longer a national emergency, and besides, as various courts have ruled, emergency powers cannot last indefinitely.
BTW, do you know if the VA loan waiver program you mentioned earlier was based on executive action, agency rulemaking, or a duly enacted law?
Granted that there are major differences between those two types of government action. But their differences have nothing to do with whether the change in financial obligations imposed by either of them constitutes “letting people not live up to their commitments”.
Do you think that people paying the taxes the law requires are “letting people not live up to their commitments”? Because that’s pretty much what you said.
What I did say is that officially decreasing people’s student loan indebtedness to a smaller amount is no more “letting people not live up to their commitments” than officially decreasing people’s tax obligation to a smaller amount. This is about the third time I’ve explained this, and it seemed to me clear enough the first time.
That is separate from the question of whether a particular type of governmental mechanism for enacting the decrease—i.e., an executive order versus a legislative act—is determined to be legally valid. Which, again, I thought was clear enough the first time I explained it.
What does “in lieu of” mean? Obviously both executive orders and legislation can have legitimate governmental purposes.
You seem to be loading your question to imply that executive orders are intrinsically bad because they’re somehow usurping the role of legislation. Which, y’know, you’re free to have that opinion, but please state it candidly instead of the cryptic-insinuation business.
I know, thanks. Sorry, I didn’t make it sufficiently clear that my question meant “Does your use of ‘in lieu of’ in your question imply that you think EOs are illegitimately usurping functions that ought to be performed by legislation, and are you asking me whether such alleged illegitimate usurpation is something I support?”
That’s a weird way to describe shining an uncomfortable light on yet another selfish Boomer action. As if anyone’s ever going to stop bashing Boomers. But this isn’t the Pit, so.
Neither do most of the people receiving it. That’s the whole point.
Understate much?
Buying votes for the midterms, of course. Or do you think it really took Biden 20 months to decide how to fulfill a campaign promise?
I swear to God I got an email on Sophia’s behalf and the form was so simple I was 72% convinced it was a phishing job. Did a LOT of research before I forwarded it to her.