Their original comments were legally correct. And it’s already been brought up in at least one of the court challenges.
You are not a lawyer.
So you think comments made by Pelosi make a difference here. Like if she didn’t say whatever you’re claiming she said Judge Pittman would have been helpless to do anything but allow the program to start forgiving loans. Is that how you think this works?
You’re not a lawyer, either.
No, her comments don’t make a difference in the case. Just pointing out that she initially had it right:
“Not everybody realizes that, but the president can only postpone, delay but not forgive student loans. It would take an act of Congress, not an executive order, to cancel student loan debt”. Ultimately, the Courts are likely to agree with that position.
Bingo.
True. But that would make even less sense if he didn’t also mean that he thinks everyone 12 and up who can’t come up with $1500 is pathetic.
And he certainly appears to think that $1500 is a trivial amount for everyone.
I agree that if peoples’ lives are often in shambles over amounts of $1500 or less (in 2022 USA), then something is seriously wrong. But when it’s over half the country who are at significant risk of such shambles, the “something” isn’t wrong with the individual people. It’s wrong with the overall setup.
And no, I don’t mean that all forms of capitalism, let alone all forms of financial initiative, should be banned. But we don’t currently have anything remotely resembling fair competition; and even perfectly fair competition with total disclosure of information would still leave some people up shit creek due purely to bad luck.
While I’m at it, and to come somewhere near back to topic – I don’t think any significant number of the people saying that student debt is ruining their lives are those who only owe $1500. I think at least most of them owe a whole hell of a lot more than that.
Report Highlights. The average debt for a 4-year Bachelor’s degree is $34,100.
- The average 4-year Bachelor’s degree debt from a public college is $31,900.
- 65% of students seeking a Bachelor’s degree from a public 4-year college have student loan debt.
- The average 4-year Bachelor’s degree debt from a private for-profit college is $58,600.
- For private non-profit colleges, the average Bachelor’s degree debt is $34,300.
Bingo! I’m in such a nice place that I can now view a debt of $1500 as “nothing”. But it wasn’t very long ago that I viewed $1500 of debt as nearly insurmountable. I don’t know why I didn’t think about selling frozen water bottles instead of working a couple minimum wage jobs! Stupid me!
It’s brilliant. They sell the frozen water to people that are in cars waiting to drive into the park gates. It’s August. By the time they get parked and into the park the ice has mostly melted into a very cold water bottle.
And not only did they secure peddler licenses from 2 different municipalities (they also sell water and peanuts during Brewer games) they also have state sellers permits and tax ID numbers. And my daughter in-law is an accountant. The older boy also sells vegetables and plants at flea markets and farmers markets. He’s also one of those guys who can solve a Rubik’s Cube in under 20 seconds. Both of those boys are willing to bust their ass and also work smart for what they want. You darn right I’m bragging about them!
That’s nice. I’m glad your nephews are smart, hardworking, and lucky. But what does that have to do with forgiving student loan debt?
Nothing. He’s just telling his own made up stories to explain why people who need to borrow money for school are losers who don’t deserve help.
My nephews?
Moderating:
This is tantamount to calling @pkbites a liar. This is against our rules. Don’t do this again, please.
Not a warning.
To all who are recently participating in this thread: I have not been following it, but I’ve reviewed about the last 50 posts as well as the OP. I note that the OP was not framed as an actual discussion beyond stating support for canceling student debt for “regular people” and is not merely a tax break for the super wealthy.
However, the thread appears to have devolved primarily into a discussion about personal matters. Please discuss the topic at hand in a constructive way. Personal experiences are not helpful in crafting what would be good national policy. Everyone’s circumstances are different, so let’s drop this approach.
Hat tip to @thorny_locust, who made an effort to return to the discussion at hand. I encourage others to follow their lead.
I apologize for forcing you to do this, it won’t happen again.
Hey, it’s what they pay me for. 
Report Highlights. The average debt for a 4-year Bachelor’s degree is $34,100.
- The average 4-year Bachelor’s degree debt from a public college is $31,900.
- 65% of students seeking a Bachelor’s degree from a public 4-year college have student loan debt.
- The average 4-year Bachelor’s degree debt from a private for-profit college is $58,600.
- For private non-profit colleges, the average Bachelor’s degree debt is $34,300.
What does a student debt of $34,100 mean in terms of actual monthly payments?
I’m sure it sucks if you’ve spent four years in college earning a bachelors degree and you’re making minimum wage. But it would suck a lot worse to choose not to go college, miss out on the education and experience, be earning minimum wage and finding out that your college educated colleague was being given a freebie you missed out on because you were more monetarily responsible.
Also, what’s the differential between a Bachelors degree versus a high school education? Here’s a BLS assessment:
A person who has a Bachelors degree has median weekly earnings of $1334. A person with a high school diploma has median weekly earnings of $809. I’m sure that’s pre-tax, but that $525 difference seems like it could pay off a student debt pretty quickly.
The student debt cancellation is about relieving people who made poor monetary decisions from the responsibility of their decisions. And going by the median figures, it’s not really much of a problem. The issue is vocal people who chose high-priced educations and didn’t get high-paying jobs after they graduated. The most sympathetic way to describe those people is as unlucky. Governments shouldn’t be subsidising educational debts because the debtors have been unlucky. There are unlucky people throughout society. University student debt holders should be well back in the queue.
Sorry – your grandkids?
The exact relationship doesn’t change the relevance or lack thereof.
Which is exactly what seventeen-year-olds are told by nearly everyone they know; and is exactly why they take on that sort of debt.
And then get scolded for not being “monetarily responsible” if they can’t pay it, because the economy’s set up to only work if a lot of people are doing poorly-paid jobs, and so many of them are going to get stuck with those anyway.
Aside from the question of whether the issue is mostly a complaint of people who chose unreasonably expensive educations, which I seriously doubt:
They haven’t just been unlucky. They’ve been systematically deceived.
Plus which – we ought to be helping out people who have been unlucky. Society will always have people who are unlucky, for any of a whole lot of reasons; and they shouldn’t be left for much or all of their lives living just barely shy of starvation. IMO, anyway. Opinions appear to vary.
So few thoughts on this.
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The national emergency is Covid, correct? I understand that post-emergency relief is a thing, but this proposal seems awfully late, and also very untargeted to Covid sufferers. How did student debtors suffer more from the Covid crisis than non-student debt holders?
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I’ve been reading about US student debt relief for several years. I’m sure there are discussions about the issue on this message board that predate 2020. So isn’t this a solution in search of a problem? In other words, Biden is using Covid as an excuse to implement a plan he thinks will attract support to the Democratic Party?
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Are the proposed student debt relief recipients being asked to submit an explanation on how they were harmed by Covid? Or is it just a blanket relief program based on demographics? If it’s the latter, doesn’t that disqualify Biden’s executive action from the HEROES act? Also, the same premise applies to my previous two points.
- Not relevant. There’s no time limit in the HEROES act.
- Not relevant. There’s no, “You can’t do something if someone else said something or other similar,” clause in the HEROES act.
- Not relevant. There’s nothing in the HEROES act that requires aid recipients to demonstrate need.
Congress, when they were granting this power to the executive branch, could have put requirements of the nature you are asking about in the act, they chose not to.
From the act, which you listed:
The key words there are “direct economic hardship as a direct result”. If Biden was choosing to relieve people who had been physically debilitated by Covid of their student debts, then the act would cover it. However, what he’s proposing is blanket relief based on income. If Biden was following the law, he would require people who wanted debt cancellation to prove the “direct economic hardship” they suffered from the Covid national emergency and how that hardship was a “direct result” of Covid. The blanket debt relief he’s proposing is clearly outside scope of the HEROES act. That’s why it’s being challenged in court and why his action is going to be prevented.
The law does not require this. You just invented it. The lawsuits that have resulted in the program being paused do not make this argument. The judges who have ruled against the law do not make this argument.
That is not why the law is being challenged and that is not why the action is going to be prevented.
This might be the way you think things should work, but it’s not the way things do work.
What is your cite for the HEROES Act of 2003? I just looked it up via the Wikipedia link, and this source seems to be valid.
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-108publ76/pdf/PLAW-108publ76.pdf (PDF)
The first section of the 2003 HEROES Act makes it clear that it was meant to apply to members of the military.
It’s true that it does contain the portion you highlighted and bolded:
(D) suffered direct economic hardship as a direct result
of a war or other military operation or national emergency,
as determined by the Secretary.
But Biden using an act meant to protect members of the military reserves to provide blanked debt relief to the general public is clearly exceeding the intended scope of the law and should be subject to judicial overview and reversal.
As to the actual court cases, the most relevant one seems to be this one:
From that ruling:
Not only do the “merits of the
appeal before this court involve substantial questions of law which remain to be
resolved,” Walker, 678 F.2d at 71, but the equities strongly favor an injunction
considering the irreversible impact the Secretary’s debt forgiveness action would
have as compared to the lack of harm an injunction would presently impose
And indeed, the original federal court rejection of the challenge against Biden’s executive order was based on standing, not the case against the order.
A federal judge originally rejected the challenge brought by the six states — Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas and South Carolina — saying that while they raised “important and significant challenges to the debt relief plan,” they ultimately lacked legal standing to pursue the case.
Now that standing has been established, the merits of the case, including Biden exceeding the intended scope of the 2003 HEROES act will surely be contested.