President Joe Biden doesn’t have many of what even Democrats would consider positive accomplishments to hang his hat on as President of the United States.
And a recent court decision just put one of his signature policies on ice for the time being.
However, the Biden administration turned to the US Supreme Court hoping they will bailout his student loan bailout.
But one day after asking SCOTUS Justices to save the plan, the Biden administration decided not to wait and began issuing notices to applicants that they’d been approved.
A day after asking SCOTUS to allow it to implement student debt relief program, Biden admin today began notifying borrowers their applications were approved.
"Your application is complete and approved, and we will discharge your approved debt if and when we prevail in court." pic.twitter.com/Izz55hWDYl
— Michael Stratford (@mstratford) November 19, 2022
One of President Joe Biden’s biggest usurpations of power in the first half of his first term in the White House came this past August when, with a stroke of the pen, Biden wiped several hundreds of billions of dollars off the book without the consent of Congress.
Through the executive order, Joe Biden initiated one of the largest transfers of wealth in world history.
Critics argued the plan would eventually cost upwards of a trillion dollars, money stolen from American workers who didn’t go to college – or who had sacrificed and worked hard to pay off their student debt – and handed it on a silver platter to partying college students and grads with useless degrees who had no intentions of paying off their obligations.
While the President of the United States does have the power to pause student loan payments, as Biden has done since he first stepped foot in the Oval Office, canceling loans would effectively be a budgetary move which would require an act of Congress.
Take it from Nancy Pelosi from last year.
“People think that the President of the United States has the power for debt forgiveness,” Speaker Pelosi said about a year before Biden’s historic abuse of power. “He does not. He can postpone. He can delay. But he does not have that power. That has to be an act of Congress.”
“People think that the president of the United States has the power for [student loan] debt forgiveness. He does not.”
— Nancy Pelosi (July 2021) pic.twitter.com/0iz8uQfiNe
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) November 14, 2022
And that’s why Biden’s unprecedented attempt to purchase votes ahead of the 2022 Midterms is being challenged in the courts.
And one of the challenges won big in the U.S. District Court in north Texas, with federal judge Mark Pittman blocking Biden’s executive order, calling it “illegal” in his 26-page decision.
NEWS: Federal judge in Texas strikes down Biden's student debt relief program, declaring it illegal. pic.twitter.com/02Doi3CXwC
— Michael Stratford (@mstratford) November 10, 2022
In his ruling, Pittman called Biden’s $10,000-$20,000 handout to his voter base, “unconstitutional.”
Following that court loss, the Biden administration submitted legal filings to the Supreme Court to overturn Judge Pittman’s verdict.
But in a move that’s sure to anger the Court’s Justices, the Biden administration decided not to wait on their opinion and began notifying loan forgiveness applicants that their applications were approved.
Trump-appointed Justice Amy Coney Barrett had already twice rejected an emergency request to block President Joe Biden’s student loan bailout.
So it’s far from a foregone conclusion that the Court would side against the Biden administration.
But the move to notify applicants that they’ve been approved and that the Biden Department of Education will “discharge” the debts “if and when we prevail in court” points even more to a nakedly political play.
The Biden administration surely knew that the vote-buying scheme would likely be blocked at least initially by courts, nevertheless they were counting on the plan having a powerful impact as the Democrats sought to mobilize voters ahead of the 2022 Midterm elections.
That ploy worked, with exit polls showing young college-aged and upper class, college loan-carrying voters breaking significantly for Democrats and helping to stymie the Republican “Red Wave” that was widely-expected.
Now, the administration’s move to notify applicants ahead of the Supreme Court hearing the matter, likely sets the stage for Justices to rightly reject it and give Democrats another excuse to politicize the Court ahead of 2024.
Political Animal News will keep you up-to-date on any new developments in this ongoing story.
