The “abnormal” Republicans on the Supreme Court prevented the working class from paying for elite kids’ gender studies degrees. “Supreme Court blocks Biden’s student loan forgiveness program” (CNN):
In a stinging defeat for President Joe Biden, the Supreme Court blocked the administration’s student loan forgiveness plan Friday, rejecting a program aimed at delivering up to $20,000 of relief to millions of borrowers struggling with outstanding debt.
The decision was 6-3 with Chief Justice John Roberts writing for the conservative supermajority.
Roberts said the government needed direct authorization from Congress.
“The question here is not whether something should be done; it is who has the authority to do it.”
The liberal dissenters said the majority is basically making political decisions.
“The Court acts as though it is an arbiter of political and policy disputes, rather than of cases and controversies,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote.
The end of this glorious scheme comes just as there are three guys working at our house. One is a plumber rebuilding the Watts 007M3 backflow preventer, a 20-year-old device that protects the public water supply from contaminants (SARS-CoV-2?) that could be introduced from our house’s irrigation system, which is entirely separate and fed by “reclaimed water” (maybe we don’t want to know the details?). There are two guys installing a new garage door that meets the latest code for impact resistance (shooting 2x4s at the door with a cannon) as well as wind resistance. I actually went up to W8 wind resistance, which is required down in Miami, on the theory that the New York Times might be correct about the appropriate level of climate panic. (Hurricanes may actually be getting less common; see “Declining tropical cyclone frequency under global warming” (2022) from Nature Magazine)
(The new garage door should pay for itself within a few years because it is insulated, unlike the other one, and it will give us a discount on homeowners insurance, a rare Florida problem that the New York-based media does not exaggerate!)
I wonder if these hard-working guys are experiencing personal sadness that, while they can still pay for the elites’ new Teslas, they can no longer fund elite kids’ college tuition and, indirectly, enrich anthropology professors and administrators.
Separately, it’s interesting that what is constitutional is now entirely predictable based on the political party of the Supreme Court Justice. A layperson might be excused for thinking that these sacred legal principles are entirely arbitrary!
That’s not correct at all, even for the decisions this very term, there are plenty which were either unanimous or split on non-party lines.
To the extent it’s predictable based on party, that’s a feature of the current court in particular primarily because for many many years the PRINCIPLE for determining SCOTUS nominability used by Democratic presidents has been party loyalty, while the Republican presidents have used the principle of not-twist-the-constitution-beyond-recognitionism.
The rich & left are screaming bloody murder because it’ll slow down inflation & their home equity growth. Court stuffing is the word.
I’m starting to think some of our supreme court justices haven’t been following current events. Socialism is the order of the day. Racism is endemic. Bud Light “gets it.” We are a nation of takers and makers, and the makers just need to work a bit harder for those of us takers. Time for cookies and milk, then a nap.
I hope that they aren’t expecting a tax cut now after celebrating the ruling with you.
This reminds of a discussion that I had with a self-employed guy who does home repair and remodelling when Obamacare passed. He told me that I would pay higher taxes as a result. I never saw any increase in my withholdings for Obamacare. I’m not sure where he got that information. It couldn’t have been from the NYT or CNN.
A few years later this guy needed knee surgery. He had no insurance, but was able to get insurance through an Obamacare exchange.
The guys working on your house might be saddened to know that they fund community colleges and state universities every time they pay sales tax in the state with the most regressive taxes in the union.
https://www.floridapolicy.org/posts/floridas-state-and-local-tax-system-among-most-regressive-in-country-according-to-new-analysis
Vince: No American will get a tax cut, of course, but if the government is ladling out less cash to employees of colleges and universities that may mean that the government has more money to spend on services that a working class American can enjoy, e.g., roads, parks, playgrounds, K-12 schools, etc.
Regarding Florida having a regressive tax system, that’s true. Anyone with a very low income, certainly, would be fair better off moving from Florida to Maskachusetts. Table 4 in https://www.cato.org/white-paper/work-versus-welfare-trade-2013 shows that the spending power of someone on welfare can go from about 40 percent of that of a median worker to 120 percent of that of a median worker simply by moving from FL to MA. Rich folks, by contrast, would do well to get out of Massachusetts because they’ll immediately stop paying the new 9% income tax rate that the envious imposed on the successful. Even before this tax rate increase, moving from MA to FL would result in a huge boost to children’s inheritances. Analysis in https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2021/07/14/effect-on-childrens-wealth-when-parents-move-to-florida/
(Separately, here in Florida we have to thank gambling addicts for partially funding college tuition. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bright_Futures_Scholarship_Program )
Vince: You also might want to look at what taxpayers get in return for what the state/local government takes. https://wallethub.com/edu/state-taxpayer-roi-report/3283 says that Florida is #2 in the nation for ROI. The progressive paradise of California is #50 out of 50.
What I got for Obamacare is worse and slower service and increase of my hidden taxation vs insurance five times. Eventually it prompted me be less productive by choosing jobs where someone else foots the bill and taking fewer challenges and overall smaller earnings and tax contribution.
The results were more serious for my elderly parents, as the result Medicare stopped to be accepted by medical specialists they attended to, they had to switch to emergency room visits and I believe that could contribute to the demise of one of my parents.
What is constitutional in this case is very clear: only US congress can appropriate money.
And if there is no money it should crate new tax for the appropriation.
So yes, it happens that Republican – appointed justices support US Constitution in this decision and Democrat – appointed justices want to infringe on it.
@perplexed, spot on. To that end, I’m waiting for the day when the Supreme Court will hear a case about the president sending our arms forces to other countries to fight. Only Congress can start a war, not the president.
And here is a well-written opinion on why the Supreme Court got it right on student loans “Opinion: Why the Supreme Court got it right on student loans” [1]
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/30/opinions/supreme-court-decision-student-loan-was-right-somin/index.html
perplexed: I asked ChatGPT, Esq., “Is it Constitutional for a U.S. President to cancel federal student loan debt?” and the system came back with the following: … some proponents of executive action on this issue cite the Higher Education Act of 1965, which gives the Secretary of Education the power to “compromise, waive, or release any right, title, claim, lien, or demand, however acquired”. They interpret this as a broad authority that could include cancelling student loan debt.
ChatGPT on a more general question of presidential power: it would generally not be seen as Constitutional for a U.S. President to unilaterally forgive federal income taxes owed by a class of individuals without specific legislative authorization from Congress.
philg: delegations by congress of money appropriations are clearly unconstitutional and I do not need BS generator to tell me what US Constitutions says, I can read the text.
Undoubtedly US Supreme court did not misinterpret the language the way that would result in new huge tax, either via debt, inflation or real money expropriation, on all segments of American society.
> Higher Education Act of 1965, which gives the Secretary of Education the power to “compromise, waive, or release any right, title, claim, lien, or demand, however acquired”.
Question: why isn’t the Secretary of Education issuing the order to cancel student depth?
Answer: Biden wants the credit (at the cost of taxpayers) and voters (at the cost of Bidenflation).
Where does one get a cannon that shoots 2X4’s? That could make home construction faster when unloading the truck.
You can see them in action on YouTube. https://youtu.be/E4B1nPV5Xmk is an example.
And why isn’t MSM covering California’s, “Proposition 209: Prohibition Against Discrimination or Preferential Treatment by State and Other Public Entities” [1] which has been in effect since 1996? So, progressives and liberals who are furious about SCOTUS’s decision about Affirmative Action, are OK with California’s Prop 209?
Also, only recently, NPR covered Proposition 209, for just 3 minutes [2]. And guess what? Proposition 209, which has been a law for 26 years now, did not cause a doomsday disaster for students or colleges in California.
To liberal American and liberal SCOTUS, stop issuing a dissent decision, criticizing those who disagree with you, and painting a gloomy future [3] by using words such as “profoundly wrong”, “devastating”, “truly a tragedy for us all.” so on and so forth.
[1] https://lao.ca.gov/ballot/1996/prop209_11_1996.html
[2] https://www.npr.org/2023/06/27/1184461214/examining-the-impact-of-californias-ban-on-affirmative-action-in-public-schools
[3] https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/29/supreme-court-rejects-affirmative-action-at-colleges-says-schools-cant-consider-race-in-admission.html
Did you actually ask said gentlemen what they thought?