Biden's College Debt Relief Plan in Trouble

The Supreme Court should shut down the breathtaking power grab by the Biden Administration to cancel college debts via an Executive Order rather than through Congress.

This is a separation of powers issue. And if the President can do this incredible action via an Executive Order, then what is the Court for? If the Court doesn’t hold him to the checks and balances, the power of the purse that the Congress has?

The sole purpose of him doing this is trying to gin up votes for an election, a political purpose. Biden decided to blow up the Constitution and push forward for the sole purpose of gaining a political advantage.

I was on Fox News Media Buzz to discuss. Watch above.

Transcript

Howard Kurtz

The conservative majority on the Supreme Court made clear the other day it will likely strike down Joe Biden’s college debt relief program which would have cost $400 billion on grounds that a president can’t take such sweeping actions without the backing of Congress.

Person 1

This is a reverse Robin Hood plan that takes away from the poor and gives to the rich. So this it’s a political loser. Legally, it’s a loser.

Person 2

The White House feels they might be able to win by losing. They’re really going to anger younger voters who may be mad that this conservative Supreme Court took away this thing that they were supposed to get.

Howard Kurtz

Joining us now, Gayle Trotter, host of The Right in DC podcast. And in Minneapolis, Tim Hogan, a Democratic strategist and senior advisor to ABC Arc Initiative. Gayle, is the coverage tilting toward the Supreme Court is cruelly going to take away this great debt forgiveness program for college grads as opposed to the court is likely to rule that President Biden never should have done this in the first place.

Gayle Trotter

Exactly, the legality issue is the one that the press should be covering. But this topic is very difficult to cover in a balanced way because the terminology is loaded to begin with. Think of the terms: debt relief, loan forgiveness, wiping out debt. So the coverage just from the way that the terms are being put in there at first, it’s very loaded. You see very little coverage of the legality, the cost, the fact that taxpayers who don’t benefit from this are going to be covering the costs of college graduates with high paying jobs.

Howard Kurtz

I want to get to that. But Tim, there was a debate within the Biden administration at the time reported by the media that one faction said this was unconstitutional. President made the decision to go ahead anyway. But that’s barely been mentioned in the coverage.

Tim Hogan

It’s been mentioned in some of the coverage and I don’t think that it’s been tilted too far towards the Biden administration. I mean, you see people like Ruth Marcus at the Washington Post still critiquing it. You see the Washington Post editorial board doing the same, see some support from the Los Angeles Times editorial board and the Charlotte Observer. So it is mixed. You’re seeing a sense of what the debate is. And the question on legality is important. And I think the press is zeroing in a little bit on the standing question, which is whether or not the people who have brought this case are injured parties. I mean, it’s kind of funny that one of the entities that is claiming they’re injured is a student loan servicing organization. I guess that is the entity we’re supposed to feel sorry for.

Gayle Trotter

But Howie, the Washington Post backtracked on this. In August, they said that this was a reach out to potential voters.

Howard Kurtz

Expensive and unfair mistake.

Gayle Trotter

Exactly. And now they’re basically stenographers for the Biden administration’s brief by the Solicitor General to the Supreme Court. So they’re saying, yeah, he shouldn’t have done this, it was a bad idea, but the Supreme Court shouldn’t rectify the error. And the problem is that this is a separation of powers issue. And if the President can do this breathtaking action, then what is the Court for? If the Court doesn’t hold him to the checks and balances, the power of the purse that the Congress has?

Howard Kurtz

I was struck by the Washington Post saying we still think it’s a bad idea, but nevertheless the High Court shouldn’t overturn it because we would limit presidential powers too much. But Tim, most journalists acknowledge, most political operatives acknowledge that this was, during the campaign, an attempt to boost turnout among younger voters. And it worked. And, you know, politics is part of the process here in DC. But that doesn’t make it legal. And that’s the sticking point here. And I know it can get kind of wonky. But the question is, is it legal for a President to act on his own in doing such a thing?

Tim Hogan

Well, if these justices, the conservative Justices, are strict textualists, then they should look at the 2003 law that gives the Secretary of Education the ability to waive or modify student debt during a national emergency. It’s really, really clear. But now we’ve moved to this fairness question because that’s how they like to attack this. Which is interesting as well, because 90% of the debt relief for this goes to people making under $75,000. We’ve seen as applications came in, two thirds of those applications came from neighborhoods where people were making less than $40,000. And we don’t ask this question on a whole bunch of other policies. We have a farm bill that goes to farmers. Not everyone’s a farmer. We have funding that goes to schools. Not everybody has children. People pay for that. So there’s a fairness question embedded in a lot of policy, but now it’s advantageous for the conservatives to bring it up. So that’s why we’re hearing it.

Howard Kurtz

Well, on that fairness question, Gayle, one of the main criticisms–it’s starting to get a little more coverage now–is that this rewards people and these are $10K-$20K dollar debt relief proposals. It rewards people who haven’t repaid their loans and it shifts the burden to people who never went to college or went to college and did repay their loans.

Gayle Trotter

Exactly. That’s why we have the separation of powers. Congress has the power of the purse and they’re supposed to decide this policy. Biden was asked, during the campaign, if he had the ability to do this by Executive Order and he said probably not. Nancy Pelosi said it would take an act of Congress to do this. And yet, for the sole purpose of trying to gin up votes for an election, a political purpose, they decided to blow up the Constitution and push forward for the sole purpose of gaining a political advantage.

Gayle Trotter

Tim couldn’t be more wrong describing the legal basis for this. Modifying and waiving a law that was designed to help military members deal with problems that they would have answering debt relief when there was a war going on or emergency. It is a complete abrogation of the President’s duty to uphold the law, to faithfully execute the law. Instead, he is trying to grab political power in a breathtaking way. The justices who are constitutionalists and textualists would be out of their responsibility to make sure that the President stays in his lane.

Howard Kurtz

Tim, I’ve got about a minute for you to respond, but one of the things is, Gayle said that this is the sole purpose of grabbing power and politics, but I’m willing to acknowledge that maybe Joe Biden also believes this is a good idea. But there is the question about fairness and who gets it and who doesn’t. Quick thoughts?

Tim Hogan

Or maybe we are just seeing the government being responsive to the needs of young people. There is an age distribution with this loan, forgiveness as well. It’s not going all to people who are in their 20s, going to people in their 30s and beyond. So, look, I’m glad we’re having a fairness question. Not everyone benefits from every government policy. That is how a lot of this works. But where was that question when Trump was pushing for tax cuts that were hugely beneficial to the wealthy?

Tim Hogan

What conservative media is doing right now is pitching middle class and the lower class against each other. Why are we doing this when we’re talking about wealthy people?