The Supreme Court strikes down Biden's student-loan forgiveness plan, blocking debt relief for millions of borrowers

I hope Gen Z never forgets this.

It's a great lesson in how important elections are. Trump was able to appoint multiple supreme court justices which have shaped the future of America for years due to their most recent decisions and will continue to shape it for decades after he is gone.
- yeah, i'm glad that there wasn't anything that could of been done under Obama...oh wait (yes it was a multi factor fuck up, but all the fuck ups were from people who were supposed to be "on our side" trying to claim power just a little longer and fucking miss me with the hand waving of there was nothing that could be done! there was!) Voting is important yes but can we stop pretending it's a fucking magic bullet? Cause it's not. Its one tiny itty bitty thing that needs to be done. Hell voting doesn't even work if you don't have any of the other stuff surrounding it. People need to get organized both at home and at work and get ready to take the fight to them through unions and strikes at the very least.
  i'm so fucking sick of the answer to all of this is "go vote" when there is much more than just that needing to be done. Don't just vote, go get fucking organized with community, and fucking fight.
- It's a great reminder why first-past-the-post needs to go. Who's going to step up for the Dems this year? Are we really counting on an anemic Biden to carry the party against an energized right? Or will someone step up to the plate only to be reprimanded as a "spoiler"?
  We need actual competition in the political space. If incumbent cronyism could be effectively challenged we'd have politicians who care a bit more about representing and a bit less about political capital.
Fuck, I'm a Millennial, and I'll never forget this. And my Gen Z kids are also pissed even though we are fortunate enough to be able to pay for their college. This family is never voting red.
- Yeah between this, abortion rights, and the affirmative action thing... it's gonna be a rough next few years, but in the long term the Republicans are toast. I think what we're experiencing now are their last spasms for power because they know they're on the way out.
  Just look up the amount of registered democrats vs. registered republicans in this country. IIRC there's like half again as many democrats.
  It's almost like the only reason republicans ever win elections right now is due to is voter suppression.
- Yeah, Millennial here as well. I was lucky enough to have been able to pay off my loans. But I'm still pissed at the decision.
I hope all americans pay attention. This was struck down due to the way it was implemented (under the "heroes act" as an "emergency) which reflects how broken the US political system is.
While the court is conservative this probably better reflects how broken the system is in Washington. It's arguable whether this is the courts fault or the dems for using something they knew might be struck down. The initial picture of this just being the courts fault is probably too simple - it is better seen through the prism of next year's elections and both sides posturing and scoring points.
It's helpful to the dems to have another unpopular court decision, but it's up for debate whether this is straight forward conservative court blocking the dems or the dems knowingly pushing something that would get struck down to help drive outrage, it a bit of both with the dems taking a gamble knowing they win either way. None of the scenarios reflects well on US democracy.
- It's helpful to the dems to have another unpopular court decision, but it's up for debate whether this is straight forward conservative court blocking the dems or the dems knowingly pushing something that would get struck down to help drive outrage
  Brain dead take.

Taxpayers spent over $1 Trillion on the PPP program, of which, $200 billion is thought to be fraudulent. Another case of only corporations get socialism in the US.

Already rich people get 1.7trillion in tax cuts: crickets
Former middle class Americans get 400bil one time payment: oh fuck no
- The sheer audacity and stupidity of the hypocrisy is staggering and enraging.
- Oh no, not crickets... More like exuberant enthusiasm.
- So you want to steal from other Americans that did not attend college or did attend college but not during the eligible period, because the corporations do it? You people are trash.
  If you live in the US you are rich compared to the rest of the world. You are already in the top 90% of global earners. Stfu. Move to a 3rd world country with what you have and live like a king.
That's not even all of the fraud, that's just the really obvious stuff - overseas scam artists inventing fake companies. Rich members of Congress getting PPP loans for their "businesses" and using the money to buy yachts doesn't seem to be counted.
- Surprised Pikachu face
“Capitalism on the way up, socialism on the way down”

What a garbage country.

Remember who did this when you vote in the next election.

Who did this, non elected lifetime appointments?
Thats who will do this, specially the supreme court of old out of touch oligarchs.
- Non-elected lifetime appointments who were all appointed by Republicans
  The shit rolled downhill, but I can see the person doing the shitting.
- The people we elected put them there for a reason. Still matters who you vote for.
- Who nominated and approved those appointments?
- Oh wow, your pedantic argument really swayed me!

Thats quite a precedent. The president doesnt have discretion about his own department of education. Thats a complete undermining of the entire executive branch if its no longer able to make decisions about the executive branch.

Well the executive branch is useless, unless you put in the ultimate cheat code of having R as your party initial. then you can do no wrong and use the hidden magical wand behind the nixon painting to do anything.
- unless you put in the ultimate cheat code of having R as your party initial.
  Sucks that Republicans are so hellbent on forming a christo-fascist authoritarian regime with the only goal being to pump money into corporations and the wealthy.
Major questions doctrine:
If a law is so broad that it brings about questions on how one should implement it, rather than asking Congress to fix it, SOCTUS gets to dictate what specifically the answer to the question is. But if Congress doesn't like that answer SCOTUS gives, Congress may pass a law being more specific. That is, the Court isn't indicating that the law, ruling, or order is unconstitutional, they are ruling that it is too broad in scope and that SCOTUS is "fixing it" for the time being. But Congress is openly invited to completely override anything they've said.
Now of course, "Major Questions" brings about the obvious. "What is the definition of too broad?" And of course there's all kinds of precedent on that as well and SCOTUS saying "well this is broad, but this isn't broad". Since the WV vs EPA (2022) case, SCOTUS Conservatives have gotten a bit more ..... (and it may shock those that I'm using this word) "liberal" in what they consider "broad". And the liberal justices are more than happy to point this out each and every time to the Conservatives:
It seems I was wrong. The current Court is textualist only when being so suits it. When that method would frustrate broader goals, special canons like the “major questions doctrine” magically appear as get-out-of-text-free cards.
— Justice Kagan (brutally assaulting and ripping the Conservatives' jugular while dissenting in WV v. EPA (cir. 2022))
So it looks like we're in for a whole lot of "quite a precedent" as the Conservative Justices look posed to whip out the Major Questions doctrine to be allowed to "double think". Major Questions isn't usually used this often and by golly the Conservative Justices seem posed to right that perceived wrong, apparently. And the Liberal Justices have indicated, it's not wise to over use this doctrine. The 6-3 bench isn't forever.
Eh, this was always on shaky legal grounds. Even Pelosi herself said last year that she didn't think the Executive had the authority to unilaterally do this, and as I understand, Biden was skeptical as well. It's a bit of a stretch to say that Congress intended to allow the President to unilaterally void student debt when they passed a measure to allow for adjustments during emergencies.
The ostensible textualists on the Court are certainly being a little hypocritical, but it's not an absurd ruling.
- It's at least got to completely parallel the executive branch's discretion with federal drug laws, that they've exercised in not prosecuting for federal marijuana violations. I feel like that's something to watch out for now.

Well... I'm not surprised. Disappointed, but not surprised. We all knew this Supreme Court was not in favour of its citizens. The Supreme Court should have been stacked long ago. Leaving it be with its insane appointments just because stacking it might start a war with the GOP was a short sighted move, as the GOP is always going to play underhanded (that's how they managed to get so many SCOTUS appointments in the first place). Biden's insistence on trying to play nice with the GOP has always been his weakness.

This really sucks for those with student loans who were depending on this. We're already in an economically rough place for the kinds of folks who would have student loans. Inflation has been sharp in recent years and wages have not kept up. In my field of tech, layoffs have been widespread and new grads would be the most severely impacted (they already struggle to get hired and now they're competing against an increased number of experienced people).

As an aside, it's also a shame that lawmakers have not managed to pass a law for this debt relief. My understanding is that the strike down is specifically because it's not a congress passed loan forgiveness. But congress isn't willing to do the right thing (not in enough numbers to pass a law, anyway).

Re: Congress, just to comment on the political reality, I think people often lose sight of the fact that only 53% of the country has a college degree, and of those that don't have degrees, you can probably guess their general political leanings. Congressional Republicans who are disproportionately representing people who didn't go and don't care about university education are unlikely to want to vote to further pay for the loans of people who are statistically going to go on to make significantly more money anyway, and their constituents certainly don't want them to.
I think there are decent economic arguments to make in favor of forgiveness, but the opposition isn't coming from nowhere. People without degrees are financially struggling as well, and the plight of tech workers isn't going to be very persuasive.
- Loan forgiveness would have helped a lot of people who didn't go to college. People who did not finish their degrees and parents who cosigned on loans were two big benefactors. The blatant hypocrisy of forgiving the PPP loans but then objecting to this forgiveness is what stings the most to me.
- What is this focus on tech workers? This program would have benefit 1 in 8 Americans. This isn't just tech workers.
- This isn't as much of a class thing as you think it is. Upper middle class and rich people with college degrees don't have student debt because their families paid for their college tuition. People from lower middle class and working class families have student debt.

I voted for Bernie in the primaries in 2016, then for Hillary when Bernie lost the primary. If Hillary was president when we replaced 3 Supreme Court justices, we would still have choice for abortion and student loan forgiveness.

Don't vote for Republicans, they don't care about women's rights, minorities, LGBTQ rights, worker rights, non Christians, and our democracy.

Too many people fffked up that decision and voted for the guy with the misogyny, racism and entitlement because his name was slathered on watches and ties.

Biden is apparently going to talk about this today.

I am sure they saw this coming and have a second punch lined up. Or at least I can hope….(19k in loans with Pell grants)

A wake up call to anyone who has student loans. The class war is here, and you're the latest casualty.

The likelihood of recession this fall/winter all but confirmed now. Get ready for defaults, defaults, defaults.

Looks like default is off the table until the election, but there is going to be a serious decline in optional spending. Get ready for more "Why is Millenials/Gen Z killing X industry?

Bullshit, the media has been saying there will be a recession any day now for years.
- Your argument against recession is that it hasn't happened yet?

God forbid we do anything to help people who aren't rich.

How in the unearthly flying fuck did the 6 Republican state governors have standing to sue on behalf of a private company that did NOT have the right to sue and had NO demonstrable harm?

Completely vacuous institution, the SCOTUS. They just make shit up at this point.

I'm against student loan forgiveness, but I agree. I don't understand how they have standing. This case should have been thrown out.

3rd World country wearing a Gucci belt lol

Gilded cow flop

I'm not surprised they struck it down, but I guess the jaded side of me is surprised they allowed him a different avenue to do the relief instead of making the whole concept illegal.

Also, there was talk from the Republicans about try to force everyone to pay back the interest we would have been paying this entire time. Somewhat surprised they didn't agree to that as well.

There's nothing formal stopping the SC from doing anything, but courts are generally limited to ruling on the controversy in front of them in as narrow a way as practically possible. I haven't read any analysis on this ruling, but just from the little I have seen, it looks like they ruled that the HEROES Act didn't grant the federal government the ability to forgive the loans in the way they were attempting.
Biden could try using an authority from a different law or creating a different set of rules by which the loans may be forgiven.
My non-lawyer prediction is that if Biden tries again, the SC will find a new reason to stop it and will make a bigger ruling that takes more power away from federal agencies to make decisions. They've already been doing this with environmental and health decisions, and I'm sure other agencies have been impacted too.

Biden's loan forgiveness would have disproportionally benefitted the wealthiest Americans and acted as a wealth transfer upwards.

If the problem is that higher education is not affordable, a one-time debt forgiveness does not solve the problem, and it seems a lot like, "I got mine," then pulling the ladder up. I'd much rather we make higher education free for everyone like they do in Germany, permanently solving the problem by making higher education accessible to every American.

Perfect is the enemy of good. As long as this country is run by a majority of conservative politicians from both parties we will never have free higher education. Hell, half the country doesn't want kids to have free education at any grade level.
- Hell, half the country doesn't want kids to have food when they go to school.
- Except this isn't even good, it's making the problem worse.
These two ideas you present aren't mutually exclusive. Thinking that they are is limiting.
Example: "Oh hey, yeah the current system is predatory and unfair. [Bam, loans forgiven.] Also, because of that injustice, we never want to put anyone into that position again [Bam, affordable higher education]." Do the rich get "more forgiveness" than the poor? Yeah, that's not really a problem if 100% == 100%.
I get that the rich people who pulled up the ladder after getting a cheap college education feel that loan forgiveness is cutting into their earning potential. But the needs of the rich do not and should not outweigh the needs of the many.
- I really don't think it's the rich that are driving a lot of the opposition to this. I'm originally from a very poor rural Missouri town where the vast majority of people don't go to college. As you can imagine, they're not huge fans of the idea of subsidizing loans for people who are statistically going to go on to make significantly more money than they are anyway.
- Also, because of that injustice, we never want to put anyone into that position again
  I have literally never seen anyone advocating for loan forgiveness advocating this. Ever. It's not even on the radar.
  This is pure self-centered greed dressed up as "fairness".
There's something very funny about ostensible progressives championing a blatantly regressive wealth transfer.
But I'm sure you know enough about online political discussions to know that this isn't the kind of realism that's going to be positively received.
You're talking about two different problems. But good job conflating the two if that was your intention. Which it seems it was.
- You're talking about two different problems. But good job conflating the two if that was your intention. Which it seems it was.
  @namelessprole Seems like the same problem to me: college isn't affordable.
  We can address this in a systemic and meaningful way by making it affordable for everyone going forward, or we can make it affordable for a select few people who chose to take on debt at this one specific time. One addresses the problem in a meaningful way, the other does not. Canceling debt seems like a political ploy to gain favor with those who have student debt and it seems to have worked, given the downvotes garnered by every comment that isn't pulling out pitchforks over this.
  On what basis do you claim these are different issues?

Vote!

So uhhh… if we all just don’t pay…. They can’t come after all of us, right?

If you owe the bank one thousand dollars, that's your problem. If you owe the bank a billion dollars, that's their problem.
- If a million people owe the bank a thousand dollars each, a million people have a problem.
Lol, oh honey...

When you start feeling hopeless about student loans not being forgiven, remember that PPP loans were all forgiven. PPP loans taken out by businesses and corporations. Domination is the point with all of the subhuman unwashed anuses leading this country. Never forget how they line their own pockets at our expense, and fight against us at every turn with the courts and all three branches of government. All of it has been weaponized against us and no longer serves us in any capacity.

With conservatives, the cruelty is always the point. Same applies here. SCOTUS is just enforcing death on the impoverished.

And yet we are somehow allowed to issue billions in forgivable loans to churches that don't pay taxes.

The Supreme Court is a fucking joke. Scratch that, this entire fucking country is a joke.

Just remember, voting is pointless, especially voting for democrats. They're just as bad as Republicans! Nothing will ever get better, you should just stay at home.
your local right wing psyops troll

They could've at least fed us dinner before we got fucked!

Why should people not have to pay back money they borrowed?

Yeah, when are they going to start clawing back all of those forgiven ppp loans?
- I, for one, am in favor of that too.
  Also, fund the IRS.
  Fuck all thieves of gov money from all generations. That's my taxes. Not your persobal piggy bank.
$ 2billion in crooked PPP loans.
$2.5 trillion in tax breaks for people who don't even need loans.
The Coast Guard activated for a soulless overfinanced sheisster that murdered four people with him in a device that people warned was a death trap and he FIRED them.
That's why.

Biden suspected this would happen, hence why he was previously doing student loan forgiveness in smaller increments. But people kept pushing him to do the entire thing and claiming that he was actively against students because he wasn't. No, he knew this happening was a high possibility.

And this case sets much bigger precedents than the specific subject, precedents in two areas.

The specific claim that the Secretary was "transforming" the law rather than tweaking things is asinine, especially since the HEROES Act was incredibly vague in the first place. So this sets precedent that any usage of a law outside of explicitly what it says (difficult to even determine when a bill is so vague) gives leverage to reverse any executive action in enacting the law. Which will just allow massive conservative obstructionism even more on everything.
The entire case having standing as it is. Why do 6 states have standing to sue on something done in regards to federal loans? The idea that states can sue on any federal issue now is concerning to the extreme.

Ouch. I am not looking forward to the economical impact of this.....

Sorry guys you have to do like the Boomers you don't like and be responsible and pay off your debt like the rest of us did.

I paid off my student loan debt and still want to see loan forgiveness. Why should people have to suffer just because I did? Straight up evil.
Baby boomers paid for college with a summer job, bought their houses with a $10k down payment and then pulled the ladder up behind them by voting to massively cut funding for education and foot students with the bill. And now boomers are being forgiven ppp loans too lmao.
Ok boomer, such a mystery why people don't like you. Entitled clueless pricks, given the world and then turn into the worst example ever of "got mine, fuck you!". Go to hell.
Ah yes, back when you were basically guaranteed a high-earning job out the uni door and could pay the loan back in just a few years of working. You mean that being responsible?
Or do you mean responsible as in when the middle-class wasn't being crushed to nothing, almost everyone could afford to buy a home, and a single breadwinner could reasonably provide for a family?
- Most boomers were able to pay for their college with part time/summer work.
What a horribly uneducated take. I guess there's a reason your education was 10 times cheaper than it is today.
This is a problem that boomers created.
We are just inheriting it while they all die.
- Government forgiveness also makes the problem worse for gen Z. But hey, fuck them, I want mine, right?
  Millennials are becoming what we hate and it's sad.
You dropped this "/s".
Wanting a government handout for rich people but refusing to call it a handout is the most boomer thing that millennials have ever done.

Welp, I'm fucked.

This shit is why I want OceanGate to pay for wasting the Coast Guard's time and resources.

Sorry guys you have to do like the Boomers you don't like and be responsible and pay off your debt like the rest of us did.

Just like the boomers, we too have affordable housing, living wages, affordable colleges...wait a second...
Hey look it's that thing where somebody says something on the internet so brick fucking stupid you can't tell if you're looking at an actual idiot or a parody of one.
- This sent me on an interesting thought tangent: if we were talking on Reddit or, like, Facebook where anybody with a pulse could register and start shitposting then the quandary you propose makes a ton of sense. But with Fediverse, there are certainly more hoops to jump through to get to a post like this and leave a comment, right?
  All of which is to ask if it's right to presume malice here rather than ignorance given the comparative barrier to entry? I vote malicious parody of one.
Boomers always say this shit, but Boomers could pay for school on a credit card. Their tuition was an 1/8th of what we pay, maybe less. My parents all went to school without even needing to take out a loan because school was so affordable
Boomers paying off a few thousand in debt to go to school is not the same as today's students who owe tens to hundreds of thousands in debt just to get an education.
Boomers who claim that because they paid off their measly loans then everyone else should have to are self-righteous pricks.
All this to say: fuck off boomer, your handout on a silver platter of a life shouldnt get to make decisions about ours
- Even if the costs were the same what the fuck line of asshole thinking in "I had to suffer, so you do too" what the fuck happened to people wanting better for the future generations?
Boomers have it easy, so of course. Seriously though, get off your high horse.
Did you have to deal with insane inflation? No.
Did you have to deal with extremely competitive job market that increasingly demand higher level of skill? No.
Did you have to deal with minimum wage that doesn't let people live decent life? No.
lol. hilarious.
Since I got a lot of downvotes, I'm assuming you all are younger than me :D
- How about assuming you have a bad take and reflect?
- Are you younger than the lower 50s? I'm not and downvoted you. You should be ashamed.
- Thanks for ruining the economy for younger generations

Where's Dark Brandon when we need him?

But some Democratic lawmakers and advocates aren't so sure. Reps. Ro Khanna and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have been among the Democrats who have publicly pushed Biden to extend the pause should the Supreme Court strike down the broad debt cancellation.
"Resuming student debt payments in the middle of an affordability crisis is unconscionable. President Biden needs to deliver on his promise to cancel student debt," Khanna wrote on Twitter.
Ocasio-Cortez previously said in an interview with Politico that it's "very important the administration has a plan that is an actual response in the event of" the Supreme Court overturning student-debt relief.

Now call me crazy, but isn't this something that the legislature would be empowered to do as well? I want to see the bills that these reps have put forth to address the issue.

Congress could forgive the loans too.

No free shit for you. You take on debt, you pay it back. Education is an investment and an investment carries risk. No tax payer should bail you out.

You better be saying that shit to all those businesses that got their PPP loans forgiven, otherwise kiss the blackest part of my ass.
yanno what? do that anyway. And get in a hole.
- I'm not the guy you responded to, but I for one am also saying that. No free gov money to any wealthy people. PPP loans, tax cuts for wealthy people, student loan forgiveness, it should all be scrapped/clawed back. Poor people need that money.
- "Well they stole from you so we should be able to steal from you too!"
  No.
We shouldn't be using tax money to scrape billionaires' remains out of stupidly constructed failsubs after days of worthless searching, too.
Rich people should just form their own private coast guard and pay for it themselves.
Also an investment BY DEFINITION is something assured of carrying a positive outcome down the road.
You're thinking of GAMBLING.
Don't even with your trying to muddy the waters between GAMBLING and INVESTMENT.