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On Tuesday, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Biden v. Nebraska and U.S. Department of Education v. Brown, examining whether President Joe Biden has the power to cancel $430 billion in federal student loan debt. Spoiler alert: he doesn’t.
The president made a spending that constitutes one of the largest in American history. The law also makes clear that there is no legally significant distinction between waiving government payments and actively using state money. The Constitution’s Appropriations Clause stipulates that “no money may be withdrawn from the Treasury as a result of expenditures made by law.”
In other words, Congress has the power of the wallet. As described in a Counsel Brief submitted to the Court by 11 professionals with extensive federal experience, including a retired Court of Appeals Judge and two former Attorneys General, “the power of the wallet” is the central and most important constitutional power that is exclusively reserved, allowing it to monitor and control virtually all federal government activities.”
This principle of separation of powers dates back to the struggles in which parliament sought to deprive the king of power in his purse as a check for tyranny.
Supreme Court to Hear GOP State Challenges to Pandemic-Related Biden Student Loan Relief Plan
In 2020, Congress authorized a suspension of student loan payments for several months in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. But since then, it has not been able to pass legislation that broadly forgives student loan debt. In the last Congress alone, more than 80 bills dealing with loan repayment and forgiveness were introduced, but none of them passed. In 2021, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi expressed the leadership’s broad view that the president does not have “debt forgiveness powers.”
Regardless, Biden sought a pretext for unilateral debt forgiveness and turned to the HEROES Act for that purpose. This is a law passed to help members of the military following the September 11, 2003 terrorist attacks. Provisions in the law dealt with those directly affected by “war or other military operations or national emergencies.”
In an intellectually honest view of the context, the term “national emergency” is meant to help those burdened by military deployment. Having borrowers shows how Biden’s interpretation seeks to “hide elephants in rat holes,” which the Supreme Court has repeatedly warned against.
Superimposed on his flimsy statutory pretext is Biden’s utter arbitrariness in recognizing the existence of an emergency. The president declared the pandemic “over” in a television interview and called for loan forgiveness, but at the same time the administration said the pandemic was no longer an emergency of sufficient scope to continue immigration restrictions, known as Title 42 orders. I don’t think so.
Biden’s unilateral encroachment on wallet power must be stopped to prevent a major attack on the separation of powers. Fortunately, the Supreme Court has in the past recognized and suspended this regime’s grip on power. In Alabama Association of Realtors v. Department of Health and Human Services (2021), the Court held that the administration’s nationwide eviction moratorium was not supported by law, and in National Federation of Independent Business v. Department of Labor (2022). We’ve reached the Supreme Court. The same conclusion applies to the extensive vaccination and testing requirements imposed by OSHA.
In both cases, the administration has cited the pandemic as an excuse to downplay the laws that bind it. In this case, pitching the court’s arguments shouldn’t be any more successful.
Although it is difficult to predict which issues will be of most interest to judges’ oral arguments, the Secretary General argues in favor of the government that parties challenging loan cancellations have no legitimacy. There is a possibility. Standing is a legal doctrine that limits who can sue someone who can prove they have suffered a particular harm.
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The Attorney General is fighting an uphill battle that shows both parties lack ground. Both appeals to the court include cases held by lower courts to be valid. In Biden v. Nebraska, six state challenges were filed, and the Eighth Circuit ruled that the administration’s plans could cause significant financial harm to state-controlled loan servicers in Missouri, As a result, he pointed out that it could cause financial damage to the state. The U.S. Department of Education v. Brown case involved individuals with outstanding loans, one of whom was ineligible for relief under the government’s plans because the loans were withheld commercially. , because one of her no longer receives a Pell grant.
Still, the president’s actions are widely perceived by those who believe the rule of law to be a blatant violation of constitutional constraints, so it can be inferred that the administration will exert the greatest pressure on current concerns.
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