Count me among those who believed from the outset that Joe Biden’s ridiculous “logic” for issuing an executive order “forgiving” student loan debt — redistributing $500 billion in contractual debt from those who legally promised to pay it back to American taxpayers who didn’t — was unconstitutional on its face.
Sure enough, as reported by Fox News, the Biden administration struck back with an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court after a federal judge in Texas struck down the student loan handout last week, ruling in a case brought by the Job Creators Network Foundation that the scheme was indeed unconstitutional.
The suit argued that the plaintiffs were denied due process under the Administrative Procedure Act to object to the move during a comment period. U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman wrote, on Nov. 10:
Whether the Program constitutes good public policy is not the role of this Court to determine. Still, no one can plausibly deny that it is either one of the largest delegations of legislative power to the executive branch, or one of the largest exercises of legislative power without congressional authority in the history of the United States.
Bingo.
Moreover, given that Democrats were widely expected to get shellacked in the midterms — they didn’t, but the GOP did squeak out a slim majority to take control of the House — the timing of Biden’s edict was suspect from the beginning. Was it merely a ploy used to play to Democrat voters, knowing it would fail in the courts? Or did he honestly believe he could pull it off? Dunno, but either way, it was politics at its worst.
In addition to the administration’s emergency Supreme Court filing, the Justice Department is also asking SCOTUS to block the aforementioned ruling in Texas, as well as a similar ruling in Missouri that Biden’s scam is unconstitutional. As noted by Fox, the DOJ laughably claimed halting the program could put Americans in financial difficulties, as student loan payments are expected to resume in January after the COVID-related grace period ends.
Really? As Fox News reported earlier this month, most student loan handout recipients — 73 percent —planned to spend the extra cash on dining out and travel.
Nonetheless, the Biden administration said in a claim appeal letter:
This Court should vacate, or at minimum narrow, the injunction pending appeal entered by the court of appeals. If, however, the Court declines to vacate the injunction, it may wish to construe this application as a petition for a writ of certiorari before judgment, grant the petition, and set this case for expedited briefing and argument this Term.
The Bottom Line
While the Democrats’ unchallengeable ability to ram radical policy after radical policy down the throats of tens of millions of Americans at a time has effectively been neutered, 80-year-old (come Sunday) and increasingly confused Joe Biden continues to sit in the White House, controlled by far-left handlers he has shown zero interest in challenging over the last two years — for the next two years. Or not, given that Democrat movers and shakers want Biden to skedaddle yesterday, if not sooner.
The 2024 presidential election, regardless of whether Biden is the Democrat nominee or not, remains the most important election of at least the 21 century. You know the rest: let’s not screw it up.
