“The hypocrisy is stunning.” Those words from President Joe Biden after his student loan forgiveness program was found unconstitutional were . . . well . . . stunning. Indeed, they may stand as the greatest example of transference in history.
Ever since President Biden first announced that he would unilaterally forgive roughly half a trillion dollars in student debt, many of us have noted that he lacked that authority under the Constitution. We were not alone: we had Joe Biden himself.
During the 2020 presidential election, Biden admitted that he needed congressional approval for such a massive loan forgiveness. Likewise, as cited in the opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) stated the obvious: “People think that the president of the United States has the power for debt forgiveness. He does not. He can postpone. He can delay. But he does not have that power. That has to be an act of Congress.”
The problem is that he could not get this measure through Congress and, despite his earlier acknowledgment of the obvious, Biden simply claimed that he could give away hundreds of billions of dollars without congressional authorization.
He is now crying hypocrisy when the Court said he was right all along.
Of course, denial is a common defense mechanism, the “unconscious forms of self-deception we use to avoid anxiety and emotional pain, or to ensure we are ‘acceptable’ to others.”
Transference is a common form of denial when a “fact is admitted to, but the person will deny their responsibility.”
However, in presidents, it is a costly habit.
From the outset, Biden’s use of the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students (HEROES) Act of 2003 was questioned by a wide array of observers given the clear intent before the Act. Congress passed this short piece of legislation to assist military personnel deployed abroad in combat zones. No one seriously argued that Congress ever intended or even contemplated such a massive debt forgiveness program under the Act.
However, necessity is the mother of invention and Biden knew that there was no way that he could get Congress to approve such an unprecedented give-away. Many Americans opposed the proposal. Many elected not to go to college but to get jobs. Others spent years paying off their debts.
Instead of turning to Congress, Biden turned to some of the same experts who have green lighted past unconstitutional programs. For example, the Biden Administration was found to have violated the Constitution in its imposition of a nationwide eviction moratorium through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The President admitted that his White House counsel and most legal experts told him that the move was unconstitutional. However, at the urging of then Speaker Pelosi, he called Harvard University Professor Laurence Tribe who assured him that he had the authority to act alone. It was, of course, then quickly found to be unconstitutional.
When Biden faced the prospect of having to negotiate with Congress over raising the debt ceiling, some of the same experts surfaced to assure him that he did not. In other words, he could skip negotiating the raising of the debt limit and unilaterally borrow and spend billions. It was a position that would effectively gut the power of the purse and literally lacked a single supporting case as precedent. Yet, Tribe and others insisted that he could ignore Congress and just start spending hundreds of billions of dollars.
Yet, the President enablers in his denial psychosis. When Biden faced his past view against unilateral loan forgiveness as well as the view of others (including a prior DOJ memo), he again broke the glass for emergency legal support.
Tribe and others like University of Texas law professor Stephen Vladeck assured the president or the public that the authority was clear and obvious. It was not even a close interpretive question.
President Biden has now lost again 6-3 before the Court.
Despite his own stated view that this would violate the Constitution, he chose politics over principle. Even the Washington Post said that the move was presumptively unconstitutional, but hoped that standing questions would prevent the Court from striking down the program.
Now that the Court has found that he has again violated the Constitution by refusing to go to Congress, Biden responded by declaring that he would take a “new path.” That path, of course, does not lead to Congress. The problem with Congress is that it requires a democratic vote and the majority oppose this program.
So Biden is turning to Plan B and will try to do the same circumvention through the Higher Education Act of 1965. That was the law rejected earlier in favor of the HEROES Act by the Administration. The law would not support this broad loan forgiveness effort. Even if successful, it would excuse only some of these loans and would take a long time in the rulemaking process.
There is no Plan B under the Constitution. Congress controls the power of the purse and the President cannot govern alone. In the end, the President may want to take a sec with Stuart Smalley and understand that “denial is not just a river in Africa.” The fact is that he was once “good enough and smart enough” . . . to go to Congress.
Alzheimer’s Joe has turned the presidency into a sinecure.
I heard doctors him 30 days? Putin’s warning today gives him 0 days but free creamation!
At one point, Biden claimed that he did get a vote from congress on the loan forgiveness. I don’t think he was lying. I think he was confused and forgetful.
Nothing can be more obvious. Old man Joe knew from the very beginning that the student debt forgiveness would never stand up to the scrutiny of the Supreme Court. He made the promise as a blatant attempt to get the vote of young people. Old man Joe was very successful in setting up the suckers once again. He sucked them in even after Nancy Pelosi told him it wouldn’t work. You can understand where old man Joe is coming from. He comes from a time when they would set up a voting booth at the state fair. Step right up kiddies. You can win a lot of money at the Three Card Monty both. It’s alright, with age you may be better at recognizing a scam when you see one. Maybe, maybe not.
The problem is far larger than the requirement for Congress to authorize the actions – though that is there.
The problem is that forgiving half a trillion dollars in student debt is both unconstitutional in multiple others ways, a massive moral hazard and an abysmally bad idea.
At what point does taxation violate the takings clause ? $1M ? $1B $1T ?
Can government confiscate all of our property and then redistribute it as it pleases ?
When does that become unconstitutional ?
Nor does the theft by government have to be through taxation.
We got a giant in your face economic lesson from our Covid spending. We spent $6T to subsidize the economy and nearly got double digit inflation.
We are still seeing 5% inflation hand have seen the price of everything go up by about 18% since Jan 2021.
Every dollar that Government spends one way or the other comes out of our pockets.
No where in the constitution was the federal government delegated power over education.
The department of education is unconstitutional, the federal loans programs are unconstitutional, and the loan forgiveness is unconstitutional.
Worse all are bad ideas.
When government makes maistakes – those stay with us forever. It takes decades – if ever to escape the harm from bad government programs.
When private actors make mistakes – they go bankrupt.
One of the more critical aspects of free markets is that bad ideas FAIL.
One of the reasons that we do NOT want Government running things is because bad ideas in government live forever.
Unfortunately, the student loan program didn’t help students. Within a few years time, Colleges and Universities increased their tuition by the amount it would have increased otherwise, plus the additional amount of the loans. Supply and Demand. So after the increase, the reaction was to increase the amount of the loans even more, and so up the tuition went even more. In general, the economically disadvantaged haven’t been helped by the program.
If you want to help people intent on higher education who lack funds, then schools like Harvard might want to look into some innovative measures. Part-time programs. Student work programs — not within the University itself, but businesses in the community. Being able to achieve a degree in non-consecutive years without your accumulated college credits expiring. But I doubt places like Harvard were ever all that interested in poor people. Making a buck seems to have trumped that. And so when it comes to student loans, they are all in.
Jonathan: So, what other important news did we miss this week with our obsession over all things Hunter Biden? I guess one of my favorite subjects. Donald Trump has insisted all along that he had a “standing order” that authorized him to declassify anything–just through his thought processes. Bloomberg News filed a FOIA lawsuit last August to see if they could find the “standing order”. After a diligent search at all relevant agencies, the government finally responded to Bloomberg that it “posses no records responsive to your request”. So it appears the “standing order” doesn’t exist–except perhaps in deep recesses of the “stable genius” mind of the Trumpster.
Finally, Brazilians know how to treat a former president who tried to mimic Donald Trump’s attempt coup. This week Brazil’s highest electoral court ruled that Jair Bolsonaro was barred from running for office again until 2030–after a panel of judges concluded Bolsonaro abused his power and made unfounded claims of fraud in the presidential election where Bolsonaro lost in a tight election to Lula da Silva. Bolsonaro claimed the electronic voting system was rigged by Dominion Voting Systems. Sound familiar?
In a mirror image of Jan. 6 and using Trump’s playbook, Bolsonaro urged his supporters to riot that ended with an assault on the Brazilian capitol at Brazilia on Jan. 8, 2021 to try to oust the new president. The attempted coup failed and hundreds of insurrectionists were arrested and have been prosecuted. Bolsonaro fled to S. Florida–hanging out with his best friend Donald Trump. Bolsonaro eventually returned to Brazil and is under investigation for crimes he instigated.
Brazil is Latin America’s largest democracy. It learned the bitter experience of brutal military rule from 1964 to 1985 and didn’t want that repeated by Bolsonaro. Perhaps, we should look to Brazil for how to treat wannabee dictators. Ban them from holding office. But our Constitution permits a former president to run for office–even if convicted of crimes. That is a problem we have yet to resolve.
Dennis: So, what other important news did we miss this week with our obsession over all things Donald Trump? Pot, meet kettle…
Biden please drop dead.
Remove taxpayer money from all levels of education
Democrat evil is beyond measuring. For Democrats, the Constitution, or for that matter, any law, is merely an inconvenience, an annoyance that cleverness can sidestep on the path to totalitarian socialism.
Biden is playing millennials like a fiddle. Sadly they fall for it every time cuz they are functionally adult-children, hoping somehow that someone will ‘save’ them. They love the idea of daddy/nanny govt, it’s so pathetic. So now they believe the mean SCOTUS took away their benefit that Joe gave them. Sure, there are some who aren’t dingbats but surely more than 50% of millennials are functionally ignorant about the real world, their heads being so filled with propaganda for so long. If they had any self-respect, they’d realize how Biden just played them. But they won’t. And don’t kid yourselves, Dem strategists laugh all the way to the bank over this kind of thing.
Next up, a zillion dollars for reparations! President Caligula with Dementia and his enablers are going to cynically promise reparations during the 2024 election.
The country is fast approaching insolvency. Debt and deficits cannot be increased ad infinitum. There is always a breaking point, as Greece and Cyprus discovered.
It’s popular to throw out “free money”, which is really taxpayer money, in order to woo votes. Few find austerity measures or fiscal responsibility alluring. Live within your means is unpopular.
Who’s going to turn down free stuff if they’re giving it away?
That method is flawed, and will eventually ruin the country. Austerity measures might become unavoidable. Perhaps with them, the country could claw its way back, until some Democrat comes riding in, saying, “Aren’t you tired of saving money? Here’s some free stuff! Those who cut spending don’t care about you like I do!”
“It’s the [law], stupid!”
– James Carville
______________
Never was America designed to be a one man, one vote “democracy.” Never, since inception in Greece, did democracy exist without relatively severe voting restrictions. Ben Franklin et al. gave Americans a restricted-vote republic “if you can keep it.” Filled with phantom guilt, the dastardly milquetoast Americans couldn’t. The vote in the U.S. began with severe State restrictions engendering merely an 11.6% turnout in 1788. In deed, the vote was never the salient American ingredient. The Constitution was. “Crazy Abe” Lincoln threw the baby out with the bathwater; he threw the Constitution out with reprehensible slavery. Rather, on January 1, 1863, Lincoln must have “thrown the bathwater out” and kept the baby. Those who may not have been “admitted to become a citizen” must have been compassionately repatriated, per extant immigration law, the Naturalization Act of 1802. That failure has proved to be the greatest American debacle leaving a foreign, 4-million-man, standing army on U.S. soil and creating the most prodigious national psychiatric guilt complex in human history which has cost innumerable trillions of dollars in “free stuff” and, without reason, rational basis or justification, twisted American society into a political pretzel.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Naturalization Acts of 1790, 1795, 1798 and 1802 (four iterations, they meant it)
United States Congress, “An act to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization,” March 26, 1790
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That any Alien being a free white person, who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for the term of two years, may be admitted to become a citizen thereof…
If you take a look at the several affirmative action opinions, it is clear that all the Supreme Court justices recognize and accept the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the Constitution and the circumstances surrounding the amendments being proposed and ratified.
Are you pointing out how the 13th amendment wasn’t adopted legally ?
Are you claiming the 13th Amendment WASN’T adapted legally?
Approaching insolvency? We flew past insolvency 20 years ago.
Karen S,
And it is getting worse.
We are also witnessing de-dollarization. The US dollar reserve currency status is on the decline. It was on the decline prior to the Biden admin but has dropped even faster as everyone from our enemies, our frienenemies and even our allies all see the weakness. Some are taking advantage of it. Others are just strengthening their positions. And some are trying to mitigate the mess if a total economic collapse occurs.
BRICS+: Now, there are 36 countries who have either applied for entry or have expressed interest in doing so.
In August, BRICS+ plans on announcing their own gold back currency.
What happens when countries need less and less US dollars to conduct international trade?
I do not know. But we are going to find out.
For college tuition to be publicly funded requires Congress. A President may not simply skip the entire legislative process and make it so.
If bricklayers are going to pay the tuition of medical students, then when they graduate, doctors should be public servants, assigned to duty stations, such as inner city hospitals. If taxpayers pay for education, they are owed the product. Doctors could be assigned to hospitals for a service period of, say, 10 years, to pay off that debt to the taxpayer. They will receive a modest salary, in exchange for no student loans. That could bring down the cost of medical care for the bricklayers who paid for that medical degree.
In countries that provide college tuition at taxpayer expense, graduates from secondary school take aptitude tests, which matches them with universities and degrees. Students can’t just pick whatever they like, and there are no fluff degrees. The government determines which degrees are useful, and who qualifies to study them.
You can’t expect taxpayers to pay for something and then have no say about how the money is used.
Plan B is already in place and has gone through the regulatory process. The new IDR plan, SAVE, will forgive significantly more debt than the 10-20k. In fact conservative estimates expect less than 50 cents of each dollar borrower will be repaid while also forgoing hundreds of billions of dollars in interest waived.
The Supreme Court will first eliminate abortion, affirmative action and student loan forgiveness, then the balance of the communist American welfare state including, but not limited to, grade-inflation affirmative action, employment affirmative action, quotas, welfare, food stamps, minimum wage, rent control, social services, forced busing, public housing, utility subsidies, WIC, SNAP, TANF, HAMP, HARP, TARP, HHS, HUD, EPA, Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Labor, Energy, Obamacare, Social Security, Social Security Disability, Social Security Supplemental Income, Medicare, Medicaid, “Fair Housing” laws, “Non-Discrimination” laws, etc.
Whatever you mentioned, you can bet it’s been unconstitutional since inception, and communism, in all its majestic glory, is unconstitutional.
America and Americans used to be free – free, free, free, free, free, in the days of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
The supreme court never eliminated abortion.. they simply declared Roe unconstitutional.. which it was.
Democrats don’t have a monopoly on breaking campaign promises, lying for politicians is like breathing. Lying, unlike gender identities, is on a spectrum, with most lies being benign.
The caliber of a Trump “lie” is “I’m the Greatest President of All Time!” Or “the size of my (fill in the blank) is the biggest anybody would ever think possible!”
A horde of deep, dark, and nasty lies are left in the wake of powerful Democrats from the Clintons, to the Bidens, and the remainder of Democrat Party leadership.
People paying attention and actually care about our great country know the list of lies committed by Democrats through the years. But the lies, smears, the downright nastiness towards Trump, and his supporters, is a red line crossed. The evil Democrats are trying to put President Donald Trump in prison for 100 years.
This outrage must not, and will not, be permitted to stand.
Lying in America is the pursuit of unconstitutional ends.
Abortion, affirmative action, student loans and loan forgiveness come to mind. The remainder of the unconstitutional, communist, welfare state, consisting of employment affirmative action, quotas, welfare, food stamps, minimum wage, rent control, social services, forced busing, public housing, utility subsidies, WIC, SNAP, TANF, HAMP, HARP, TARP, HHS, HUD, EPA, Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Labor, Energy, Obamacare, Social Security, Social Security Disability, Social Security Supplemental Income, Medicare, Medicaid, “Fair Housing” laws, “Non-Discrimination” laws, etc., comes in a very close second and awaits correction by the SCOTUS.
in a story entirely about SCOTUS and the unconstitutional student loan scam Biden tried to push through, this guy’s comment is “Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump.” talk about someone living rent free in your brain.
You have to admit Trump broke a lot of brains.
Otoh, Biden will pee down your back and tell you it’s raining.
Time for a change.
*Snowden for President 2024 ‘The Crown Jewels of National Security’
I have not heard one comment from the left on what happens next year if Biden does get the authority to forgive and waive student loans. Do next years freshmen class get a loan forgiven each year. What happens to students who rack up even more debt. This would NOT be a one time things and in the end would lead to a totally free education for anyone who wants to attend college at the taxpayers expense. Plumbers would be paying for doctors education to make 10 times what the plumber makes. Walmart employees would be paying for lawyers to get a Harvard Law degree to make 1000 times their income on personal injury cases.
This has to be stopped.
Democrats will remain silent because they belong to a cult with delusions of grandeur seeking to spread their woke ideology to the world as the new Religion. Democrats are neurotic narcissists, ignorant of history, ungrateful for living in the greatest country, at the best time in human history. It makes me sick to my stomach to watch these fools, who’ve accomplished nothing tangible, but have wrecked so much in their pursuit to fundamentally change the USA.
Rick. SCOTUS is the law! Nobody can over ride or change their rulings. There won’t be a vote next year!
Extreme left-wing supporters of the Democrat initiatives are going to be among the first ‘targets’ when the targeting migrates from using the legal/court system to resolve the delusion to bullets —- who owns over 75% of the guns in this country — NOT the Lawrence Tribe’s of the world……
I hope it doesn’t devolve into violence, but it appears violence is what Democrats want. Obviously, Democrats and RINOs seek chaos, both at home and abroad. Imagine what tens of thousands of military age men will do to the American people when the Biden regime decides to use mercenaries to enforce the World Economic Forum’s New World Order Agenda 2030, or whatever the freaks call their dystopian plans for humanity.
Be careful Richard there is a new bill in Massachusetts that will gut the second amendment rights of its citizens. I wish professor Turley would offer a posting on this. This is a serious power grab by liberal progressives.
More mischief will happen if Putin is permitted to live.
Putin, like all of us, die. Love him or hate him, Putin is more popular with Russians than Biden is with Americans. Putin loves his country, Biden hates America, and Americans.
Putin works for the interests of Russia, not for the interests of foreign entities, ask Hunter and Joe Biden what they did to earn millions from Ukraine, China, Russia, Romania, and more to come.
No, Putin is not our enemy, unfortunately, our enemy is within, the evil people are occupying positions of power throughout our government, our industries, media organizations, academia, philanthropic foundations, and non-governmental organizations are all colluding to obtain total control over our lives.
Samuel,
The question no one is asking is if and when Putin dies, who is his successor?
Who will likely replace Putin when he dies? If he’s overthrown, then the entity doing the over-throwing would pick the winners. In my view, if Putin dies in office, or decides to step down, he’d pick Dmitry Medved as his successor. Medved is only 59, he’s played key roles in Putin’s government since 2005, and they seem to share worldviews.
Perhaps but more likely Putin has earned many enemies within his own circle, which is why he keeps them at a distance, and the near coup that recently took place has likely fueled the appetite of those who desire a regime change, e.g.
Khrushchev ➡️ Brezhnev ➡️ Andropov ➡️ Chernenko ➡️ Gorbachev ➡️ Perestroika
Alexander Yakovlev was the godfather of glasnost so it follows, who is stepping into the breach?
As it is Russian isnt a threat to anyone but themselves given their economy is in shambles and their neighbor Ukraine has humiliated them albeit with our monies.
China is the number 1 threat to the world. With the Biden canines being on the short leash of the CCP, and the MSM feeding at the Biden dog excrement, we are vulnerable in the worst way, e.g. China and Cuba relations
The denial of reality and the creation of irrational delusions to substitute for reality are elements of the mental illness we call psychosis. Biden is not only old, senile, and incompetent, he is mentally ill. In his Harvard opinion, Justice Thomas said Justice Brown Jackson was delusional and irrational. Wow! In his recent WSJ essay, editorial writer Barton Swaim used delusion and denial and similar medical terminology to detail the many social, economic, and political issues about which the far-left wing of the Democrat party is irrational and exhibits psychotic behavior. Biden is not alone. There are millions like him. It is delightful to see the issues of the day being described by the medical terminology which correctly applies and the evidence which supports their use. Perhaps we readers soon will see in the WSJ an honest and truthful description of the three Biblical religions using reason and these scientific terms and demanding the bishops and rabbis writing in “Houses of Worship” to answer the question: “How do you know that?”
Wow, I finally figured out what the three branches of government are. Blackrock, Raytheon and the pharmasydical industry. A government by for and of lobbyist.