Federal Judge Blocks Student Loan Forgiveness Program
(NewsReady.com) – President Joe Biden’s legislative program has taken another hit. Last Thursday, November 10, a federal judge struck down his controversial plan to forgive student debt. Biden imposed the plan in August by executive order; now, a judge has told him that “we are not ruled by an all-powerful executive with a pen and a phone.”
“In this country, we are not ruled by an all-powerful executive with a pen and a phone,” Pittman wrote in his order. “Instead, we are ruled by a Constitution that provides for three distinct and independent branches of government.” https://t.co/UnJ6q5Hxa0
— David Boaz (@David_Boaz) November 11, 2022
On August 24, Biden announced he planned to forgive up to $20,000 in student debt for each recipient, at an estimated total cost of $400 billion. Conservatives were furious, both at the cost and the suspicion Biden planned it as a bribe to win votes in the midterm elections. This might have worked, as on November 8, young voters turned out to vote for the Democrats in near-record numbers.
Several lawsuits opposing the move were quickly filed.
On October 21, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in St Louis, Missouri, put a temporary block on Biden’s plan after six red states, whose lawsuit against the debt forgiveness had been dismissed, appealed. Before that could be resolved, another case brought by the Job Creators Network Foundation, came before the US District Court in Fort Worth, Texas.
On November 2, District Judge Mark T Pittman, a Trump appointee, declared the policy unlawful and vacated it. He pointed out that the Constitution specifies three separate, independent branches of government — not an executive that can create new policies with the stroke of a pen.
The Biden Administration plans to appeal the ruling, but for now, it’s not accepting more applications for loan forgiveness. It seems as though Biden’s student loan giveaway is dead in the water just three days after the midterms.
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