For the umpteenth time, the Biden administration has brazenly dreamed up yet another plan to bypass the Supreme Court and unilaterally cancel millions of student debts. Imagine the cries if Donald Trump had shown such indifference to the rule of law while sitting in the Oval Office.

The latest version of President Joe Biden’s Big Student Loan, courtesy of the American taxpayer, gives the Department of Education the authority to cancel unpaid obligations when “a hardship is likely to harm the borrower’s ability to repay the loan in full or to cover the costs of the loan. further recovery of the loan is unjustified.

Department officials told the New York Times that this “could include things like surprise medical bills, expensive child care or elder care costs, and financial losses due to a natural disaster.” No word on the cost of the plan – which would run into the hundreds of millions at a minimum – but taxpayers can be confident that the government will operate under a liberal definition of hardship.

The Times reports that the process could include an “overall assessment” of the candidate’s finances, whatever that means.
Republicans will certainly challenge the new rule – and, if history is to be believed, they will probably prevail. Last year, the Supreme Court rejected White House efforts to forgive billions in student debt, ruling that the executive branch lacked the authority to write laws. “The question here,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the 6-3 majority, “is not whether anything should be done; it’s who has the power to do it.

Since then, two federal courts have blocked subsequent administration efforts to change federal laws to benefit loan amnesty. In August, an appeals court panel ruled that Biden overstepped his authority with a proposed rule lowering payment caps. Last month, a federal court struck down a separate plan that waived accrued interest for 25 million borrowers.

As the Wall Street Journal puts it, “Courts are playing whack-a-mole with administration’s debt cancellations that shut down Congress, which has never authorized such broad debt forgiveness.”

All of this is particularly ironic given the progressive hysteria around a possible second Trump term and fears that he will ignore constitutional safeguards. Meanwhile, as the White House plans to ignore the nation’s highest court, Senate Democrats are considering ending the filibuster, packing the Supreme Court and bringing justices to their knees in making it harder for them to check Congress’s indifference to the Constitution.

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Las Vegas Review-Journal/Tribune News Service