Joe Biden did not ignore/defy the Supreme Court re: Student Loans

This retarded talking point is making the rounds again and a specific thread is needed for reference purposes. It's also a good discussion to educate people who clearly don't understand the role of the judiciary in analyzing executive functions, so kills 2 birds with one stone to hopefully kill a lot of ignorance being posted constantly right now in response to the various court rulings on Trump's executive actions so far.

SCOTUS Blog

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When the Biden administration announced the program in August 2022, student-loan repayments had already been on hold for over two years. Betsy DeVos, who served as the secretary of education during the Trump administration, suspended both repayments and the accrual of interest on federal student loans at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. She relied on the HEROES Act, a law passed in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks that gives the secretary of education the power to respond to a national emergency by “waiv[ing] or modify[ing] any statutory or regulatory provision” governing the student-loan programs so that borrowers are not worse off financially because of the emergency.

President Joe Biden’s decision to permanently cancel up to $20,000 in loans for borrowers who qualify would have fulfilled a pledge that he made during his 2020 run for president. But after federal courts in Missouri and Texas put the program on hold last year, the Biden administration came to the Supreme Court, asking the justices to weigh in.

The challengers – six states with Republican attorneys general and two individuals with student loans — had urged the justices to strike down the debt-relief plan, arguing that it does not comply with the HEROES Act and other federal laws. But before the court could reach that question, it had to determine whether any of the challengers had a legal right to sue, known as standing.

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Presidents have two types of authority; (1) Specific authority granted by the Constitution and (2) Authority granted to the executive by Congress to administer the laws passed by Congress (statutory authority).

In the example above, Biden tried to use the executive authority granted to the President via Congress's HEROES Act, so this is an example of statutory authority. Basically, Biden attempted to engage in executive action that was outside of the authority granted to him by Congress, specifically the HEROES Act. This order was not a general ruling on "forgiving student loans" (as is reported in certain partisan echo chambers) , and was exclusively about the authority given to the President via this specific statute.

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“The question here,” Roberts countered, “is not whether something should be done; it is who has the authority to do it.” On this point, Roberts invoked the “major questions” doctrine, which is the idea that if Congress wants to give an administrative agency the power to make decisions of vast economic or political significance, it must say so clearly. But in this case, Roberts said, the HEROES Act did not authorize the debt-relief program at all, much less clearly.

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Biden announces student debt relief for 150,000 borrowers, bringing total helped to more than 5M

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The Biden administration announced Monday it was forgiving student loans for more than 150,000 borrowers, bringing the total number of individuals impacted by debt relief in President Biden’s term to over 5 million.

The 150,000 new borrowers are made up of 85,000 individuals who were defrauded by their schools, 61,000 people with permanent or total disabilities and 6,100 public service workers.

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The record amount of student debt relief by any president was made possible due to a number of changes the administration made to the Borrower Defense program and the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program to make it easier for borrowers in these categories to receive forgiveness.

Under PSLF, more than 1 million borrowers have received relief, compared to only 7,000 before the start of the Biden administration.

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Again, this SL forgiveness was also via statutory authority, however it was via a completely different act of Congress (From 2007) that was specifically passed to forgive certain types of student loans. A lot of these loans were forgiven just due to time and Biden wasn't even directly involved (It takes 10 years, so the first group eligible were towards the end of the Trump admin, which is also why the point in the article about the differences in admis is partisan and silly).

Now, did the Biden admin engage in some executive action pursuant to their statutory authority under PSLF? Yes. Why was this legal? Well some of them are being challenged, but he was given the clear authority for some executive actions by Congress when they passed PSLF, to administer to program itself. Trump also had this power when he was President when the first borrowers became eligible, and he has the power again under his 2nd term. Trump's admin engaging in executive action under PSLF would also be lawful, clearly.

So Biden's admin acting under a completely different statute, engaging in the specific statutory authority given to his executive, has nothing to do with the unlawful attempts by the Biden admin under the HEROES Act. This is why Biden did not violate or ignore the Supreme Court's ruling.

This is the type of idiotic talking point that needs to die and I'm shocked people still parrot this silliness. Hopefully this thread clears it up for those being given bad information by echo chamber content creators who are either dumb or being intentionally deceptive for nefarious reasons.