#shorts On 6/30/2023, a reporter asked, “So the Department of Education has pre-approved 16 million people for the forgiveness program. Was that meant to put political pressure on the court? Because you knew that this was going through the court process. You didn’t have a decision yet. And were government resources then wasted on this?
MR. RAMAMURTI: No, I think we explained to borrowers what the process is going to be … The court, unfortunately — the lower court in this case — stepped in before we could actually take that final step and actually discharge debt for approved borrowers. But —
Reporter: But you took — you took those approvals when the court process was happening. You didn’t have an answer.
MR. RAMAMURTI: Right, but we didn’t know what — that the court was going to enjoin us from actually doing debt relief. That was still an open question at the time. We had an obligation to borrowers to keep moving with the process as long as we legally could.
On 6/30/2023, the Supreme Court put the final nail in the coffin and invalidated Biden’s student loan bailout program. Joe Biden unilaterally announced a massive forgiveness of student loans last August to buy the Gen Z-Millennial vote in the 2022 midterms. Biden canceled over $400 billion in student loans which turns out to be up to $10,000 in student debt for borrowers who earn $125,000 a year or less and up to $20,000 for recipients of Pell Grants. Six Republican state attorneys general sued Joe Biden and argued the student loan bailout violates the separation of powers. Separately, two borrowers who did not qualify for Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan (Department of Education v Brown) sued to stop the program. The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Biden v Nebraska that Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness was unlawful. The 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals in November extended a block on Joe Biden’s student loan bailout plan. The DOJ then asked the Supreme Court to lift the 8th Circuit Court’s block, which they refused to do. The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that Joe Biden overstepped his authority.
other clips of this published longer video is here: https://youtu.be/s0eW7Mxu5B8
Q: pre-approved 16M people meant put political pressure on the court, wasted resources? A: we didn’t know