Machiavellian said:
I am going to break these two topics up as then can be long.
Who says the Biden administration does not have backup plans. You are suggesting they present those plans now, giving GOP a chance to challenge those plans or find some defense against them. I am saying there is absolutely no reason to present anything until you get the SC ruling. If the SC rule in your favor, you do nothing. If they rule against you, you know which plan to go with. Anything before the ruling does not advance your position and wasting a lot of time and resources on things that will not work doesn't help as well.
I am finding hard to see what you call a threat an actual threat. How are any of those threats going to change the GOP from trying to prevent Student Loan forgiveness. There are 6 lawsuits still pending not just this one. There is no threat Biden has that affect GOP reps. GOP reps care nothing about Dem voters and unless their own constituents put pressure on them, then they can easily ignore it. All the GOP will do is wait for your more radical plan and then get some conservative judge like they did in Texas to throw a monkey wrench on it.
Lets take your alternative plan. If the SC rules against the current plan and its because some people get 10K while others get 20. Why even come out with a change until after that ruling. Once you get them to set the limits and terms, then you know exactly what to do next. If you offer your alternative plans now, it could get wrapped up in the SC ruling and then you have no options. Let them rule first and then decide your next move instead of giving up information that does not really change the landscape or your position at this time.
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We know Biden doesn't have a backup plan because of his released forbearance policy.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/22/biden-administration-will-extend-student-loan-debt-repayment-holiday-to-june-reports-say.html
"The pause will be extended until 60 days after the Biden administration is allowed to implement its student loan forgiveness plan and litigation is resolved, according to a press release by the U.S. Department of Education. If it can’t proceed with its policy and the legal challenges are still unfolding by June 30, 2023, student loan payments will restart 60 days after that."
Why would they remove all of the leverage they have by ending the forbearance? The whole point of extending the forbearance is 1. people haven't recovered from the pandemic and 2. it can be used as leverage to get something done on student loan forgiveness because repayments affect the federal budget. Ending the forbearance by June 30th or 60 days after a decision is made tells us that there is nothing really more that the Biden administration is going to do here.
Legal challenges have to have some basis in the law. The risk is that by republicans and conservative judges accepting challenges on erroneous grounds (like it is a violation of the Equal Protections clause for some people to get $10,000 forgiveness and others $20,000) then you structure the decision in a way that makes it more difficult for their challenge to stand, but also is less ideologically kind to their judicial movement (now everybody gets $20,000 instead of only some.) You keep doing this with each erroneous challenge until the decision is far more progressive and far less challengeable -- meaning by opposing the original decision the GOP made the end result worse (in their view) and it creates a disincentive to do it again in other scenarios.
As an example, the threat of Obergefell going the way of Roe led to the Respect for Marriage Act, which codified the nationally recognized status of gay and interracial marriage.
This creates consequences for conservative efforts to disingenuously challenge certain laws or executive decisions.
The whole purpose of explaining what you'll do next is to make it clear that you're willing to escalate the fight. Again, this is how the New Deal and Great Society were implemented. When challenged in the court you use the bully pulpit in combination with malicious compliance to get what want done.
If Biden wants to be the next FDR or Johnson then he needs to pull from their playbooks.
Last edited by sc94597 - on 03 December 2022