PAST PELOSI IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS: Pelosi Does Complete 180 as Biden WH Reveals Where Debt Relief ‘Authority’ Purportedly Comes From.
From the Tuesday memo:
For the past year and a half, the Office of General Counsel (“OGC”), in consultation with our colleagues at the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel, has conducted a review of the Secretary’s legal authority to cancel student debt on a categorical basis. This review has included assessing the analysis outlined in a publicly disseminated January 2021 memorandum signed by a former Principal Deputy General Counsel. As detailed below, we have determined that the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students (“HEROES”) Act of 2003 grants the Secretary authority that could be used to effectuate a program of targeted loan cancellation directed at addressing the financial harms of the COVID-19 pandemic. We have thus determined that the January 2021 memorandum was substantively incorrect in its conclusions.
[…]
The HEROES Act, first enacted in the wake of the September 11 attacks, provides the Secretary broad authority to grant relief from student loan requirements during specific periods (a war, other military operation, or national emergency, such as the present COVID-19 pandemic) and for specific purposes (including to address the financial harms of such a war, other military operation, or emergency). The Secretary of Education has used this authority, under both this and every prior administration since the Act’s passage, to provide relief to borrowers in connection with a war, other military operation, or national emergency, including the ongoing moratorium on student loan payments and interest.
Isn’t it just amazing how they managed to override themselves on the legality of such a move just in time for Biden’s announcement? It’s like this power just magically appeared out of thin air – and conveniently just in time for the November midterms.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who said in April 2021 that Biden didn’t have the power to forgive student loans, has also done a convenient 180:
PELOSI IN APRIL: "People think that the President of the United States has the power for debt forgiveness. He does not."
PELOSI TODAY: Biden's move to cancel student debt "is a strong step in Democrats' fight to expand access to higher education." pic.twitter.com/zr3PRKHjk5
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) August 24, 2022
Given that for over a century, the Democrats’ organizing principle has been the Moral Equivalent of War, the connection between 9/11, COVID and stiffing the taxpayers for student debt it must have seemed logical in President Klain’s mind. In any case, as Iowahawk tweets, “Thank god we’re finally addressing the plight of America’s most disadvantaged community, Harvard Law graduates.”