Biden administration continues to push student loan debt forgiveness with biased regulatory panel
By Michael Brickman
October 25, 2023 06:00 AM
It is no secret that the Biden administration is steadfast in its determination to forgive as many student loans as possible, no matter what the law says.
This summer, the Supreme Court reminded President Joe Biden that he must follow the law, stating, “The basic and consequential trade-offs' inherent in a mass debt cancellation program ‘are ones that Congress would likely have intended for itself.’” The legislative branch has also explicitly rejected forgiveness through bipartisan votes.
But just hours after the court’s ruling, Biden directed his Department of Education to ignore Congress and the Supreme Court and forgive the loans anyway. Now we have learned that he is stacking the relevant negotiating panel with loan forgiveness advocates, even though similar rulemakings under both Democratic and Republican administrations have aimed for a degree of ideological diversity.
Unlike other federal rulemaking processes, the Department of Education’s rulemakings on higher education topics require a process known as “ negotiated rulemaking .” While the department gets to select the members of the negotiating panel, this process has historically involved career civil servants and had an eye toward broad representation to demonstrate that the process is fair and inclusive of groups likely to be affected by the regulation in question.
We will get a better sense of the true ideological makeup of the panel when it convenes this fall. However, an early look at whom the Biden team selected already calls into question whether the administration’s legally mandated “negotiation” is a foregone conclusion.
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https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/fairness-justice/biden-administration-continues-push-student-debt-forgiveness-biased-regulatory-panel
