Tag: student loans

Recent Supreme Court rulings

rogue court

I wanted to write about recent Supreme Court rulings, some of which I found both disturbing and frankly baffling.  Baffling because the justification for taking up at least some of the cases at all were specious. The words weren’t coming, so I have purloined others.
Arthur noted the case that “involved a fundamentalist ‘christian’ web designer who thought one day she might like to create wedding websites, but her religious views compelled her to refuse to create a website for a same-gender couple, in the event she ever started providing such services, of course, and if a theoretical same-gender couple ever tried to hire her services. While the supposed ‘injury’ to her was entirely hypothetical, she sued the State of Colorado, anyway—well, the ultra-far-right ‘Alliance Defending [sic] Freedom [lol]’ sued on her behalf.
Worse, “it emerged that, allegedly, someone named ‘Stewart’ had contacted her through her website’s contact form to try to hire her web services for his marriage to his ‘husband’. The problem was, the whole thing was faked by someone…. He also had no idea his name and details had been used in a Supreme Court case.” The guy, I’ve read, is mortified by this.
And lower courts had passed on the case, but the Supremes took it on. 
The ruling allows for violations of well-established public accommodation laws. Specifically, advocates in Massachusetts and elsewhere fear the effect of the  ruling. Will some business owners have the right not to serve customers based on personal or religious beliefs? 
See also the People for the American Way (PFAW) analysis.
Student loan forgiveness
This piece by the new Civil Rights Movement (NCRM) suggests that CJ John Roberts was intellectually dishonest in his opinion. In her dissent, Elana Kagan said as much. “From the first page to the last, today’s opinion departs from the demands of judicial restraint. At the behest of a party that has suffered no injury, the majority decides a contested public policy issue properly belonging to the politically accountable branches and the people they represent.”
Teresa M. Hanafin addresses some of the questions Boston Globe readers s have asked. “Many of those folks, relieved of that debt, would have helped give the already robust economy a boost: They’d have been able to buy houses, pay down other debt, start small businesses, rely less on other social service programs. It even helps with their mental health.
“Asking why today’s students should get debt relief when yesterday’s students didn’t is a question that could be asked about any social program. Do you think that elders nearing the end of their lives when Social Security was introduced in 1935 demanded that it be squashed because it hadn’t been enacted when they were 65? Should we stop giving food stamps to single mothers simply because most of us don’t need them? 
“I’m sorry, but that question is so typically American: If I can’t have it, then neither can you. Oddly, conservatives have that attitude only when it comes to poor and marginalized people; they’re fine with social welfare benefits such as tax cuts for wealthy households and corporations and subsidies for fossil fuel companies…”
See also this PFAW piece.
College Affirmative Action
From PFAW: “Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a powerful dissent, joined by Kagan and Jackson. As she has in the past, she pointed out that the far-right justices’ assumptions around race are not based on reality: “

[T]he Court cements a superficial rule of colorblindness as a constitutional principle in an endemically segregated society where race has always mattered and continues to matter. 

From Common CauseCommon Cause: ‘With Let-Them-Eat-Cake Obliviousness,’ Supreme Court Ends Affirmative Action for Colleges. “Sotomayor wrote that ‘the court subverts the constitutional guarantee of equal protection by further entrenching racial inequality in education, the very foundation of our democratic government and pluralistic society.'”
Some interesting responses have emerged. lawsuit Uses SCOTUS Affirmative Action Ruling to Go After Legacy Admissions. “’Harvard’s practice of giving a leg-up to the children of wealthy donors and alumni…must end,’ said one advocate.” 
Another fix: With End of Affirmative Action, a Push for a New Tool: Adversity Scores
The broader issue
The Weekly Sift covers these cases but also the broader context of a court bent on  overturning precedent, disrespecting lower courts, and ahistoric rules of interpretation.
Arthur: “The court’s far-right Republican majority is doing the one thing that Republicans have long pretended was an unpardonable sin: They’re legislating from the bench.” 
Vanity Fair also has taken the wider view: America Has a Supreme Court Problem. “Hillary Clinton tried warning us. Now, what do you do with a rogue Court?”  In other words, she told you so.
“A year ago, in their joint Dobbs dissent, justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and former justiceStephen Breyer wrote that the ruling ‘breaches a core rule-of-law principle, designed to promote constancy in the law…. It places in jeopardy other rights, from contraception to same-sex intimacy and marriage. And finally, it undermines the Court’s legitimacy.’” 
Did anyone REALLY believe the anti-abortion activists would leave the issue to the states? At least some Republican candidates are looking for a federal restriction. 
From NCRM:Well-known political expert, author, journalist, and CEO David Rothkopf is blasting conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court after their disastrous rulings…, warning the Court is now a ‘threat to democracy’ and suggesting some justices should be ‘considered’ for impeachment.”  Specifically, Justices Alito and Thomas. 
The “conservative” response
I’m always monitoring some of the rightwing media.  The Daily Signal wrote a piece called To Gain Power, the Left Seeks to Destroy the Supreme Court, which I shan’t link to. The piece bashes Pelosi, the Squad (AOC, et al.).
It seems, in a linked Tweet to suggest that there WASN’T a  “stolen Supreme Court seat.” Obama wasn’t allowed by the Senate to replace  Antonin Scalia (d. Feb 13, 2016) but djt could replace RBG (d. Sept 18, 2020).
Perhaps off-topic, or maybe not:  “Do you remember America?”

The rich are not like you and me. They’re rich.

The yacht buyers in New York state got a tax break.

povertykids2

The few who understand the system, will either be so interested in its profits, or so dependent on its favors that there will be no opposition from that class, while on the other hand, the great body of people, mentally incapable of comprehending the tremendous advantages… will bear its burden without complaint, and perhaps without suspecting that the system is inimical to their best interests. — Rothschild Brothers of London communiqué to associates in New York June 25, 1863

Is it me, or has the blatant disregard for the lesser people economically in the society, to the advantage of the well-to-do, become more painfully obvious of late? Of course, it’s been around a long while in the United States; I’ve seen the Gilded Age mansions. But in recent decades, income inequality is not just on the rise, but in full gallop mode.

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) was on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on April 9, 2015. Among the topics she talked about was the inability of our federal government to lower the interest on student loans – the outstanding debt jumped to $1.3 trillion in 2014 from $1.2 trillion, an increase of $100 billion in one year – because the Republicans blocked it, citing that the Congressional Budget Office does not use “fair-value accounting” to measure risk. But for reasons she explains, this is a bogus argument.

Moreover, if the crushing burden of student loans were lifted, these people could be buying houses, and other goods and services, stimulating the economy. Meanwhile, the financial industry is getting loans at or close to ZERO percent interest, so they’re doing just fine on even a modest return on investment.

Lots of examples of the double-standard of making the poor prove they’re worthy of government benefits, such as Kansas getting ready to prevent welfare recipients from going to swimming pools and the movies.

SamuraiFrog wrote this recently: “It goes like this: you don’t get a say in how other people live their lives. You just don’t. Even if it involves your precious tax dollars and the (on average) $36 a year of it that goes to food stamps. You have no problem with the $870 a year you pay for corporate tax subsidies, but the thought of a poor person being able to buy a steak or a cupcake fills you with rage? Ridiculous.”

Interestingly, the best example of the absurdity of this attitude, well dubbed as scapegoat economics, comes from The Onion, a parody site that tells a great truth.

Here’s the thing: being poor sucks. The payday loans, higher interest rates, the immobility to get to work. I was working on a reference question recently, and I recognized that those rent-to-own places are toxic, where the poor can pay $4,150 for a $1,500 sofa. Moreover, because of depressed wages, there are plenty of folks who are working but need public assistance anyway.

Meanwhile, the yacht buyers in New York state got a tax break in the budget just passed at the end of March 2015, because, as state Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos noted, “Blah blah blah trickle-down blah blah.” Indeed, the rich get government handouts just like the poor. Talk about your entitlement programs.

Congressional Republicans find the need to try to end the estate tax, which affects the heirs of the top 0.2 percent.

So what to do about it? I want/need to ponder on that. Probably will write another blog post, sooner rather than later.

Meanwhile, this has been running through my head: Money Make The World Go Round from the movie Cabaret (1972).

Happy Income Tax day?

Arthur writes about Hillary Clinton entering the race for President (no surprise), and dealing with Big Money.

The IRS — A Love Song. John Oliver. And Michael Bolton.

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