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Comment by ryandrake | Hacker News Reader

Wonder if they'd weigh in differently on PPP loan forgiveness. I have a feeling we'll be filing a lot of SCOTUS news stories in the next decade or so into the "tragic, but unsurprising" drawer.

EDIT: Yes, bad example, given the replies. The fact that PPP was written into law as a deliberate wealth transfer is what's "tragic, but unsurprising" not what a theoretical SCOTUS opinion on it would be. I'm wrong. I guess if people were smart, they would have taken out a PPP loan to pay off their student loans!

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PPP forgiveness was pretty much there in Congress's law wasn't it? Didn't require stretching the bounds of executive authority to do it.

Source: https://www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/2021-01/PPP%20--%20I...

Even if you grant that student loan forgiveness is a good thing, it is not necessarily the case that the ends justify the means.

Didn't the law that created the PPP program have explicit language to forgive the loans if certain conditions were met?

FWIW, while I completely understand the argument, PPP loans are different animal. For one, they were designed from get to to be a massive giveway, which meant that they had 'forgiveness' clauses built in. Student loans explicitly do not. I am saying this as a 'loser' in this case.

I am not suggesting I should be subsidized ( I will be fine, but I am not sure I am a common scenario ). I am saying that I am annoyed that we are throwing money at a lot, but when there is even a suggestion that not-well-to-do are helped, it is immediately thrown out. But you want to throw money at Ukraine? No problem. Money at farmers? No problem. Money at chips to reshore? No problem. Money at corps to relocate and fake build stuff? No problem.

Remove some of the burden from students? Whoa whoa whoa.

> but when there is even a suggestion that not-well-to-do are helped, it is immediately thrown out.

So the "not-well-to-do" people who would have lost their jobs due to government actions without the PPP loans aren't "not-well-to-do" people? Isn't that precisely one of the reasons why the PPP loans were done, to save the jobs of at least some "not-well-to-do" people?

> Remove some of the burden from students? Whoa whoa whoa.

You mean like putting loans on hold so interest is no longer accruing?

> Remove some of the burden from students? Whoa whoa whoa.

Yeah, this is a little disappointing...it's an investment in your own people.

I can't really complain. The government is already very generous with grants and scholarships. Student loans gave me access to money I never would have seen otherwise, and with lenient repayment terms.

Loan relief really would help all the people who shot their feet off going to for-profit colleges though; those debts should be relieved-- and the institutions dissolved.

Yes. This is Congress's fault.

My strong guess is that Biden was reluctant to try this route, and may have figured if it worked, great, if it didn't, people would blame the conservatives on the court.

But I blame Congress. They could have included such relief in their legislation.

PPP was vacuously legal since it was introduced in… a law.

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