This isn’t spending per se; rather it is increasing costs. Any increase in spending happens in the course of existing programs, such as handing out more loans once students respond to the incentives.
On top of this, the federal financial structure is a unique and horrifying house of cards. Their accounting methods are actually unique to them, and sometimes vary by department or agency; auditing is difficult and inconsistent; much of it is seemingly designed to obfuscate, though in a change-the-standards-by-committee-to-make-us-look-less-bad way rather than an intelligence/defense sort of way.
Since most of what the President is doing is changing how existing programs and agencies operate, these maneuvers would be difficult to challenge. If any particular move is challenged, it can almost certainly be accomplished in a different way on firmer authority grounds. Meanwhile, someone has to bear the publicity burden of trying to ensure student debt never goes down to push the case all the way to the Supreme Court, which is a long and expensive task.
All of this assuming the Supreme Court would even hear such a case. This is one of those things that is difficult to bring before them due to the rules about standing, which is to say whether there is anyone suitable to bring the suit. The simplified version is that the person who sues has to have been harmed; but how to establish the harm to a person from someone else having debt forgiven or restructured?
Yeah, you’d have to prove that the costs are somehow shifted. That’s not at all clear. A dollar in accounts receivable is something of a legal fiction. It exists on a probability distribution according to how likely it is that the debt is going to be collected. Before credit cards, it was standard practice for businesses to “age” their AR over the course of months, ultimately writing off the most intractable debts. In many ways, that’s all that’s going on here. Credit cards are simply a way for businesses to sell their AR (at a modest discount). Interest rates partially offset this, but only to a point. If $200,000 isn’t collectable neither is $2,000,000 - interest theater, if you will.
This isn’t spending per se; rather it is increasing costs. Any increase in spending happens in the course of existing programs, such as handing out more loans once students respond to the incentives.
On top of this, the federal financial structure is a unique and horrifying house of cards. Their accounting methods are actually unique to them, and sometimes vary by department or agency; auditing is difficult and inconsistent; much of it is seemingly designed to obfuscate, though in a change-the-standards-by-committee-to-make-us-look-less-bad way rather than an intelligence/defense sort of way.
Since most of what the President is doing is changing how existing programs and agencies operate, these maneuvers would be difficult to challenge. If any particular move is challenged, it can almost certainly be accomplished in a different way on firmer authority grounds. Meanwhile, someone has to bear the publicity burden of trying to ensure student debt never goes down to push the case all the way to the Supreme Court, which is a long and expensive task.
All of this assuming the Supreme Court would even hear such a case. This is one of those things that is difficult to bring before them due to the rules about standing, which is to say whether there is anyone suitable to bring the suit. The simplified version is that the person who sues has to have been harmed; but how to establish the harm to a person from someone else having debt forgiven or restructured?
Yeah, you’d have to prove that the costs are somehow shifted. That’s not at all clear. A dollar in accounts receivable is something of a legal fiction. It exists on a probability distribution according to how likely it is that the debt is going to be collected. Before credit cards, it was standard practice for businesses to “age” their AR over the course of months, ultimately writing off the most intractable debts. In many ways, that’s all that’s going on here. Credit cards are simply a way for businesses to sell their AR (at a modest discount). Interest rates partially offset this, but only to a point. If $200,000 isn’t collectable neither is $2,000,000 - interest theater, if you will.