UNBIASED Politics
UNBIASED Politics (2/20/25): Social Security Checks for 300-Year-Olds? PLUS $5K DOGE Dividend Checks, Trump's IVF, Agency Accountability, and COVID Vaccine Orders, and More.
Thu, 20 Feb 2025
Get the facts, without the spin. UNBIASED offers a clear, impartial recap of US news, including politics, elections, legal news, and more. Hosted by lawyer Jordan Berman, each episode provides a recap of current political events plus breakdowns of complex concepts—like constitutional rights, recent Supreme Court rulings, and new legislation—in an easy-to-understand way. No personal opinions, just the facts you need to stay informed on the daily news that matters. If you miss how journalism used to be, you're in the right place. In today's episode: Appeals Court Expands Ban on Biden's SAVE Student Loan Forgiveness/Repayment Plan (0:07) What's Going on With the Egg Shortage? Did the Biden Administration Really Direct the Killing of 100M Chickens? (6:21) Judge Rejects States' Attempt to Block DOGE From Accessing Government Departments; Here's What We Know About Musk's Role in DOGE (9:40) Victim’s Family Files Form 95 Against Government After DC Plane Crash (16:42) Trump Administration Revokes Authority for NYC Congestion Pricing Plan (19:06) President Trump Signs More Executive Orders (IVF, Vaccine Mandates, Agency Accountability, and More); Here's What They Say (22:29) Quick Hitters: Sen. McConnell Won't Seek Re-Election, Kash Patel Confirmed, Overdose Deaths Drop (34:50) Rumor Has It: Is the Government Sending Out $5K DOGE Dividends? Are There Really Millions of Dead People Receiving Social Security Checks? (35:42) Listen/Watch this episode AD-FREE on Patreon. Watch this episode on YouTube. Follow Jordan on Instagram and TikTok. All sources for this episode can be found here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
What is the SAVE Student Loan Forgiveness Plan and why is it controversial?
Welcome back to Unbiased, your favorite source of unbiased news and legal analysis. Welcome back to Unbiased Politics. Today is Thursday, February 20th. Let's talk about some news, starting off with this new court ruling out of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, which upholds and actually expands an existing ban on former President Biden's SAVE plan.
so there are actually a few things i want to address here i of course want to tell you why the court ruled the way that it did but i also want to talk about why we're still seeing these loan forgiveness cases in the courts because i know a lot of people get confused at the fact that the supreme court already struck down one of biden's loan forgiveness plans in 2023 yet here we are still seeing these loan forgiveness plans being implemented and challenged in the courts so we'll clear that up as well but first i want to talk about what the save plan is
The SAVE plan is also called, or it is called, I should say, the Saving on a Valuable Education plan. And it is an income-driven repayment plan that the Biden administration introduced in an attempt to make student loan repayment more affordable. Income-driven, meaning your monthly student loan payment is based on your income.
Under SAVE, payments for undergraduate loans were capped at 5% of discretionary income, and this was a significant reduction from the 10% previously required. Furthermore, and this is the part that matters most, borrowers with smaller loan balances, so balances $12,000 or less, were eligible to have their loans completely forgiven after 10 years of payments.
And then for each $1,000 above that, there was an extra year added. So if you had $13,000 in loans, you were eligible for forgiveness after 11 years of payments, $14,000 in loans eligible for forgiveness after 12 years of payments, so on and so forth.
The SAVE plan also included other features like preventing unpaid interest from accumulating, a higher income exemption, and a provision allowing married borrowers who file taxes separately to exclude their spouse's income from payment calculations. So following the enactment of the SAVE plan, seven states sued the administration.
Missouri, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, North Dakota, Ohio, and Oklahoma. And the states argued, among other things, that the administration had exceeded its authority in implementing save because they argued the secretary of education does not have the authority to actually forgive loans through an income driven repayment plan. The secretary can help make repayment easier.
But the secretary can't forgive completely. So upon filing that lawsuit, the states asked for what's called a temporary injunction, which would stop the administration from being able to implement the SAVE plan while the lawsuit was pending. The district court, which is the lowest court in the system, granted that request in part. The district court basically said,
We're going to put on pause the loan forgiveness feature of the plan, but the administration can still implement the other features like the reduced payment threshold and the bar on interest accrual. From there, both parties actually appeal to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.
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