I admit that I am just an old white guy who lives in Flyover Country--and a cisgendered old white guy at that. Nevertheless, I don't get the Democrats' obsession with impeaching President Trump. Congressman Schiff wants to impeach Trump over a phone call? What's that about?
I hate to be the one to break it to you, Adam, but impeachment is never going to happen. Nancy Pelosi will never call for a vote on the matter, and the Senate will never impeach the President. The 2020 election is only 12 months away--12 months! Why don't the Democrats focus on nominating a reasonable candidate who can defeat Trump in 2020?
On the other hand, Trump's Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos, is eminently impeachable and should be impeached. I've commented on her outrageously incompetent management of the federal student-loan program on several occasions. DeVos simply refuses to administer the government's various student-loan forgiveness programs in a competent manner. She's screwed up the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program and the Borrower Defense program, and her agency opposes bankruptcy relief for distressed student-loan debtors--no matter how desperate a debtor's circumstances.
And now she has been held in contempt by a federal judge for defying a court order. U.S. Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim ruled that DeVos and DOE violated Judge Kim's preliminary injunction to stop collecting on student loans owed by students who attended Corinthian Colleges, a defunct for-profit college.
Judge Kim was actually pretty steamed about DOE's intransigence. At one point, the Judge said, "I'm not sending anyone to jail yet, but it's good to know I have that ability."
The unlawful collection activities were actually carried out by DOE's contracted student-loan servicers, not DOE itself. But DOE is responsible for the servicers' actions. Mark Brown, a senior DOE official, acknowledged a screw-up. "Although these actions were not done with ill intent," Brown said, "students and parents were affected and we take full responsibility for that."
If the Democrats were smarter, they would focus their impeachment energy on DeVos, not President Trump. An impeachment inquiry could speed ahead with full compliance with due process. There would be no need to hold secret hearings in the basement of the Capitol. DeVos' malfeasance is adequately documented by competent evidence, including several adverse court rulings against DeVos and DOE. And I predict that some Republicans in both the House and the Senate would support impeachment once the facts of her maladministration were brought to light.
And impeaching DeVos would publicize to every beaten-down student-loan debtor that the Trump administration doesn't care about them. President Trump's total indifference to the student-loan train wreck could be exploited by the Democratic candidates who are calling for student-loan forgiveness.
But the Democrats' aren't interested in doing something sensible. Like Captain Ahab chasing the great white whale in Moby Dick, they scour the oceans of bureaucratic nonsense looking for some way to impeach President Trump. And Trump, like Moby Dick, may wind up putting a great big hole in the Democrats' boat.
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In some respects, all struggles over onerous debt come down to a power struggle between lenders and borrowers. Not all borrowers are are angels, and not all lenders are devils.
ReplyDeleteBut at some point, they confront one another. Betsy DeVos is a clear representative of the student loan creditors and the for-profit colleges who depend on student loans.
Removing her will not help us unless we get someone new who stands for debtors. Based on what happened under Obama, we need about 12 years of Democratic control to make progress on student loans.