REQUEST: Dear Mr. Armstrong: I am trying to discharge student loan in the bankruptcy court, and it is very tough battle. I am in the situation that it is all out war with the U.S. Department of Education. I have been reading your blog for more than a year now and found that we have common grounds. I agree that we have to make the student loan dischargeable again in the bankruptcy court. I humbly and respectfully request for your help to promote my petition to the White House that We the people should ask the Congress to repeal 11 USC § 523(a)(8), which the statute states that “unless excepting such [student loan] debt from discharge under this paragraph would impose an undue hardship on the debtor and the debtor’s dependents.” This is the petition I created recently: You now have 30 days to get 99,999 signatures in order for your petition to be reviewed by the White House. Until your petition has 150 signatures, it will only be available from the following URL and will not be publicly viewable on the Open Petitions section of We the People:
REPLY: I will sign your petition. I would point out that this was pay-back from the Clintons to the bankers. The logic was that a student has no collateral, so eliminate bankruptcy protection. The Clintons agreed. Then the bankers still wanted parents to cosign. Thus, this was the greatest fraud that the Democrats pulled off to help the bankers and eliminate bankruptcy protection for even the parents.
Bankruptcy in the United States is governed under the US Constitution (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 4) which authorizes Congress to enact “uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States.” To exclude students violate the Due Process clause and Equal Protection Clause. Supreme Court case of Allgeyer v. Louisiana in 1897, the Court came to the conclusion that the Due Process Clause in the Fourteenth Amendment extended to private contracts as well, allowing such liberties as “freedom of contract” to be enforced without the implementation of various social and economic regulations passed by Federal and State governments.
This is discrimination for the government should NOT be allowed to discriminate also against a class of people, not just race or creed. All the students whose teachers allow them to cut class and protest against Trump for his immigration ban for 120 days, would never allow their students to do the same on this issue for schools will not have it so easy if they have to compete for students and provide degrees that are worth something. Forbes Magazine reported that 60% of students cannot find a job in what they paid for.
Therefore, the education system also violates consumer fraud statutes. The definition is: Deceptive practices that result in financial or other losses for consumers in the course of seemingly legitimate business transactions.
I believe there are many grounds to challenge this, but it takes time to get to the Supreme Court, probably 5 years at best. Your petition is a good way to start. It is a shame that these protesters against Trump are so ignorant of the real issues than a 120 ban on immigration.