546US1
Unit: $U13
[08-22-08 15:36:16] PAGES PGT: OPIN
Cite as: 546 U. S. 142 (2005)
145
Opinion of the Court
ment of various student loans, including the loans at issue here, § 1091a(a)(2)(D). The Higher Education Technical Amendments, by their terms, did not make Social Security benefits subject to off set; these were still protected by the Social Security Act’s anti-attachment rule. Only in 1996 did the Debt Collection Improvement Act—in amending and recodifying the Debt Collection Act—provide that, “[n]otwithstanding any other provision of law (including [§ 407] . . . ),” with a limited ex ception not relevant here, “all payment due an individual under . . . the Social Security Act . . . shall be subject to offset under this section.” 31 U. S. C. § 3716(c)(3)(A)(i). II The Government does not contend that the “notwithstand ing” clauses in both the Higher Education Technical Amend ments and the Debt Collection Improvement Act trump the Social Security Act’s express-reference provision. Cf. Mar cello v. Bonds, 349 U. S. 302, 310 (1955) (“Exemptions from the terms of the . . . Act are not lightly to be presumed in view of the statement . . . that modifications must be ex press[.] But . . . [u]nless we are to require the Congress to employ magical passwords in order to effectuate an exemp tion from the . . . Act, we must hold that the present statute expressly supersedes the . . . provisions of that Act”); Great Northern R. Co. v. United States, 208 U. S. 452, 465 (1908). We need not decide the effect of express-reference provi sions such as § 407(b) to resolve this case. Because the Debt Collection Improvement Act clearly makes Social Security benefits subject to offset, it provides exactly the sort of ex press reference that the Social Security Act says is necessary to supersede the anti-attachment provision. It is clear that the Higher Education Technical Amend ments remove the 10-year limit that would otherwise bar offsetting petitioner’s Social Security benefits to pay off his student loan debt. Petitioner argues that Congress could
