{UAH} GOING AFTER ALLAN BARIGYE THE FORUM BULY WITH HARD FACTS ->We will not attack his family but self with facts ->Part forty seven

Supreme Court strikes down Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan

By David Propper and

 

Samuel Chamberlain

June 30, 2023 10:39am 

The Supreme Court struck down President Biden’s program writing off hundreds of billions of dollars in federally held student loan debt Friday, ruling that the commander-in-chief had overstepped his executive authority.

On the last day before the high court’s summer recess, the six conservative justices ruled the $400 billion plan could not use a 2003 law meant to help veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars as a vehicle to implement the program.

Instead, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority, the law allows the Education Department to only “waive or modify” existing programs implemented under the federal Education Act of 1965, not “rewrite that statute from the ground up.”

“The question here is not whether something should be done; it is who has the authority to do it,” the chief justice added. “So too here, where the Secretary of Education claims the authority, on his own, to release 43 million borrowers from their obligations to repay $430 billion in student loans. The Secretary has never previously claimed powers of this magnitude”.

Roberts added that the administration had fallen short of demonstrating that it had “‘clear congressional authorization’ to justify the challenged program.”

People rally in support of the Biden administration’s student debt relief plan in front of the the US Supreme Court on February 28, 2023, in Washington, DC.Getty Images

Biden’s plan, announced in August 2022, would have written off up to $10,000 in federal student debt for Americans earning under $125,000 and households making under $250,000. Up to $20,000 would have been forgiven to recipients of Pell Grants. At the time the case was argued, in late February, the White House said 26 million people had applied to have their school debt forgiven, with 16 million approved. 

In a statement, Biden said he would address the nation later Friday afternoon and vowed: “This fight is not over.”

“I believe that the Court’s decision to strike down our student debt relief plan is wrong,” the president said. “But I will stop at nothing to find other ways to deliver relief to hard-working middle-class families. My Administration will continue to work to bring the promise of higher education to every American.”

The successful case against the bailout was brought by six Republican-led states: Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and South Carolina.

The court also heard a case brought by two borrowers who did not qualify for the program’s full benefits.

Their case was unanimously rejected by the justices, who found the pair lacked standing. 

Republicans said Biden’s plan amounted to a bailout of upper-class, college-educated Americans — a key Democratic constituency — on the backs of blue-collar taxpayers. 

President Biden delivers remarks about the student loan forgiveness program from an auditorium on the White House campus in Washington, October 17, 2022.REUTERS

The White House argued it had the power to unilaterally enact the program under the two decade-old Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students (HEROES) Act, claiming the student loan cancellation was a modification of an existing benefit, not new legislation.

The HEROES Act was passed to help US service members financially while fighting in Afghanistan or Iraq. The law was later widened to give the Department of Education the ability to alter terms of other federal student loans during national emergencies.

Even though two national emergencies tied to COVID-19 ended on May 11 and Biden himself declared the pandemic “over” in a September 2022 interview, the White House argued to the Supreme Court that the economic consequences of the pandemic will linger, making the forgiveness necessary.

Activists and students protest in front of the Supreme Court earlier this year.AFP via Getty Images

One of the states bringing the case — Missouri — had argued canceling the debt would deprive the state of revenue through its Higher Education Loan Authority, while the other states claimed the plan would provide a “windfall” to the borrowers that would make them better off than before the pandemic.

In the majority opinion, Roberts answered questions of whether the states had standing to bring the case by writing: “[W]e have concluded that an instrumentality created by Missouri, governed by Missouri, and answerable to Missouri is indeed part of Missouri; that the words ‘waive or modify’ do not mean ‘completely rewrite’; and that our precedent— old and new—requires that Congress speak clearly before a Department Secretary can unilaterally alter large sections of the American economy.”

Justice Elena Kagan, dissenting with the court’s two other liberals, wrote that the majority “overrides the combined judgment of the Legislative and Executive Branches, with the consequence of eliminating loan forgiveness for 43 million Americans.” Kagan read a summary of her dissent in court, a rare step to emphasize her disagreement.

Roberts also added a conciliatory coda to his opinion, writing: “Reasonable minds may disagree with our analysis—in fact, at least three do. We do not mistake this plainly heartfelt disagreement for disparagement. It is important that the public not be misled either. Any such misperception would be harmful to this institution and our country.”

Meanwhile, repayments on federal student loans will resume as scheduled Oct. 1, although interest will begin accruing in September, the Education Department has announced. Payments have been on hold since the onset of COVID in March 2020.

The loan handout is the latest pandemic initiative by the Biden administration to falter before the Supreme Court, joining an eviction moratorium that had been imposed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a plan requiring workers at big companies to be vaccinated or undergo regular testing and wear a mask on the job.

The Supreme Court’s ruling comes a day after it ruled 6-3 that colleges and universities could not factor in an applicant’s race to determine admissions.  

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