President Joe Biden has faced several legal challenges since trying to fulfill his campaign promise to cancel student loans, and legal and education experts tell the Daily Caller News Foundation that more problems are on the horizon. He said it could happen.
Although the Supreme Court struck down Biden’s previous student debt relief plan in June 2023, the president has since introduced a new way to wipe out loans through Savings for Valuable Education (SAVE). plan and a new program announced On April 8, two lawsuits were filed by Republican attorneys general against the SAVE plan. march Experts told DCNF that the plan is “of questionable legality” and stretches “the law far beyond its original meaning.” (Related: This is how Biden’s latest student loan giveaway will cost taxpayers)
“We essentially live under an executive dictatorship in which unelected bureaucrats have no right to regulate Americans and businesses in ways that Congress would never agree to. It extends legislation far beyond that, because unelected bureaucrats use large statutes to impose regulations that Congress wants.”The far left can never pass Congress. ,” Dr. Jonathan Piddlesny, director of the Higher Education Reform Initiative at the America First Institute for Policy Studies, told DCNF.
In 2022, the administration sought to advance loan forgiveness for approximately 40 million Americans through 2003 Heroes. activityThis would allow the Secretary of Education to “waive or modify” certain requirements for national emergency financial aid. However, the Supreme Court ruled in Biden v. Nebraska that the HEROES Act “provides that:[d] The Director’s plan does not have permission. ”
The Biden administration announced its SAVE plan just weeks after the court ruling, which would limit student loan repayments from 10% of current monthly income to 5% and also forgive $12,000 in debt after 10 years. became. The plan is currently at the center of two lawsuits filed by a total of 18 lawyers. generalOne was led by Kansas and the other by Missouri, which claims Biden is abusing executive power.
missouri’s lawsuit Biden said he was trying to “circumvent the Constitution” and “impose significant and costly policy changes on the American people without their consent.” The complaint also notes that Biden’s SAVE plan would cost “more than twice” as the previous plan before it was struck down by the courts.
“In fact, the President was in such a hurry to defy the Supreme Court that the federal government failed to update the final rule to take the Supreme Court’s decision into account,” the complaint says. “Not only does this rule never cite Biden v. Nebraska, but it is based on the mistaken assumption that the Supreme Court upheld the rule when, in fact, the Supreme Court ruled to the contrary. We are even conducting a cost-benefit analysis.”
Biden announced on Monday that he would “forgive unpaid interest for 23 million borrowers, cancel all student loans for more than 4 million borrowers, and provide at least $5,000 in debt relief to more than 10 million borrowers.” We have started additional administrative measures. ” according to Go to press release. The government relies on higher education lawwhich oversees federal higher education programs and helps provide financial aid to students.
Although the Biden v. Nebraska decision concerned a different law, Jack Fitzhenry, a legal researcher at the Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Law and Justice Research, told DCNF that the overall He said the “gist” was the same. The new plan could be applied as it moves through the court system.
U.S. President Joe Biden waves after speaking about student loan debt relief at Madison Regional Technical College in Madison, Wisconsin, April 8, 2024. (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP, Getty Images)
“I think the plans that are currently in place will be applied immediately,” Fitzhenry said. “While it is true that Biden v. Nebraska dealt with certain programs on a kind of unique legal basis, and that in itself does not preclude efforts that the administration is currently undertaking, I I think that’s certainly relevant.” I think the legal evaluation of these current efforts will probably be fatal to the legality of the administration’s current efforts. ”
Formal rules for the plan have not yet been released and require a public comment period, but Jim Blue, co-founder of the Institute for Freedom and Defense, said the attorneys general who are suing over the SAVE plan are “There is a possibility that he is doing something like this.” Grounds for Litigating the Latest Attempts.”
“We do not believe the Higher Education Act gives them the authority to do this,” Brew told DCNF. “While we believe this is an important issue that will be dropped, there is a step before we get to actual litigation, and that is for Congress to review and repeal the rules established by all agencies, including the executive branch and departments. It’s about having authority.” Education, release. Since Congress can consider it, there may not even be a need to file a lawsuit, as the hope is that Congress will repeal it. ”
If implemented, the president’s new debt relief program would cost taxpayers an estimated $84 billion more, on top of the $475 billion in student loan forgiveness the government is expected to provide over the next 10 years through the SAVE plan. It turns out. according to Follows the Penn-Wharton budget model. Legal issues aside, Brew explained that Biden’s push for these plans likely has something to do with his reelection efforts in November.
“He’s trying to appeal to student loan borrowers to say, ‘I’m in your corner, remember me in November,'” Brew told DCNF. “But we don’t know how the legal aspects will affect his political campaign.”
Fitzhenry told the DCNF that these efforts are part of a “broader pattern” of the administration pursuing “many executive actions,” even though many of them are “of dubious legality.” Told.
“We see some similarities in complaints about things like eviction moratoriums and vaccine mandates,” Fitzhenry said. “The government warned us from the time we were trying to do these things that they were probably illegal, but we decided to go ahead with them anyway. I think this has a similar general spirit. But I’m a little disappointed.”
The White House did not respond to DCNF’s request for comment.
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