President Biden’s Student Loan Forgiveness Plan Blocked By Supreme Court
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The U.S. Supreme Court blocked President Joe Biden’s Studen Loan Forgiveness Plan on Friday (June 30), The Hill reports. Biden planned to nullify $430 billion in student loans, potentially benefitting up to 43 million Americans and honoring one of his campaign promises. According to Reuters, 26 million borrowers applied for relief after Biden announced the program in 2022.
However, the Supreme Court, which favors six conservative-leaning states, defeated him in a 6-3 ruling. These states included Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and South Carolina.
Biden, who often stated that his plan was a “modification” of an existing program, spoke out against the court’s decision. “This fight is not over,” he sternly said. “Nearly 90 percent of the relief from our plan would have gone to borrowers making less than $75,000 a year, and none of it would have gone to people making more than $125,000. It would have been life-changing for millions of Americans and their families. And it would have been good for economic growth, both in the short and long term.”
Persis Yu, a deputy executive director at Student Borrower Protection Center, also spoke out against the Supreme Court’s decision to block Biden’s plan, calling the move a betrayal. “Today’s decision is an absolute betrayal to 40 million student loan borrowers counting on an impartial court to decide their financial future based upon the established rule of law.”
This morning, the Supreme Court demolished the possibility of financial freedom for 43 million Americans.
Republicans have consistently tried to block student loan relief from their constituents while they sit back and have their business loans forgiven. ?— Congressman Jamaal Bowman (@RepBowman) June 30, 2023
Student loan payments were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic. But, now that the forgiveness plan has been derailed, payments will resume after August 2023, with most payments now due in October 2023, NBC reports.
Chief Justice John Roberts criticized Biden and his administration for suggesting that his student loan forgiveness was simply a “modification.”
“The secretary’s plan has ‘modified’ the cited provisions only in the same sense that the French Revolution ‘modified’ the status of the French nobility — it has abolished them and supplanted them with a new regime entirely,” Roberts noted, referring to Miguel Cardona, the U.S. Secretary of Education. “From a few narrowly delineated situations specified by Congress, the secretary has expanded forgiveness to nearly every borrower in the country.”
Despite the Supreme Court move, President Biden isn’t giving up on his Student Loan Forgiveness Plan. Reuters reports that Biden is gearing up to reveal a new plan for student loan borrowers.
This disappointing and cruel student debt ruling shows the callousness of the MAGA Republican-controlled Supreme Court.
The fight will not end here.
The Biden administration has remaining legal routes to provide broad-based student debt cancellation.— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) June 30, 2023
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