Six Republican-led states sue Biden over debt cancellation plan
WASHINGTON - Top lawyers representing a half-dozen Republican-led states sued the Biden administration in federal court Thursday over its student loan forgiveness plan, seeking to block its expected implementation next month.
The states - Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas and South Carolina - jointly filed a 36-page complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, the second legal challenge this week against President Joe Biden's debt cancellation plan.
A lawyer who works for a conservative-learning law firm in Indiana has a complaint filed Tuesday by a lawyer who works for a conservative-learning law firm.
Attorneys general of the six states argue in the suit that the president's plan violates the separation of powers and a law that dictates how federal agencies can craft regulations. They predicted that it would financially harm them, saying, for example, that the mass debt cancellation would cost Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas and South Carolina tax revenue.
In addition to being unfair and economically unwise, the Mass Debt Cancellation of the Biden Administration is another example of a long line of unlawful regulatory actions, they wrote. No statute allows President Biden to relieve millions of people from their obligation to pay loans they voluntarily assumed. They pointed out that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., made remarks in 2021 in which she stated that the president didn't have the authority to authorize a mass cancellation of student debt without congressional action. When Biden announced the plan in late August, Pelosi applauded the move, calling it a big step in Democrats' fight to expand access to higher education and empower every American to reach fulfillment. The lawyers also questioned the Biden administration's reliance on a 2003 law as the justification for the president's unilateral action to wipe out debt for millions of people. The post-9-11 federal measure was intended to help military servicemembers by giving the education secretary power to waive certain rules related to student loan programs during wars or a national emergency.
The debt cancellation law was used by the Biden administration because officials suggested that the relief is needed to deal with the economic effects of the Covid epidemic.
When Congress passed the HEROES Act, it was inconceivable that Congress thought it was authorizing anything like the Administration s across-the- board debt cancellation, which will result in about half a trillion dollars or more losses to the federal treasury, the lawsuit said.
The lawyers also argued that the administration's justification is nonsensical, because Biden recently declared in a CBS News 60 Minutes interview that the pandemic was over.
The six states want the court to permanently prohibit implementation and enforcement of the president's plan. While Iowa's attorney general, Tom Miller, is a Democrat, the state is led by Republican Gov. In a statement to NBC News, White House assistant press secretary Abdullah Hasan said that Republican officials from these six states are standing with special interests, and fighting to stop relief for borrowers buried under mountains of debt. The President and his administration are rightfully giving working and middle class families breathing room as they recover from the flu and prepare to resume loan payments in January. Biden's plan allows borrowers who earn less than $125,000 a year, or $250,000 for couples who file taxes jointly, to be eligible for debt cancellation. Pell Grant recipients, who make up the majority of student loan recipients, will be eligible for additional $10,000 in debt relief, for a total of $20,000.
The Department of Education is expected to make an application to get the relief available to borrowers starting in October.