The Patriot Post® · Biden Student Loan Boondoggle Dragged to Court
$400-$600 billion. That is the estimated range of how much it would cost to erase 27% of outstanding student loan debt plus the moratorium on paying that debt. Half a trillion dollars is more money than our minds can comprehend, and all of it would be an added burden on American taxpayers. But a brave soul named Frank Garrison decided to file a lawsuit against Joe Biden’s unconstitutional boondoggle.
Garrison was joined by other private citizens and six states — Missouri, Nebraska, Arkansas, South Carolina, Kansas, and Iowa. This legal action prompted the Biden administration to greatly reduce the number of Americans who would be eligible for debt forgiveness.
The Biden administration was making noises about formally starting to enforce the student loan debt cancellation starting in early October. Since this executive order overreach was coming to fruition, the opposition needed to act quickly and with authority.
One of the biggest (and most valid) complaints about the student loan debt forgiveness scheme is that President Biden simply doesn’t have the authority under the Constitution to cancel student debt. It is not within his presidential purview. This executive order expropriates power from the rightful branch of government: Congress. (That’s assuming it’s within even Congress’s authority to spend money this way — a big assumption.) Citizens such as Garrison also state that this policy will lead directly to personal financial harm because of the way his repayment plan is structured. The “forgiveness” will also cost him $1,000 more in state taxes. Join the club.
As for the states that have filed against this executive order, they also claim that these actions will cause harm. According to The Wall Street Journal: “Two of the states involved in the lawsuit — Missouri and Arkansas — have state-established student loan processing programs that service student debt. The states claim their loan entities, which generate revenue from administering loans or from interest payments, would suffer financially because of the debt cancellation program. The other states cited the potential impact on their tax revenues.”
Over a year ago, Biden declared that student loan forgiveness was not possible; it was out of his power to grant such favors. Then Democrats thought they found a loophole that Biden and his team used to justify this student debt cancellation: the HEROES Act. This 2003 piece of legislation grants the secretary of education authority to grant student loan relief in times of extreme circumstances such as war — or, as the Biden administration is justifying it, COVID-19. This is interesting because a damning piece of evidence against the debt forgiveness boondoggle is the president’s own words. Biden himself recently said, “The pandemic is over.” If the pandemic is over, then how can this expenditure be justified?
It will be interesting to see how this story continues to develop, but now it is up to the courts. If private citizens and the states can champion their case — even all the way to the Supreme Court — then perhaps this particular executive overreach can be stopped.