As of Thursday morning, Joe Biden’s administration was being sued by the states of Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas, Iowa, and South Carolina to prevent the student debt forgiveness scheme from going into force. The plaintiffs stated in their complaint that the Biden Administration’s mass debt cancellation is “yet another example in a long series of unconstitutional regulatory measures, in addition to being economically unsound and blatantly unjust.”
No provision, according to the attorneys general leading the legal case, “permits President Biden to unilaterally release millions of people from their duty to repay debts they willingly undertook.”
However, Biden has maintained that in order to lessen the financial impact of the coronavirus epidemic, he is entitled to unilaterally cancel student loans. The HEROES Act, which was passed in 2003 and permits the secretary of education to offer student debt relief “in connection with a war or other military operation or national emergency,” is specifically cited by National Review as providing the legal justification for the cancellation.
However, National Review observes that the plaintiffs draw attention to Biden’s recent statement that “the pandemic is gone” in a 60 Minutes interview.
The legal argument also includes: According to the [HEROES] Act, the Education Department is required to customize any waiver or modification as needed to reflect the real financial loss a borrower has experienced as a result of the relevant military operation or emergency. Every borrower will receive this assistance, regardless of whether her income increased or decreased during the epidemic or if she is currently in a better financial situation than she was before the outbreak.
Additionally, they contend that the HEROES Act was created to enable the secretary to grant relief in specific circumstances with appropriate reason. The Pacific Legal Foundation filed the first complaint on Tuesday in opposition to Biden’s executive order:
“At least six states that tax loan cancellation as income have been affected by the administration’s new challenges for borrowers. The cancellation will really have a negative impact on plaintiff Frank Garrison. Because of the automatic cancellation of a portion of his debt, Mr. Garrison will in fact be subject to immediate tax liabilities from the state of Indiana, according to PLF’s own brief.
It requests that the court “temporarily restrain and preliminarily and permanently enjoin implementation and enforcement of the Mass Debt Cancellation” and rule that it “violates the separation of powers established by the U.S. Constitution” as well as the Administrative Procedure Act. The state-led lawsuit was filed in a federal district court in Missouri.
