MIAMI.- A coalition of states led by Florida, and including Missouri, Arkansas, Georgia, Ohio and Oklahoma, took legal action against President Joe Biden’s administration’s plan to cancel student loan debt.
Initiated in the District Court of the Eastern District of Missouri, the legal complaint challenges what is described as an “abuse of authority” by the executive branch in carrying out the “SAVE Plan” for the cancellation of educational debts without the guarantee congressional.
The lawsuit targets President Biden, Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, and the US Department of Education, after criticizing their method of relying on “outdated laws” to make major policy changes.
The plaintiff states maintain that the debt cancellation plan could entail an “exorbitant cost to taxpayers,” amounting to several hundred billion dollars.
Pillars of Biden’s program
The program proposes reducing fees for 25 million people who obtained loans for their studies and completely waiving the financial commitment of more than four million borrowers.
Likewise, 10 million people with educational debt would receive financial relief of at least $5,000, while those whose debts have grown significantly due to interest accumulation would be would forgive up to $20,000 in interest.
People with incomes considered low or medium who participate in the payment schemes would see the interest on their loans cancelled. According to White House estimates, this would benefit 23 million people who have outstanding loans.
For Secretary of Education Cardona, the program responds to the need to “improve the community with debt relief.” Likewise, he said that there are currently many people “paying too much interest,” so “the system is being fixed so that we can give them relief automatically.”
What are they accusing Biden of?
The plaintiff states also accuse the Biden administration of violating the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) by establishing policies that they consider arbitrary and outside established legal frameworks.
The legal action refers to the case “Biden v. Nebraska” decision by the Supreme Court, in which a similar debt cancellation measure was judged to be an invasion of executive jurisdiction.
In this previous case, the Court last year rejected a similar initiative by the Biden administration for the cancellation of student debt, which projected a federal budget impact greater than the 430 billion dollars.
The court’s decision, by a 6-3 margin, determined that the plan exceeded the administration’s powers by implementing a measure of such fiscal magnitude without the explicit support of Congress.
The new lawsuit criticizes the presidency’s tendency to use “the ambiguous language of past laws to force major and onerous political changes without popular consent,” describing this effort as a pattern of conduct that ignores the constitution.
It has not yet been determined when the new plan will begin. However, the Biden administration has indicated the intention to launch it before the November elections, which could favor the accumulation of support for the president’s re-election in a second term.
Moody tax reviews
Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody stated that “last year, the Supreme Court dismissed Biden’s illegitimate attempt to shift the debt burden onto American citizens. Now, Biden blatantly ignores the court, as he has done on various occasions, for example, with immigration, proceeding at his whim to cancel student debts.”
To which he added: “We will fight in court to protect hardworking Americans, who already face economic hardship under the Biden administration, from taking on other people’s debts.”
