The Attorney General of Nebraska banded together with those of Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas and South Carolina in a lawsuit to block President Biden’s presumptively illegal executive order that mass cancels student loan debt, even for borrowers in the top 60 percent of the income distribution. This is patently unfair to all taxpayers, who in no way are responsible for debts voluntarily incurred by others.
Bolstered by the recent Supreme Court ruling West Virginia v. EPA, which ruled that federal agencies don’t have powers beyond those granted by congress, the six states are crying foul on the President’s action.
Since the administration can not get mass student loan forgiveness through Congress, they are claiming that the HEROES Act of 2003, (passed by Congress to relieve active-duty personnel from bureaucratic and administrative requirements that might interfere with service in active operations in time of war or national emergency) gives them the authority to incur a half a trillion dollars of loss to the treasury and add that burden to every working class taxpayer in the country.
Congress clearly never intended the HEROES Act to authorize mass student loan cancellation. But that hasn’t stopped the un-elected president from fulfilling the long-sought after Democratic Party goal of student loan forgiveness. Hopefully this lawsuit will kill a blatantly obvious vote-buying move by the current administration.
