By The FirstA conservative law foundation filed a major legal challenge this week to Joe Biden’s massive $400 billion package to forgive student debt for some Americans.
The suit from the Pacific Legal Foundation claims the White House’s order is “flagrantly illegal” because the measure was not approved by Members of Congress.
“Congress did not authorize the executive branch to unilaterally cancel student debt,” said Caleb Kruckenberg, an attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation. “It’s flagrantly illegal for the executive branch to create a $500 billion program by press release, and without statutory authority or even the basic notice and comment procedure for new regulations.”
“Cancelling student debt is unjust to those who have paid their loans or never took any. It will only lead to more calls for government intervention in education at taxpayers’ expense,” said Steve Simpson, senior attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation. “Loan cancellation will make Americans more divided, as those who paid their loans—or never went to college—will have good reason to think that we no longer have a government of, by, and for the people.”
The White House unveiled the proposal in August.
“Let’s be clear. I hear it all the time. How do we pay for it? We pay for it by what we’ve done. Last year, we cut the deficit by more than $350 billion. This year, we’re on track to cut it by more than 1.7 trillion by the end of this fiscal year. The single largest deficit reduction in the single year in the history of America. And the Inflation Reduction Act is going to cut it by another 300 billion over the next decade, because Medicare will be paying less for prescription drugs. And over a trillion dollars we added out for the next two decades. The point is this, there is plenty of deficit reduction to pay for the programs, cumulative deficit to pay for programs many times over. I will never apologize ever helping Americans working… working Americans,” explained Biden.
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