WASHINGTON — Six Republican-led states took legal action Thursday to stop President Biden from cleaning out billions of dollars in student loan debt.
A lawsuit filed in federal court by Arkansas Republican Attorney General Leslie Rutledge accuses Biden of overstepping his authority last month when the government announced it would allow up to $20,000 in student loan debt. is doing. The bipartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates it will cost him $400 billion over the next 30 years.
“President Biden’s illegal political play puts self-made college loans on the backs of millions of hard-working Americans struggling to pay their utility bills and mortgages in the midst of Biden’s inflation. It’s putting us in debt,” Rutledge said in a statement. Thursday. “President Biden does not have the authority to arbitrarily erase the college debt of adults who choose to take out loans.”
Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, South Carolina and Nebraska Join Lawsuit, Debt Relief Justified by Federal Law Authorizing Action During Health Emergencies Like Coronavirus Pandemic Biden’s allegations are being attacked. Republican officials in those states noted that Mr. Biden recently declared the pandemic over in an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes.”
White House spokesman Abdullah Hassan said the lawsuit seeks to stop Biden from providing much-needed relief to those suffering from the effects of the pandemic.
“Republican officials in these six states are standing up for special interests and fighting to prevent bailouts of debt-ridden borrowers,” Hassan said. “The president and his administration are legally giving working and middle-class families a breather while they recover from the pandemic and prepare to resume loan payments in January.”
The lawsuit, first reported by The Associated Press, is the second attempt this week to suspend the loan forgiveness program, one of the president’s major accomplishments during his nearly two-year tenure. A legal group filed a lawsuit seeking to block debt forgiveness, saying the program would force people to pay taxes on the forgiven debt.
The latest legal challenge comes on Thursday, when the Department of Education announced it would no longer forgive students on federal student loans held by private companies. Disqualifying these students could make it harder for Republican Attorneys General to successfully attack the entire program in court.
Of the roughly 40 million people who can apply for relief, only about 770,000 have such debts, officials say. Students on federal student loans are eligible for $10,000 relief, and students on Pell grants for people from low-income families apply for $20,000 debt forgiveness. I can do it.