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Iowa, 5 other GOP states sue Biden administration over student loan pl

cigaretteman

HR King
May 29, 2001
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Six Republican-led states are suing the Biden administration in an effort to halt its plan to forgive student loan debt for tens of millions of Americans, accusing it of overstepping its executive powers.


It’s at least the second legal challenge this week to the sweeping proposal laid out by President Joe Biden in late August, when he said his administration would cancel up to $20,000 in education debt for huge numbers of borrowers. The announcement, after months of internal deliberations and pressure from liberal activists, became immediate political fodder ahead of the November midterms while fueling arguments from conservatives about legality.


In the lawsuit, being filed Thursday in a federal court in Missouri, the Republican states argue that Biden's cancellation plan is “not remotely tailored to address the effects of the pandemic on federal student loan borrowers,” as required by the 2003 federal law that the administration is using as legal justification. They point out that Biden, in an interview with CBS' "60 Minutes” this month, declared the Covid-19 pandemic over, yet is still using the ongoing health emergency to justify the wide-scale debt relief.


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“It’s patently unfair to saddle hard-working Americans with the loan debt of those who chose to go to college,” Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, who is leading the group, said in an interview.


She added: “The Department of Education is required, under the law, to collect the balance due on loans. And President Biden does not have the authority to override that.”


The states of Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and South Carolina joined Arkansas in filing the lawsuit. Iowa has a Democratic attorney general, but the state's Republican governor, Kim Reynolds, signed on the state's behalf. The states argue that Missouri's loan servicer is facing a “number of ongoing financial harms” because of Biden's decision to cancel loans. Other states that joined the lawsuit argue that Biden's forgiveness plan will ultimately disrupt revenue to state coffers.


Biden’s forgiveness program will cancel $10,000 in student loan debt for those making less than $125,000 or households with less than $250,000 in income. Pell Grant recipients, who typically demonstrate more financial need, will get an additional $10,000 in debt forgiven.


The administration also said it would extend the current pause on federal student loan repayments — put on hold near the start of the pandemic more than two years ago — once more through the end of the year.


The administration faced threats of legal challenges to its plans almost immediately, with conservative attorneys, Republican lawmakers and business-oriented groups asserting that Biden was overstepping his authority in taking such sweeping action without the assent of Congress.


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Democratic lawmakers battling in tough reelection contests also distanced themselves from the student loan plan, as Republican officials called it an unfair government giveaway for relatively affluent people at the expense of those who didn’t pursue higher education.


In their lawsuit, the Republican attorneys general also contend that the forgiveness program violates the Administrative Procedures Act, which lays out how federal agencies should make regulations in order to ensure executive branch policies are well-reasoned and explained.


“The president does not have the authority to put himself in the place of Congress,” Rutledge said in the interview. “These actions must be taken by Congress and he can’t override that.”


To justify the plan’s legality, the Biden administration is relying on a post-Sept. 11, 2001, law meant to help members of the military that the Justice Department says allows Biden to reduce or erase student loan debt during a national emergency. But Republicans argue the administration is misinterpreting the law because, in part, the pandemic no longer qualifies as a national emergency.


Another lawsuit against Biden’s student loan program was filed this week in an Indiana federal court by the Pacific Legal Foundation, a libertarian legal advocacy group that employs a lawyer who says he would be harmed by the forgiveness plan. The lawyer, Frank Garrison, says erasing his current debt load will trigger a tax liability from the state of Indiana, which is among at least a half dozen states where the forgiven loan amounts will be subject to state taxes.


The White House dismissed the lawsuit as baseless because any borrower who does not want the debt relief can opt out. The Education Department is still on track to unveil the application for the forgiveness plan in early October.


Republicans have also seized on the Biden plan’s price tag and its impact on the nation’s budget deficit. The Congressional Budget Office said this week that the program will cost about $400 billion over the next three decades. The White House countered that the CBO’s estimate of how much the plan will cost just in its first year, $21 billion, is lower than what the administration initially believed.

 
Imagine being so petty that having part of your college paid for, which used to be standard, pisses you off.
Imagine thinking the President should be able to bypass congress and spend $400B to relieve student debt citing a "covid emergency" as justification.....and then saying the pandemic was over a week later. Total BS and basically a bribe for votes.

Power of the purse belongs to congress.

He abused executive power...simple as that.

 
The stupid thing is that a 1960s education law seems to give the president the same authority. Yet here Kimmy is, shitting all over people wanting to get educated again.
If you signed a loan agreement pay back your own friggen debt.

I’m 1000% against any shifting of their debt back to us taxpayers.
 
Imagine thinking the President should be able to bypass congress and spend $400B to relieve student debt citing a "covid emergency" as justification.....and then saying the pandemic was over a week later. Total BS and basically a bribe for votes.

Power of the purse belongs to congress.

He abused executive power...simple as that.

This is where the pettiness comes in. Legally there are at least two laws that seem to allow this, so your generic link doesn't appear to be applicable.

Further, the US government used to heavily subsidize college. Many of the older people opposing this benefited from government subsidized college when they were in school. But now they cry foul?

It's petty. It's pulling the ladder up after you've used it. I applaud giving these people the same help the older generations got.
 
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Imagine thinking the President should be able to bypass congress and spend $400B to relieve student debt citing a "covid emergency" as justification.....and then saying the pandemic was over a week later. Total BS and basically a bribe for votes.

Power of the purse belongs to congress.

He abused executive power...simple as that.


Congress had already authorized for debt to be forgiven. If they only wanted that bill to say “for troops in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars”, they would have said so. They already sunk the lawsuit in the earlier thread by simply allowing an “opt out” of loan forgiveness. This lawsuit is equally as dubious because states are essentially arguing that some people might consolidate loans into the direct loan portfolio that the states would no longer service with their own forgiveness programs.

Everything being argued by cons is just window dressing because their feelings are hurt by people having their loans forgiven. The law is the law, and it doesn’t care about your feelings.
 
This is where the pettiness comes in. Legally there are at least two laws that seem to allow this, so your generic link doesn't appear to be applicable.

Further, the US government used to heavily subsidize college. Many of the older people opposing this benefited from government subsidized college when they were in school. But now they cry foul?

It's petty. It's pulling the ladder up after you've used it. I applaud giving these people the same help the older generations got.
Pettiness? I don't agree with the President being able to spend $400B by using the Heroes Act and Covid as justification
 
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Imagine thinking the President should be able to bypass congress and spend $400B to relieve student debt citing a "covid emergency" as justification.....and then saying the pandemic was over a week later. Total BS and basically a bribe for votes.

Power of the purse belongs to congress.

He abused executive power...simple as that.


I agree this is an abuse of executive power but it's pretty much along the lines of how every president has been abusing executive power.

Congress should take back these powers from the president but neither side wants to do that because they want to be able to pass things via fiat when their guy is in charge.

So hyper-partisanship is quite frankly creating a situation where congress is making itself the least powerful branch of government and is unwilling to defend those powers.
 
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Everything being argued by cons is just window dressing because their feelings are hurt by people having their loans forgiven. The law is the law, and it doesn’t care about your feelings.
Using the Heroes act and citing Covid as justification is BS.

We'll just have to agree to disagree on that.

When a President Desantis abuses his power in the same way I'm sure you'll be fine with it but I won't.
 
Does the student loan forgiveness strategy impact states somehow? It may be obvious, but I'm missing that detail.
 
Using the Heroes act and citing Covid as justification is BS.

We'll just have to agree to disagree on that.

When a President Desantis abuses his power in the same way I'm sure you'll be fine with it but I won't.

spoiler alert, I think, if elected, he probably would. At least now we’re all singing from the same hymnal.
 
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Ironically, a lot of this bullshit COULD have been avoided IF Congress had paid attention to the warnings of Senator Tom Harkin (Ia) and Congresswoman Maxine Waters (Ca). But, their voices were ignored and the student loan crisis continued to EXPLODE! Congress has chosen to "look the other way" and kick the can down the road....and now we have a "crisis" where no one (Congress) has the balls to end it. Well boyz and girlz.....Biden "ended" it.
So IS there a "student loan problem" or not? I think there is.
 
Using the Heroes act and citing Covid as justification is BS.

We'll just have to agree to disagree on that.

When a President Desantis abuses his power in the same way I'm sure you'll be fine with it but I won't.
Everyone needs to "get over it" here,,,,,,No one is "abusing" any Presidential power here. The one constant in this nation of ours always has been "where does Presidential power begin and end and where does Congressional power begin and end?" It used to be both sides would sit down and hash it out but ever since Watergate now things
"go to Court" too soon....and sadly, with what has happened to the American Court System in the last 20 years, the answers will be decided by the politics of the day and not by "the law." Yessiree......we've come a long ways, baby!
PS....I might have misspoken here, as it seems that perhaps POTUS 45 "might" have abused his Presidential powers a bit....but yet to be decided.
 
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