The US Supreme Court dealt a strong blow to Joe Biden this Friday and frustrated the expectations of many of his fellow citizens by tearing down the government plan to forgive student loans that, for a global amount of more than 400,000 million dollars, trap dozens of millions of people across the country.
With the votes in favor of the clear majority of the six conservative magistrates of the High Court, and with the dissent of the three progressives, the Supreme Court established that the president of the United States and his team do not have the authority to forgive student debt: a affirmation with which their lordships impose new limits on the presidential power, in line with those that they already imposed on him a year ago by annulling his environmental policy regulations.
Biden included the cancellation of the student debt among his great electoral promises, which makes the Supreme Court ruling a hard political blow for him, already involved as he is in the campaign for re-election in the 2024 presidential elections.
The president promised Americans in debt for their college loans – between 20 and more than 35 million citizens, according to widely varying estimates – to help them “get out from under that mountain of debt.”
Although those eligible to benefit from the plan were just under half of those indebted, in total some 45 million Americans owe about $1.6 billion in college loans, of which more than a quarter were to be forgiven. The operation would have been one of the most expensive of the current term, as well as one of the most expensive executive actions in the nation’s history.
The Democratic leader’s project called for eliminating up to $10,000 of student debt for borrowers who earned up to $125,000 a year, or up to $250,000 for married couples. And those who once received one of the Pell Grants, aimed at low- and middle-income students, could benefit from an additional forgiveness of up to $10,000.
The hopes of one and the other have now just fallen into a well, although Biden yesterday promised measures to alleviate the effects of the Supreme Court ruling. It remains to be seen how far the relief goes and, above all, how the president articulates it without challenging the highest judicial authority.
The Supreme Court’s decision is “wrong,” Biden said. His plan, he added, “would have changed the lives of millions of Americans and their families, and would have been good for economic growth, both in the short and long term.”
The president lashed out at conservative politicians who opposed forgiveness: “The hypocrisy of Republican elected officials is staggering. They had no problem with the billions in pandemic-related business loans, including hundreds of thousands and, in in some cases, millions of dollars for their own businesses. Those loans were forgiven. But when it came to providing relief to millions of hard-working Americans, they did everything they could to stop it,” he lamented.
And he concluded: “This fight is not over. I will stop at nothing to find other ways to bring that relief. My Administration will continue to work to bring the promise of higher education to all Americans.”
