Supreme Court Strikes Down President Biden’s Unlawful Student Loan Forgiveness Boondoggle, Agreeing with ACLJ’s Amicus Brief

Today, the Supreme Court of the United States struck down the Biden Administration’s unlawful student loan forgiveness program. As we explained here, the program was adopted by the Department of Education, and proposed to cancel $10,000 of student debt for anybody earning below $125,000 per year (or for married couples, $250,000). The program would have cost taxpayers up to $400 billion and effectively penalized the millions of Americans who faithfully paid off their federal student loans or chose other vocational routes.

As we further discussed here, the Biden Administration claimed that Congress gave it this power in the HEROES Act. Congress passed the HEROES Act in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and its purpose was to ensure that the “[h]undreds of thousands of Army, Air Force, Marine Corps, Navy, and Coast Guard reservists and members of the National Guard [who] ha[d] been called to active duty or active service” would not be “placed in a worse position financially” in relation to their student loans because of their military service. Ignoring the HEROES Act’s clear limited purpose to benefit members of the military who had been called up to serve in the war on terror, the Biden Administration distorted this legislation by attempting to shoe-horn COVID-19 into the HEROES Act’s use of the term “national emergency.”

Today the high Court rejected the Biden Administration’s unprecedented attempt to seize power reserved to Congress under the Constitution. The case boiled down to this question: “What would the Congress that enacted the HEROES Act say to this question: Can the Secretary use his powers to abolish $430 billion in student loans, completely canceling loan balances for 20 million borrowers, as a pandemic winds down to its end?” The unequivocal answer, said the Court, is “NO.”

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Roberts stated that the HEROES Act did not grant the Biden Administration authority to cancel $430 billion of student loan principal. “The HEROES Act allows the Secretary to ‘waive or modify’ existing statutory or regulatory provisions applicable to financial assistance programs under the Education Act, not to rewrite that statute from the ground up." The student loan forgiveness program "created a novel and fundamentally different loan forgiveness program" that "expanded forgiveness to nearly every borrower in the country." This is exactly what the ACLJ argued in our amicus brief to the Supreme Court in this case.

In a touch of irony, Chief Justice Roberts compared the Biden Administration’s defense of the student loan program to France’s treatment of the French aristocracy during the French Revolution: Biden’s Student Loan forgiveness plan “modified” the student loans under the HEROES Act only in the same sense that “the French Revolution ‘modified’ the status of the French nobility”—it has abolished them and supplanted them with a new regime entirely.”

The Court held further that the Biden Administration trespassed on Congress’ power of the purse under Article I of the Constitution. With respect to whether federal student loans should be forgiven, “The question here is not whether something should be done; it is who has the authority to do it.” “Under the Government’s reading of the HEROES Act, the Secretary would enjoy virtually unlimited power to rewrite the Education Act.” The Court concluded, “This is a case about one branch of government arrogating to itself power belonging to another.” “It is the Executive seizing the power of the Legislature.” The Secretary’s assertion of administrative authority has “conveniently enabled [him] to enact a program” that Congress has chosen not to enact itself.

In fact, our amicus brief drives home this point: “It should be axiomatic that when Congress considers multiple bills addressing a major national policy, it is because Congress retained its power to do so, has not yet chosen to exercise that power, and did not somehow forget that it had delegated that power to the Executive Branch.”

Thankfully, the Court agreed with our position protecting millions of American taxpayers from footing the bill of this unlawful Biden giveaway. The ACLJ will continue to stand in defense of the Constitution and see to it that the law is followed against these outrageous power grabs.