Supreme Court Strikes Down Biden’s Debt Forgiveness Plan
Supreme Court Strikes Down Biden’s Debt Forgiveness Plan
The proposed cancellation of more than $400 billion in student debt would have been one of the most expensive executive actions in U.S. history. President Biden vowed to try again.
The Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority struck down President Biden’s proposal to cancel at least some student debt for tens of millions of borrowers, saying it overstepped the powers of the Education Department.
In a 6-to-3 decision, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote that a mass debt cancellation program of such significance required clear approval by Congress.
Chief Justice Roberts declared that the administration’s logic — that the secretary of education’s power to “waive or modify” loan terms allowed for debt cancellation — was a vast overreach. “In the same sense that the French Revolution ‘modified’ the status of the French nobility,” he wrote, quoting a previous court decision.