Missouri and six other Republican states sued the Biden administration on Tuesday to block the administration’s newest plan to forgive billions of dollars in student debt, which the states argue is illegal.
The joint lawsuit, filed by Missouri attorney general Andrew Bailey, targets President Joe Biden’s Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) repayment program, which will cost Americans $475 billion over the next ten years. This amount is $45 billion more than the price tag attached to the White House’s previous student-loan forgiveness plan that the Supreme Court struck down last June.
The Court ruled that Biden cannot “unilaterally alter large sections of the American economy” through the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students (HEROES) Act, according to the 6–3 opinion in Biden v. Nebraska. In this case, Missouri played a notable role in challenging the $430 billion forgiveness program.
Biden, however, has openly defied the ruling with the creation of the SAVE program while bragging about it. “The Supreme Court blocked it, but that didn’t stop me,” Biden boasted in February.
“Yet again, the President is unilaterally trying to impose an extraordinarily expensive and controversial policy that he could not get through Congress,” the 62-page lawsuit reads. “This latest attempt to sidestep the Constitution is only the most recent instance in a long but troubling pattern of the President relying on innocuous language from decades-old statutes to impose drastic, costly policy changes on the American people without their consent.”
The president has made several announcements regarding the mass elimination of student debt, the latest one occurring Monday. Biden’s newest plans would forgive the full amount of student debt for four million borrowers, eliminate accrued interest for 23 million Americans, and provide at least $5,000 in debt relief to ten million borrowers, the White House said.
Since taking office, Biden has approved the cancellation of $146 billion worth of federal student loans for roughly four million student borrowers by signing more than two dozen executive actions.
Bailey followed through on his promise to sue President Biden, the Department of Education, and Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona nearly two weeks after Kansas attorney general Kris Kobach filed a similar multistate lawsuit, which estimates SAVE will wipe out at least $156 billion in student-loan debt. With both lawsuits, 18 states have now sued Biden and the Department of Education over this one issue.
“With the stroke of his pen, Joe Biden is attempting to saddle working Missourians with a half trillion dollars in college debt. The United States Constitution makes clear that the President lacks the authority to unilaterally ‘cancel’ student loan debt for millions of Americans without express permission from Congress,” Bailey said in a statement accompanying the lawsuit.
“The President does not get to thwart the Constitution when it suits his political agenda. I’m filing suit to halt his brazen attempt to curry favor with some citizens by forcing others to shoulder their debts. The Constitution will continue to mean something as long as I’m Attorney General.”
Attorneys general Tim Griffin of Arkansas, Ashley Moody of Florida, Christopher Carr of Georgia, Drew Wrigley of North Dakota, Dave Yost of Ohio, and Gentner Drummond of Oklahoma joined Bailey in challenging Biden’s debt-cancellation agenda.