Biden administration stops taking applications for student loan forgiveness
The Biden administration has stopped accepting applications for federal student loan forgiveness after a court struck down its plan on Thursday evening. “Courts have issued orders blocking our student debt relief program,” according to a note on the forgiveness application page at Studentaid.gov. “As a result, at this time, we are not accepting applications. We are seeking to overturn those orders.” The suspension of the forgiveness program comes shortly after a federal judge in Texas rejected President Joe Biden’s executive action in August to cancel up to $20,000 in student debt for tens of millions of Americans. “In this country, we are not ruled by an all-powerful executive with a pen and a phone,” wrote Judge Mark Pittman of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, in his 26-page decision. Pittman, who was appointed in 2019 by former President Donald Trump, sided with the Job Creators Network Foundation, a conservative advocacy group. The group had called Biden’s plan “irrational, arbitrary and unfair,” and accused the president of overreaching his authority. The complaint argued that the White House ignored federal procedures by not seeking public comment on its program. The Biden administration said the Justice Department has already appealed the decision. “We believe strongly that the Biden-Harris Student Debt Relief Plan is lawful and necessary to give borrowers and working families breathing room as they recover from the pandemic and to ensure they succeed when repayment restarts,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement. “Amidst efforts to block our debt relief program, we are not standing down.” The main obstacle for those hoping to bring a legal challenge against Biden’s plan has been finding a plaintiff who can prove they’ve been harmed by the policy. “Such injury is needed to establish what courts call ‘standing,’” said Laurence Tribe, a Harvard law professor. For that reason, Tribe said he was floored by the Texas judge’s ruling. “Judge Pittman’s decision was about as wrong and weird as any federal court ruling I can recall reading,” Tribe said. “He was wrong to decide the merits without first deciding whether either of the two plaintiffs had standing.”
Via: CNBC
