The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Monday to hold arguments in a second case against the Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness program from a small business organization challenging the constitutionality of canceling billions of dollars in student loan debt.
The nation’s highest court agreed to hear the case after a federal judge in Texas ruled last month that President Joe Biden’s student loan bailout is illegal in response to a lawsuit filed by the Job Creators Network Foundation, which alleged that Biden’s student loan bailout violated federal procedures.
Elaine Parker, president of the Job Creators Network Foundation, told The Daily Wire in a news release that the network is “pleased that the Supreme Court has decided to hear our case.”
“If this illegal program isn’t stopped, it will give the executive branch a blank check, not only for this president, but every future president without any input from Congress or any public participation,” Parker said.
Under Biden’s program, about 26 million borrowers have applied to the Department of Education for forgiveness and could receive up to $10,000 in student debt relief if they make less than $125,000 or $250,000 per household.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that Biden’s plan would cost around $400 billion, while the Biden administration claims it would cost approximately $300 billion.
One U.S. district court judge in Texas took a sledgehammer to President Biden’s attempt to bail out certain student loans.
Judge Mark T. Pittman offered three key reasons why the attempt came as an egregious mistake, noting the law cited by the Education Department for justification of the bailout — the HEROES Act — does not stipulate that it can be applied to student loans, using COVID as a means to justify the program did not accurately reflect why it is essential, and the executive does not have proper authority on the matter.
Parker, with the small business organization, argued that the Biden administration has no emergency authority under the HEROES Act to cancel hundreds of billions of dollars in student loan debts.
“Congress should instead address the root of the student loan problem: unaccountable colleges that rapidly raise tuition while sitting on $700 billion in endowments,” Parker added.
Network officials filed the lawsuit last month on behalf of two borrowers who did not qualify or were ineligible to receive the full amount that the program offered.
Justice Samuel Alito said, as reported by Just the News, that SCOTUS will examine if the Department of Education’s forgiveness program was “statutorily authorized and was adopted in a procedurally proper manner.”
Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar had urged the justices, as reported by CNN, to remove the block on the program and hear oral arguments.
“This is the second of two cases in which lower courts have entered nationwide orders blocking the Secretary of Education’s plan to use his statutory authority to provide debt relief to student-loan borrowers affected by the Covid-19 pandemic,” Prelogar said in court papers.
Biden administration officials were also slapped with a lawsuit last month by six Republican-led states that challenged the program, arguing it poses a threat to their future tax revenues and avoids congressional oversight.
Reuters reported that both cases could be heard as early as February 2023.