WASHINGTON — Six Republican-led states filed a lawsuit Thursday to stop President Biden from writing off billions of dollars in student loan debt, even as the administration tried to avoid a legal challenge by slashing the number of people eligible for relief.
A lawsuit in federal court by Leslie Rutledge, the Republican attorney general for Arkansas, accuses Mr Biden of grossly overstepping his authority last month when he announced the government would reverse up to $20,000 of student loan debt, a sweeping decision that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated could cost $400 billion over the next three decades.
“President Biden’s illegal political game puts college loan debt on the backs of millions of hard-working Americans who are struggling to pay their utility bills and home loans amid Biden’s inflation,” said Ms Rutledge in a statement on Thursday. “President Biden does not have the authority to arbitrarily write off the college debt of adults who have chosen to take out these loans.”
The states of Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, South Carolina and Nebraska have joined the lawsuit, which attacks Mr Biden’s claim that debt relief is warranted by federal law authorizing actions during a health emergency such as the coronavirus pandemic. Republican officials in those states note that Mr. Biden recently declared the pandemic to be over in an interview with “60 Minutes” on CBS.
Abdullah Hasan, a White House spokesman, said the lawsuit was trying to prevent Mr Biden from providing much-needed relief to people struggling in the wake of the pandemic.
“Republican officials in these six states are pushing vested interests and fighting to stop aid to borrowers buried under mountains of debt,” Hasan said. “The president and his administration are legally giving working and middle-class families a break as they recover from the pandemic and prepare to resume loan repayments in January.”
The lawsuit, first reported by The Associated Press, is the second attempt this week to end the loan forgiveness program, which is one of the president’s key accomplishments in nearly two years in office. On Tuesday, a conservative legal group filed a lawsuit seeking to block debt cancellation, saying the program would force people to pay taxes on canceled debt.
Ahead of the latest legal challenges, the Department of Education announced Thursday that it will no longer write off debt for students with federal student loans held by private companies. Eliminating eligibility for these students could make it harder for Republican attorneys general to successfully attack the entire program in court.
There are only about 770,000 people who hold this type of debt, out of about 40 million who could still seek relief, officials say. Students on federal student loans would be eligible for $10,000 relief, while those on Pell grants for people from low-income families could apply for $20,000 debt forgiveness.