Supreme Court rejects Biden’s $400B student loan bailout as unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court Strikes Down Biden’s Student Loan Bailout Plan
In a groundbreaking decision, the Supreme Court has ruled against President Joe Biden’s plans to provide a taxpayer-funded bailout to millions of student loan borrowers without congressional approval.
The court’s 6-3 decision, handed down at the end of the summer term, deemed President Biden’s proposal to forgive $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients and $10,000 for other borrowers under a certain income ceiling as unconstitutional. The White House initiative would have cost taxpayers over $400 billion over 30 years to bail out more than 43 million borrowers.
Six states challenged the president’s student loan program last fall, leading to a preliminary injunction by the Eighth Circuit Court in Biden v. Nebraska. The majority of justices ruled that the president does not have the authority to authorize such a large payout without Congress’s approval.
“The question here is not whether something should be done; it is who has the authority to do it,” wrote Chief Justice John Roberts in the majority opinion. “Our recent decision in West Virginia v. EPA involved similar concerns over the exercise of administrative power.”
This decision follows the Supreme Court’s ruling on the EPA case a year ago, where it limited the administrative state’s power and established that executive agencies cannot implement rules beyond their authority granted by Congress.
“So too here, where the Secretary of Education claims the authority, on his own, to release 43 million borrowers from their obligations to repay $430 billion in student loans,” Roberts wrote. “The Secretary has never previously claimed powers of this magnitude under the HEROES Act. … The Act has been used only once before to waive or modify a provision related to debt cancellation.”
Roberts concluded that Biden’s plan cannot be considered a “waiver” because it deviates significantly from how the HEROES Act has been used in the past.
Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett concurred with the majority opinion, while Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.
A Consequential Term for the Supreme Court
The student loan case marks the end of a significant term for the high court. In addition to this ruling, the court recently declared race-based affirmative action programs in higher education unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment and affirmed that the government cannot compel speech from business owners that violates their religious beliefs.
Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist and the author of Social Justice Redux, a conservative newsletter on culture, health, and wellness. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at [email protected]. Sign up for Tristan’s email newsletter here.
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