Tennessee Senators Push Back Against the Biden Administration’s Student Loan Forgiveness Program

Tennessee Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Bill Hagerty (R-TN) joined a group of Senate Republicans in filing an amicus brief to the Supreme Court pushing back on the Biden administration’s student-loan debt relief program.

During the fall of last year, President Joe Biden announced a one-time student loan forgiveness program that could provide debt relief for up to 40 million borrowers.

Biden’s debt relief plan, however, has been paused since October due to two conservative lawsuitsBiden v. Nebraska and Department of Education v. Brown – seeking to block it permanently, and the Supreme Court will hear both cases on February 28.

Republican lawmakers have called Biden’s plan an example of “unprecedented executive overreach” which “defies the separation of powers between Congress and the President.”

In the brief filed on Friday, the Republican senators argue that Biden’s loan forgiveness plan is purely political, specifically citing the president’s failure “to deliver on a campaign promise to cancel vast amounts of student debt.”

The group cited a March 2020 tweet in which then-candidate Biden tweeted, “Additionally, we should forgive a minimum of $10,000/person of federal student loans, as proposed by Senator Warren and colleagues. Young people and other student debt holders bore the brunt of the last crisis. It shouldn’t happen again.”

Yes, Every Kid

In addition, Biden’s use of the HEROES Act of 2003, which gives the Education Secretary the ability to waive or modify student loan balances in cases of national emergencies like COVID-19, was criticized in the brief.

The lawmakers argued that during his time as president, Biden and other Democrat leaders “admitted” that the president does not have the authority to simply cancel debts and acknowledged “Congress needed to pass a law.”

“But by the summer of 2022, the Biden Administration had exhausted its legislative efforts and recognized that Congress would not adopt the President’s unbalanced proposal. So, with the midterm elections looming, the Administration gambled that it might wrest the legislative power away from Congress and rewrite Title IV for nearly all of the 45 million borrowers with federal student loans. The Secretary’s unilateral action was patently unlawful,” the lawmakers further state in the brief.

Blackburn and Hagerty were joined by 41 Republican colleagues in filing the brief.

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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network.
Photo “Marsha Blackburn” by Marsha Blackburn. Photo “Bill Hagerty” by Senator Bill Hagerty. Background Photo “Supreme Court” by Mark Fischer. CC BY-SA 2.0.

 

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6 Thoughts to “Tennessee Senators Push Back Against the Biden Administration’s Student Loan Forgiveness Program”

  1. THOMAS W. MCKELVEY

    You are all missing the point. The loans will not just go away. They will be paid, by the taxpayers. I did not ask for the loan, I did not get a degree that can not be repossessed. It is not my signature on any of the contracts that were signed. If you want to forgive the student loans of people who sought out the loans so they could get a degree. Those people should have to serve the general public in some form at a government salary rate until the loan has been paid back in full with the agreed interest to the taxpayers with no benefits that would be received by federal employees

  2. MW Hoffman

    Business/individual, it doesn’t matter. All loan forgiveness of debts guaranteed by the US Government should be forgivable if AUTHORIZED BY CONGRESS!

  3. Ms Independent

    Thus should and needs to be evaluated individually as I know many parents who by NO FAULT of their own lost their great paying jobs because of the mandatory Covid19 shutdown and their companies went bankrupt. Many older individuals cannot find a DECENT job now making the salary they once made. Loan payments have become nearly impossible. Republicans have lost touch with REAL people

  4. Il Professore

    The student loan forgiveness idea was nothing more than a political stunt by Biden, Warren, Sanders, AOC and other woke politicians with the sole purpose of garnering votes. Those who secured promissory notes made a promise to reimburse the monies they borrowed. The loans are not forgiven, the debt is transferred to others such as out children and grandchildren. I support loan forgiveness only for those in select fields who agree to work in under served areas. Teaching, law enforcement, military service or medical services in rural areas should be the extent of any program. The reality is the democrat plan as proposed essentially forgives loans for those already in a higher income bracket.

  5. Joe Blow

    Yes, considering that the business loans you are apparently referring to had that provision when authorized. Student loans have no such provision.

    You are attempting to compare apples to oranges. Details matter in contractual obligations.

  6. Cannoneertwo

    But business loan forgiveness is fine and dandy….

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