Biden Admin Again Thumbs Its Nose at SCOTUS, 'Forgives' $5B More in Student Loan Debt

By Becca Lower | 9:39 PM on January 19, 2024

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Back in June 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Biden Administration's plan to forgive some $430 billion in student loan debt, the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act of 2003 (HEROES Act), was unconstitutional.

Joe Biden Makes Tin-Pot Dictators Blush With Response to His Student Loan Defeat

Then they moved forward in July like nothing ever happened at SCOTUS, bulldozing $39 million in student loans.

On Friday, they've gone and thumbed their nose once again--at both the members of the High Court and the American people:

President Biden announced Friday that his administration is forgiving $5 billion in student debt for another 74,000 borrowers, marking the latest round of debt cancellation since the Supreme Court voided the president's student loan forgiveness program.[...]
With the latest round of student loan forgiveness, more than 3.7 million Americans have had their debt erased under the Biden administration, Mr. Biden said.

Here's how Biden and his Department of Education are finagling things this time: the statement says they're making "fixes to income-driven repayment forgiveness and the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program." And who is being singled out for these "fixes"? (emphasis mine)

Mr. Biden said that of the borrowers who can receive relief, nearly 44,000 are teachers, nurses, firefighters and others who are eligible for forgiveness after working 10 years of public service. Almost 30,000 Americans who will have their debt wiped clean have been repaying their loans for at least 20 years, but did not get the relief they earned through income-based plans, the president said.

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said:

The Biden-Harris administration has worked relentlessly to fix our country's broken student loan system and address the needless hurdles and administrative inaccuracies that, in the past, kept borrowers from getting the student debt forgiveness they deserved.

Let me make sure I'm getting this straight: the Biden folks are fixing a broken system by forcing the rest of us--the American people who didn't promise to repay these loans--to shoulder the burden of higher taxes for years to come. The massaged language here, about wrongs being righted and inaccurate management of the system being miraculously sorted out--of these poor, mistreated students getting what they deserve--is really breathtaking in its audacity, though. It's just another transparent instance of Democrats trying to buy their way to another election win--and they just might succeed with it.