2023-06-30 21:02:44
Heavy defeat for US President Joe Biden: The US Supreme Court has declared its planned partial waiver of student loans to be illegal. The US government has exceeded its powers with this plan, the court ruled with its right-wing majority on Friday. To do this, you need the approval of the US Congress. The Supreme Court has thus conceded a key promise made by the Democrats. Biden called the decision wrong.
The partial waiver might have transformed the lives of millions of Americans and would also have been good for the country’s economic growth, he wrote in a statement. He will leave no stone unturned to find other ways to relieve the hard-working middle class, he promised. “This fight is not over yet.”
In a speech, he announced that he now intends to implement the partial waiver of student loans on a different legal basis. Biden clearly expressed his displeasure with the Supreme Court’s decision. “I think the court misinterpreted the constitution,” Biden said following addressing the White House on Friday.
It is another blow to Biden – the court had severely curtailed his government’s powers in the past. For months, Biden’s plan to forgive billions of dollars in student loans has been on hold. Lower courts had blocked him following lawsuits. The US President announced the program last summer and justified it with the financial burden of Corona – at that time the repayment of student loans had already been suspended due to the pandemic.
More than 40 million Americans would have benefited from the partial student loan waiver. The Independent Budget Office of the US Congress estimated that this would have cost regarding 400 billion US dollars (regarding 366 billion euros).
Biden argued with a 2003 law that authorizes the government to suspend or modify certain student loan repayments in response to a national emergency. The law was passed in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2011. The Supreme Court ruled that the extensive debt relief planned by the US government is now far too extensive. “The question here is not whether something should be done, but who has the authority to do it,” says the reasoning for the judgment. Borrowers now face having to resume repayments.
The verdict follows one from the day before, in which the court declared the consideration of skin color in applications for universities to be inadmissible. This, too, was seen as a defeat for Biden, who wants to be elected for a second term next year. The Supreme Court ruled that taking into account the color or ancestry of applicants for university admissions was unconstitutional. The promotion of ethnic minorities under the term “affirmative action” should promote diversity among students. Biden’s government and civil rights groups had heavily criticized the court’s decision.
In the past, the court had significantly restricted Biden’s powers – for example with vaccination regulations once morest Corona or environmental protection. Republicans now welcomed the Supreme Court’s decision on student loans. It was a “victory” for the people of America, wrote Elise Stefanik of the House Republican executive committee. The court decided in favor of “our hard-working taxpayers”.
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