The Washington Post (WaPo) Editorial Board acknowledged Thursday that President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan is illegal but nonetheless said the real overreach would be the Supreme Court rejecting it. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday in a case challenging Biden’s plan to cancel a portion of student debt. Biden announced in August that $20,000 of student debt would be forgiven to borrowers who received Pell Grants and $10,000 for those who did not. A Texas federal judge put the program on hold in November, ruling the plan was an “unconstitutional exercise of Congress’ legislative power.”
A pair of borrowers have challenged the plan and a coalition of states are challenging the program separately, alleging the plan encroaches on states’ rights.
The editorial board wrote, “The policy is expensive and ill-targeted, and made worse by the fact that Mr. Biden failed to get congressional approval for the $400 billion initiative. But while we have criticized the Biden plan as a regressive and expensive mistake, we also believe it would be an overreach for the justices to strike it down. There are limits that restrict when and how the court can exercise its authority — and this is one of the instances in which it should recognize those limits.”
The board noted that Biden relying on the 2003 Heroes Act is “questionable reading of the two-decade-old law.”
They continued, “When lawmakers passed [the Heroes Act] in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, it is unlikely they were envisioning a future president issuing audacious, across-the-board student loan relief, as opposed to, say, pausing loan payments while soldiers are deployed in a foreign war or helping hurricane survivors rebuild.”
The Biden administration is using the Heroes Act to push through the student loan debt relief under the guise of an emergency. Biden believes that the COVID-19 pandemic would qualify as an emergency in this situation.
The board contended, “We also believe it would be an overreach for the justices to strike it down. There are limits that restrict when and how the court can exercise its authority — and this is one of the instances in which it should recognize those limits.”
“But the administration’s opponents, which include several states and two individuals, ‘lack standing’ — that is, a direct, concrete stake in the outcome — to challenge the law,” they wrote.
The board added, “Standing is no mere procedural formality. It is a core judicial principle that courts may only consider cases in which a party is harmed and objects to it.”
The board quoted U.S. solicitor general Elizabeth B. Prelogar, who said, “The judiciary doesn’t sit as a roving commission to rule on the legality of either Congress’ enactments or the executive’s implementation of those enactments.”
WaPo concluded, “This means that some things — even egregious ones — that presidents or Congresses do are not challenged in court for some time, or ever.”
Washington Post: Biden’s Student-Loan Bailout Is A Mistake, But SCOTUS Should Uphold It Anyway https://t.co/DOqj4WUQzJ via @FDRLST
— Chris 🇺🇸 (@Chris_1791) March 2, 2023
So WAPO admits it unconstitutional, but the SC should let it go because they feel it’s a good idea. Their board should reeducate themselves on our system of checks and balances. https://t.co/iq1PxP0ZXE
— James Plowman (@plowmanj3) March 2, 2023