‘Fight is not over’: Joe Biden after US Supreme Court kills pupil debt reduction plan

By Press Trust of India: President Joe Biden described the US Supreme Court’s resolution to strike down his plan to cancel over USD 400 billion in pupil mortgage debt, saying the struggle will not be over.

The US Supreme Court in its 6-3 resolution, with its Republican-appointed conservative majority, rejected Biden’s plan to cancel among the pupil debt for thousands and thousands of individuals.

“Unthinkable. This fight isn’t over,” Biden stated in a tweet.

“I believe that the Court’s decision to strike down our student debt relief plan is wrong. But I will stop at nothing to find other ways to deliver relief to hard-working middle-class families. My Administration will continue to work to bring the promise of higher education to every American,” Biden stated in an announcement.

A report in The New York Times famous that the “amount of student debt held in America has skyrocketed over the last half-century as the cost of higher education has continued to rise, growing substantially faster than the increase in most other household expenses.

More than 45 million people collectively owe USD 1.6 trillion — a sum roughly equal to the size of the economy of Brazil or Australia.”

Chief Justice John Roberts said in the decision that a “mass debt cancellation program of such significance required clear approval by Congress,” the NYT report said.

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The NYT added that nearly 26 million borrowers have applied to have some of their student loan debt erased, with 16 million applications approved.

“But no debts have been forgiven or additional applications accepted in light of the legal challenges,” it said.

Biden said in a statement that his administration’s student debt relief plan would have been the lifeline tens of millions of hardworking Americans needed as they try to recover from a once-in-a-century pandemic.

Nearly 90 per cent of the relief from the plan would have gone to borrowers making less than USD 75,000 a year, and none of it would have gone to people making more than USD 125,000.

“It would have been life-changing for millions of Americans and their families. And it would have been good for economic growth, both in the short- and long-term,” he said.

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Biden added that the hypocrisy of Republican elected officials is “stunning.

“They had no problem with billions in pandemic-related loans to businesses – including hundreds of thousands and in some cases millions of dollars for their own businesses. And those loans were forgiven. But when it came to providing relief to millions of hard-working Americans, they did everything in their power to stop it,” he said.

Terming the apex court’s decision as “disappointing”, Biden stated “we should always not lose sight of the progress we’ve made”, together with forgiving loans for academics, firefighters, and others in public service; and creating a brand new debt reimbursement plan, so nobody with an undergraduate mortgage has to pay greater than 5 per cent of their discretionary revenue.

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