The supreme court ruled this Friday to block the Joe Biden government’s plan to cancel the student debt of millions of university students, a decision that is made under conservative influence.
In the opinion, which was given by a Republican majority in court, since only three progressive judges opposed it, the court considered that the Biden administration did not have the right to approve this measure.
The plan had just been proposed by the president in order to alleviate part of the economic difficulties caused by the covid-19 pandemic, the EFE news agency reported.
The decision, which was written by Chief Justice John Roberts, suggests that the justices side with the state of Missouri, which argued that the debt cancellation measure could affect the revenue of a state entity that Manage student loans.
Similarly, Roberts explained that US law allows the secretary of education, Miguel Cardona, to make “modest adjustments and additions to existing regulations.”
According to Roberts, these modifications created a new, fundamentally different plan for debt forgiveness.
The dissenting opinion, which was written by Judge Elena Kagan, in turn had the support of Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, who have been the three progressive magistrates who have defended Biden’s government plan.
“In all respects, the court today oversteps its proper and limited role in the governance of our nation,” Kagan said in his dissenting comment.
The president announced at the end of August of last year that he was going to forgive part of the debt that millions of university students had with the Federal Administration so that they could pay for their studies.
Conservatives who opposed this decision argued that the plan would cost the public purse a very high $400 billion over the next 30 years.
Reacting to the recent supreme court decision, Biden vowed that the battle is “not over yet,” and he is preparing to announce new measures to end the debt.
“I will stop at nothing when it comes to providing forms of relief for working-middle-class families,” Biden said, assuring that Republicans have acted “hypocritically” by wanting to forgive the debt of large companies, but not the students.
Meanwhile the speaker of the House of Representatives, Republican Kevin McCarthy, said that after the ruling the majority of Americans will no longer be forced to pay the student debt of a minority.
Keep reading:
• Debts that must be paid
• Biden asks the Supreme Court to allow him to move forward with a program to forgive student loan debts of up to $20,000
• White House encouraged Americans to continue requesting student debt forgiveness