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Paxton Takes Steps to Stop Biden’s Unlawful Federal Student Loan Program
AUSTIN – Attorney General Paxton has taken several actions to halt the Biden Administration’s sweeping federal student loan-forgiveness program, which does nothing to lower the costs of higher education and instead forces hardworking taxpayers to pay off hundreds of billions of dollars of college-educated individuals’ debt.
In opposition to this massive, unlawful wealth transfer, Paxton has joined multistate amicus briefs in Brown v. Department of Education, filed in the New Orleans-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and in Biden v. Nebraska, which was filed in the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Biden Administration justifies the program by relying upon the HEROES Act of 2003, a law enacted in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. In the Brown case, the states’ coalition points out that the HEROES Act explicitly disallows mass loan forgiveness for those who are not “affected individuals”: “The HEROES Act does not clearly empower the Secretary to implement the loan-forgiveness program. Instead, it unambiguously does not empower the Secretary to adopt this program.”
Every taxpayer who has worked hard to save and spend their money responsibly, as well as anyone who took out student loans and was diligent in paying them off, is justified in opposing this program. The Supreme Court brief filed in Biden v. Nebraska notes that the program’s damage extends beyond individuals who are being forced to foot the more than $400 billion bill to state programs like Missouri’s. “[T]he mass cancellation’s significant reduction in MOHELA’s [Higher Education Loan Authority of the State of Missouri] main source of revenue will impede Missouri’s ability to fund higher education in the State. . . . These are concrete, and particularized harms that would be redressed by a favorable ruling in this case,” the brief reads.
To read the full brief in Brown v. Department of Education, click here.
To read the full brief in Biden v. Nebraska, click here.
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