It is not the first time that the Supreme Court has suggested that President Biden has overstepped his authority, but the case could curtail his ambitions.
By Michael D. Shear & Adam Liptak | The New York Times | MAR. 1, 2022 | Photo by Anna Rose Layden
WASHINGTON — One of President Biden’s most ambitious proposals — a $400 billion program to forgive student loan debt for 40 million Americans — could become the latest victim of a legal tug of war with the Supreme Court over the powers of the presidency.
Conservative justices on the court signaled Tuesday that they are deeply skeptical that Mr. Biden has the power to wipe out such a vast amount of student debt. In oral arguments, several justices said they believed a program that costs so much and affects so many people should have been more explicitly approved by Congress.
It was not the first time the court has suggested that Mr. Biden overstepped his authority, but the case has the potential to curtail Mr. Biden’s ambitions just as newly empowered Republicans in the House have vowed to block his every move in Congress.
During Mr. Biden’s first two years in office, the court has blocked him from enacting key parts of his agenda, including sweeping measures to address climate change, vaccine requirements at large companies and a ban on evictions during the pandemic.
In each case, the court’s conservative majority said the president needed clear congressional approval to pursue such major policies.
The court’s decision on whether to block the student loan program as well, which is likely to come by summer, will have a vast impact on millions of borrowers who have struggled to pay back their loans.
And it will set additional legal precedents, potentially defining new limits for presidential power.
The ruling could have other broad political implications, forcing Mr. Biden and his allies to reshape their efforts to court one of the Democratic Party’s most important constituencies ahead of the 2024 campaign: young people.
When Mr. Biden announced his plan to forgive federal student loans last August, he and his political strategists envisioned being able to triumphantly declare that he had made good on his promise to borrowers that they could now “crawl out from under that mountain of debt.”
Instead, the president may have to face the voters with a very different message: that despite his best efforts, student debt relief was thwarted by Republicans who blocked his policy at the Supreme Court.
Asked on Wednesday whether he was confident that the court would rule in the administration’s favor, Mr. Biden said: “I’m confident we’re on the right side of the law. I’m not confident about the outcome of the decision yet.”
The White House is not conceding defeat. In court on Tuesday, lawyers for Mr. Biden’s administration argued that Congress had already given the secretary of education the authority to forgive student debt.
But Mr. Biden’s team has already shown its willingness to use the issue for its own political advantage, even if the best it can do is blame Republicans for stopping the plan.
Miguel A. Cardona, the secretary of education, on Tuesday sent an email to tens of millions of Americans who had signed up for relief.
