Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts highlighted then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s 2021 statements in his majority judgment, knocking down President Joe Biden’s student debt cancellation scheme.
By a vote of 6-3 on Friday, the Supreme Court concluded that the Biden administration did not have the legal right to forgive $430 billion in student debt under the HEROES Act 2003.
People with annual incomes of less than $125,000 or $250,000 per household would have had their $10,000 in outstanding student loan debt canceled under the forgiveness program.
Students with greater financial need, such as those who get Pell Grants, would have had an extra $10,000 in student loan debt canceled.
The government estimated that 43% of those who had requested help would have been approved.
According to the HEROES Act, loans can be suspended or altered if the Secretary of Education believes it necessary because a national emergency or military action impacted a borrower.
The court cited Nancy Pelosi in striking down Biden’s abuse of presidential power in waiving student loans:
According to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, people assume the President can proclaim debt forgiveness. She said, “To be clear, he does not.”
The chief justice further pointed out that just weeks after the government launched the cancellation program, President Biden said, “The pandemic is over,” thereby ending the emergency.
As the epidemic nears its end, Roberts said that the court needed to decide whether or not the Secretary could utilize his authority to cancel $430 billion in student loans and forgive all outstanding amounts for 20 million students.
We find it impossible that the reply could be positive. Congress did not pass The HEROES Act with such broad authority in mind.
Roberts continued by quoting then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from July 2021, when Biden was pressured to eliminate student debts by presidential fiat when she said debt forgiveness could only be granted through legislation, not by executive order.
Despite what she said in July 2021, Pelosi hypocritically criticized the Court on Friday for its decision to stop Biden’s debt forgiveness scheme.
She said that over 40 million Americans were brutally denied today by the Supreme Court’s Republican supermajority relief from their crushing student loan debt.
She has no shame.
