debt. Those following this story likely will remember his efforts a couple of years ago to eliminate $430 billion in such loans. The Supreme Court rebuffed him, pointing out that the plan went well beyond the powers granted to the president by law.
Yet it is far from clear that Monday’s executive action won’t end in judicial defeat come June 2025. The essential question the Supreme Court asked last year and will ask again concerns the intersection of the rule of law and separation of powers. Last time, the Supreme Court said Biden violated the rule of law by violating separation of powers. Congress makes law. The executive, except for signing or vetoing bills, does not. Instead, the president’s essential task is that he “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” To execute the laws faithfully requires that he follow them as written and not go beyond the powers those laws give the government.
There is good reason to believe that history now repeats itself. Despite any differences the Biden administration claims between the last plan and this one, a core problem remains. In the end, significant changes in how government student loan programs run should be made by Congress. The president and all other executive officers only should be implementing those decisions.