Several 2024 Republican presidential candidates praised the U.S. Supreme Court’s striking down of President Joe Biden’s student loans forgiveness plan on Friday.
The court blocked the Biden administration’s use of executive power, which would have cancelled student debt for roughly 40 million individuals, in a 6-3 ruling. Several GOP presidential hopefuls commented on the decision while slamming Biden for executive overreach, they said in statements to the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“The U.S. Supreme Court was right to end the illegal and immoral effort by the Biden Administration to transfer student debt to taxpayers. If you take out a loan, you pay it back,” South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott told the DCNF in a statement. “Colleges now need to look in the mirror and be held accountable for how expensive college has become. The closest thing to magic in America is a good education and if colleges and universities price themselves out of reach for too many Americans, we won’t be able to sustain the American dream.”
Scott also released a video in conjunction with the court’s decision, and also pledged to “lower tuition” and “improve the quality” of college programs if president. (RELATED: ‘A Great Day For America’: 2024 GOP Presidential Candidates Praise SCOTUS For Affirmative Action Decision)
Businessman Vivek Ramaswamy slammed Biden’s plan for being “disastrous” and commended the court for “setting a powerful precedent.”
“We have a bad habit in America of paying people to do the exact opposite of what we want them to do: more $$ to stay at home than to work, more $$ to be a single mother than married, more $$ for those who *fail* to repay loans than those who do. As a matter of policy, this decision helps reverse that trend,” he told the DCNF in a statement. “I will lead the Executive Branch accordingly: I will rescind *all* federal regulations that fail the Supreme Court’s new standard. This will unleash the American economy and restore the integrity of our 3-branch Constitutional Republic over the unconstitutional behavior of the Fourth Branch.”
Conservative radio show personality Larry Elder also took a jab at Biden’s authority to cancel student loan debt and argued that individuals who didn’t attend college shouldn’t have to pay for others who did.
“Joe Biden once admitted that he lacks the authority for student loan forgiveness, yet did it anyway. Most Americans never went to college, yet would have been responsible for this debt forgiveness. Somehow, someway college students who took out loans in the past, managed to pay them back,” Elder told the DCNF in a statement. “College students, who took out loans, will eventually have a higher income than the non-college students who would be shouldering the student debt forgiveness. This is precisely why many people go to college—to improve their earning potential.”
Former Vice President Mike Pence touted his role in the appointment of several of the Justices that ruled in favor of the opinion, and pledged to continue to tap conservatives who will “strictly apply the law” if president in 2024.
“Joe Biden’s massive trillion-dollar student loan bailout subsidizes the education of elites on the backs of hardworking Americans, and it was an egregious violation of the Constitution for him to attempt to do so unilaterally with the stroke of the executive pen,” Pence said in a statement. “I am pleased that the Court struck down the Radical Left’s effort to use the money of taxpayers who played by the rules and repaid their debts in order to cancel the debt of bankers and lawyers in New York, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.”
Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley criticized the Biden administration’s attempted overreach to cancel student loan debt, while congratulating the court’s decision.
“A president cannot just wave his hand and eliminate loans for students he favors, while leaving out all those who worked hard to pay back their loans or made other career choices,” Haley wrote in a tweet. “The Supreme Court was right to throw out Joe Biden’s power grab.”
Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson praised the court for adhering to the separation of powers and pledged to seek other “solutions to address the student loan debt crisis.”
“I commend the United States Supreme Court for their decision today, which is a victory for the Constitution and the principle of separation of powers. This ruling reaffirms the importance of upholding our legal framework and preserving the checks and balances that ensure the proper functioning of our government,” Hutchinson said in a statement. “President Biden’s student loan forgiveness program exceeded the boundaries set by our Constitution and the Court’s decision highlights the necessity of respecting the limits of executive authority.”
North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum also criticized Biden’s student loan cancellation plan, and argued it counter’s American financial values, and pledged to “unleash” the economy as president.
“The American financial system was built on the idea that if you borrow money, you pay it back. President Joe Biden knew his student loan gambit was on shaky legal ground, as the Constitution clearly states that spending originates in Congress, but he proceeded anyway in an attempt to score political points,” Burgum said in a statement. “Erasing the debt of high-paid, college-educated workers at the expense of blue-collar Americans is wrong, and would have exacerbated inflation significantly.”
Biden v. Nebraska and Department of Education v. Brown challenged the Secretary of Education’s ability to use emergency authority in wiping student loan debt via the 2003 HEROES Act. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion for Biden v. Nebraska and was joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett in the conservative opinion.
“[T]he HEROES Act provides no authorization for the Secretary’s plan even when examined using the ordinary tools of statutory interpretation—let alone ‘clear congressional authorization’ for such a program,” Roberts wrote.
Alito delivered the unanimous decision in Department of Education v. Brown, where the Justices found the two individual loan holders didn’t have standing because they “failed to show that their injury is fairly traceable to the Plan,” though the majority agreed Missouri did.
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