WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden said Friday that the Supreme Court “misinterpreted the Constitution” when it struck down a student loan debt forgiveness plan in a 6-3 vote.
“I believe the Court’s decision to strike down my student debt relief programme was a mistake, was wrong,” Anadolu Agency reported Biden as saying to reporters at the White House.
“I’m not going to stop fighting to deliver borrowers what they need, particularly those at the bottom end of the economic scale. So, we need to find a new way. And we’re moving as fast as we can,“ he said.
Biden criticised Republican lawmakers who opposed the plan.
“Some of the same elected Republicans, members of Congress who strongly opposed giving relief to students, got hundreds of thousands of dollars themselves in relief -- members of Congress -- because of the businesses they were able to keep open,“ he said.
“Several members of Congress got over a million dollars. All those loans were forgiven. You know how much that programme cost? US$760 billion.”
“Is my program too expensive? US$360 billion more than I proposed in my student debt relief programme.”
He accused some Republicans of “shamelessly pushing to advance a bill in the coming weeks that gives hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks and handouts to the wealthiest Americans.”
“They still haven’t given up on making permanent a US$2 trillion tax cut that they never paid for,“ he said. “So let me be clear: For Republicans in Congress, this is not about reducing the deficit, it’s not about fairness and forgiving loans, it’s only about forgiving loans they have to pay.”
The Court ruled that the debt relief proposal was an unlawful act of presidential power because it did not get formal approval from Congress.
The programme aimed to deliver up to US$20,000 in relief to 43 million Americans saddled with student loans which would have totaled US$430 billion. -Bernama