“Republican officials are throwing up roadblocks in order to prevent middle-class families from getting the student debt relief they need,” he said in a tweet.
The moratorium had been slated to expire Jan. 1, a date that Biden set before his debt cancellation plan stalled in the face of legal challenges from conservative opponents. Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, a Republican, said in a statement following the high court order that the Biden plan “would saddle Americans who didn’t take out loans or already paid theirs off with even more economic woes.” Missouri is one of the six states that sued to block the plan, along with Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and South Carolina.
In putting the program on hold, the 8th Circuit panel said there was little harm to borrowers because repayments have been suspended. Allowing the cancellations to proceed before a definitive court ruling would have had an “irreversible impact,” the appeals court said. The 8th Circuit judges, two Trump appointees and one judge selected by former President George W. Bush, determined there might be financial costs to the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority, and said that was enough.
I don't see the SCOTUS overturning the lower courts on this one. If they did, it would open the floodgates to executive action and I just don't see a theory on which they can hang their hat on to justify that.