The Supreme Court is getting ready to hand down a decision any day now on President Joe Biden‘s proposed student loan forgiveness plan – and progressives are scrambling to find a way to still wipe clean that debt.
Meanwhile, the group that launched one of the lawsuits that landed the resident’s plan at the Supreme Court says that they will sue any workarounds the Biden administration tries to jam through.
Job Creators Network President and CEO Alfredo Ortiz told DailyMail.com that the Department of Education (DOE) is actively working on workarounds to still get at least $10,000 taken off of the debts of most borrowers with outstanding student loans.
The group did not want to speculate on what those workarounds could be – especially before the 6-3 conservative majority Supreme Court hands down a decision on the fate of one of Biden’s keystone proposals.
‘If they implement workarounds, we will sue the workaround,’ Ortiz said in a discussion with DailyMail.com about the plan the Congressional Budget Office estimates would cost $400 billion.
Job Creators Network leaders attended oral arguments at the Supreme Court after suing the Biden administration’s rule forgiving between $10,000-$20,000 of student loans
The debt ceiling deal, when signed by Biden this month, made it law that student loan repayment will resume at the end of August. Now, progressives are looking at a way to make sure there is a widespread forgiveness plan in place
JCN sued the Biden administration for instructing the DOE to implement a plan forgiving between $10,000-$20,000 in student loan debt after more than three years of repayment deferment – using the HEROs Act created for first responders of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The group argued that the DOE did not follow rule-making procedure by allowing a public comment period for Americans to weigh-in on the proposed rule.
Ortiz also lamented that forgiving student loans with the HEROs Act is outside the scope of what the bill was intended.
He attended oral arguments at the Supreme Court earlier this year.
Student loans have quickly become one of the biggest issues for millennial and Gen Z voters as the two demographics with the largest burdens of student loans with trillions in outstanding debts to the federal government.
JCN CEO and President Alfredo Ortiz told DailyMail.com that the Department of Education is looking at finding other avenues to implement forgiveness and vowed: ‘If they implement workarounds, we will sue the workaround’
But most Republicans say that those who took out loans need to repay them without a bailout.
Student loans were on pause for years during the pandemic – and many say they aren’t sure how they will factor in the payments once they resume.
Cheyenne Hunt, a progressive running for the House in California’s 45th congressional district, said that the U.S. needs younger leaders who understand the student loan issue better to address it effectively.
‘We must elect young representatives that understand the true toll these predatory loans have placed on the American Dream,’ Hunt told DailyMail.com. ‘We have allowed the loan service industry special privileges and protections that empower its abusive stranglehold on our economic opportunities.’
Ortiz agrees that the student loan industry is ‘predatory,’ and said the way to attack the issue head-on is to go to the root of the problem rather than pushing forgiveness or pauses on outstanding debts.
The debt ceiling deal signed by Biden earlier this month makes it law that student loan repayment will resume at the end of August, after three-and-a-half-years of deferment. This has several borrowers anxious about the resumption of a bill they haven’t paid in years.
In March 2020, then-President Donald Trump deferred student loan payments due to the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. Since then, Trump and Biden have continued to sign legislation that extended the pause.
Biden then proposed last summer resuming payments in conjunction with forgiving $10,000 in student loan debt for individuals making less than $125,000 or couples with a combined income under $250,000.
Those with Pell Grants would be eligible for $20,000 in forgiveness.
But the proposal was immediately challenged from multiple avenues, including by Ortiz’s organization.
Ortiz noted that the federal government is losing $5 billion per month by not collecting outstanding student loans – and said resumption would help the economy overall.
He also said, however, that the ‘government should get out of the business of student loans’ in general and should have left it to private industry to handle.
The 6-3 conservative majority Supreme Court will hand down a decision this month on whether Biden lawfully implemented his student loan forgiveness plan
