(NewsGlobal.com)- President Joe Biden recently signed an executive order that will cancel as much as $20,000 in federal student loan debt for all borrowers.
Now, many top Republican lawmakers are pressing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to stand up to him and criticize this action.
Biden’s executive order will cancel as much as $20,000 in student loan debt for those who received a Pell Grant. Other individuals with federal student loan debt of other types can qualify for up to $10,000 in debt forgiveness. To fully qualify, the borrowers have to earn less than $125,000 annually.
Before the president took this action on his own, many lawmakers who were critical of the plan said Biden doesn’t have authority to take this action without getting approval from Congress first.
One of those critics was Pelosi — at least as of a year ago. That’s what encouraged 94 Republican members of the House are urging her to act to stop this from happening.
Back in July of 2021, Pelosi said:
“People think that the president of the United States has the power of debt forgiveness. He does not. He can postpone. He can delay, but he does not have that power. That has to be an act of Congress.”
The group of lawmakers, which is led by Representative Jody Hice of Georgia, wrote Pelosi a letter, urging the Speaker to stand by her comments from a year ago. They want her to declare that Biden’s move to cancel all this student loan debt is “unconstitutional and illegal.”
As the leader reads:
“Given your previously stated position and your leadership role as Speaker of the House, it is imperative that you act immediately in defense of our Constitution and the powers of the legislative branch. Will you commit to supporting your July 2021 statement with a definitive action to stand up to this blatant overreach President Biden is enacting?
“This is an illegal act by a President desperate for a political win. We hope you will heed your own words and act to defend the Constitution and the rule of the law.”
Pelosi will probably not stand by her words, though, and side with the Republicans in this case. Assumingly, she knew that Biden was about to issue his executive order on cancelling the student loan debt.
So, just one day before the executive order was issued, she completely changed her tone. While appearing in Las Vegas at a roundtable, Pelosi said about the debt relief, and her comments from 2021:
“We didn’t know what — what authority the president had to do this. And now clearly, it seems he has the authority to do this: $10,000 for those with the debt, those making under $125,000 a year. So, we’re optimistic about what might happen tomorrow.”
In other words, she’s siding with the leader of her party in the matter, even though just one year ago, she was very definitive in her belief that he didn’t have the authority to cancel federal student loan debt.
