.一百二十八个众议院共和党人几乎所有共和党参议员周五向最高法院提交了法庭之友辩护状，反对拜登政府的联邦学生债务取消计划，该计划已被数千万美国人叫停等待法官对其合法性的裁决。
尽管白宫官员坚称，总统有权取消数千亿政府支持的贷款，以“为数千万工薪家庭提供喘息空间”，但质疑这一点的共和党人持相反观点。
根据众议院共和党的简报，这项赦免计划可能为符合条件的贷款接受者减免高达2万美元的费用，违反了权力分立的违宪规定，也违反了2003年《高等教育学生救济机会法》(HEROES Act)。
“拜登政府的学生贷款救助计划是特殊利益集团策划的政治策略;滥用英雄法案的这种策略是可耻的，”众议院教育和劳动力委员会主席弗吉尼亚·福克斯说声明。
众议院共和党简报包括福克斯委员会的25名成员和大约100名其他议员。众议院议长凯文·麦卡锡没有签署，尽管多数党领袖史蒂夫·斯卡利斯、多数党党鞭汤姆·艾默和众议院司法委员会主席吉姆·乔丹签署了该法案。
另外，43名共和党参议员签署了他们自己的简报，支持对贷款豁免计划的挑战。由田纳西州的玛莎·布莱克本领导，他们也称总统的计划是非法的，并声称这超出了他的职权范围。
白宫对此进行了反击。
发言人阿卜杜拉·哈桑(Abdullah Hasan)在10月份表示，“尽管我们计划的反对者站在特殊利益集团一边，并想尽一切办法让数百万美国中产阶级继续负债，但总统和他的政府正在努力合法地给中产阶级家庭一些喘息的空间，让他们从疫情恢复过来，并准备在1月份恢复贷款支付。”
然而，众议院共和党人表示，他们认为拜登正在利用《英雄法案》的语言，政府辩称，该法案赋予教育部长广泛的权力，以减轻新冠肺炎疫情导致的联邦学生贷款接受者的财务困难。
“事实上，英雄法案的整个目的是授权部长向因国家紧急状态而面临风险的借款人提供与学生贷款相关的救济——这正是部长在这里所做的，”副检察长伊丽莎白·普雷洛加在最高法院的一份文件中写道，为拟议的债务取消辩护。
在去年的法律挑战导致下级法院停止宽恕计划后，最高法院在12月宣布，将在2月底听取关于该问题的口头辩论。
该计划的决定预计将在6月份做出。
暂停偿还贷款是唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)总统早些时候在疫情首次实施的，现在将在决定做出后60天或6月30日之后60天到期，以先到的日期为准。
作为拜登计划的公开反对者，福克斯还指责政府“绕过国会”实施贷款豁免。
“国会是唯一有权制定这种性质的全面和根本性变革的机构，拜登总统认为他可以无视美国人民的意愿是可笑的，”她在声明中说。
福克斯在上个月的一次采访中告诉美国广播公司新闻，她认为纳税人资助政府的“计划”是“不公平的”。根据无党派的国会预算办公室的估计，该计划将耗资4000亿美元，其近5000亿美元的价格标签令共和党众议员杰夫·邓肯担忧
尽管白宫表示，取消债务将缓解所需的经济压力，但邓肯表示，这将使美国进一步陷入“债务螺旋”
“法院应该宣布教育部长的全面学生贷款豁免计划无效，因为它侵犯了国会的权力，违反了权力分立，”他说。
美国教育部表示，总统决定取消一些贷款接受者高达1万美元的贷款-那些在2020年或2021年纳税少于12.5万美元或联合申报少于25万美元的人-或接受佩尔助学金的低收入接受者的2万美元，这可能会影响大约4300万欠有1.6万亿美元学生贷款的美国人。
根据白宫的说法，鉴于新冠肺炎颠覆了美国经济，这一点尤为重要。
“这就是我们采取这一行动的原因——确保数千万美国人能够应对一个非常困难的时期，特别是在过去几年里，”白宫新闻秘书郭佳欣·让-皮埃尔上周告诉美国广播公司新闻的卡伦·特拉弗斯。“这一直是总统的重要优先事项:确保人们……如果你愿意的话，那些感受到压力的人，那些在过去几年中由于COVID对经济所做的事情而感受到最大伤害的人，得到一点额外的帮助。”
去年推出取消计划后，2600万人在网上注册在法院停止之前。
其中，1600万人在司法部网站停止接受申请以让法律程序结束之前获得了批准。然而，没有贷款豁免被解除。
上个月，像全美有色人种协进会这样的十几个倡导团体提交了支持总统计划的简报。
“各行各业的学生贷款借款人在疫情期间遭受了严重的财务损失，他们的持续复苏和成功还款取决于拜登政府的学生债务减免计划，”教育部长米格尔·卡多纳在回应加入支持该计划的团体联盟时说。“我们将继续捍卫我们的法律权威，为工薪阶层和中产阶级家庭提供他们显然需要和应该得到的债务减免。”
171 Republican lawmakers join effort to stop student loan forgiveness program
One hundred and twenty-eight House Republicans and nearly all Republican senators on Friday filed amicus briefs with the Supreme Court opposing the Biden administration's federal student debt cancellation plan, which has been halted as tens of millions of Americans await the justices' ruling on its legality.
While White House officials have been adamant that the president is within his authority to wipe out hundreds of billions in government-backed loans to provide "breathing room to tens of millions of working families," Republicans challenging it take the opposite view.
The forgiveness plan that could relieve up to $20,000 for eligible loan recipients is an unconstitutional breach of the separation of powers and a violation of the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act of 2003 (HEROES Act), according to the House GOP brief.
"The Biden administration's student loan bailout is a political gambit engineered by special interest groups; abusing the HEROES Act for such a ploy is shameful," House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., said in a statement.
The House GOP brief included 25 members on Foxx's committee and roughly 100 other lawmakers. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy did not sign it, though Majority Leader Steve Scalise, Majority Whip Tom Emmer and House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan did.
Separately, 43 Republican senators signed their own brief in support of the challenge to the loan forgiveness program. Led by Tennessee's Marsha Blackburn, they also call the president's plan unlawful and claim it exceeds his office.
The White House has pushed back.
"While opponents of our plan are siding with special interests and trying every which way to keep millions of middle class Americans in debt, the President and his Administration are fighting to lawfully give middle-class families some breathing room as they recover from the pandemic and prepare to resume loan payments in January," spokesman Abdullah Hasan said in October.
However, the House Republicans say they believe Biden is exploiting the language of the HEROES Act, which the administration argues vests the education secretary with expansive authority to alleviate financial hardship for federal student loan recipients as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Indeed, the entire purpose of the HEROES Act is to authorize the Secretary to grant student-loan-related relief to at-risk borrowers because of a national emergency -- precisely what the Secretary did here," Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote in a Supreme Court filing defending the proposed debt cancellation.
After legal challenges last year saw the forgiveness program halted by lower courts, the Supreme Court announced in December that it will hear oral arguments on the issue at the end of February.
A decision on the program is then expected by June.
The moratorium on loan repayments, which was first put in place under President Donald Trump earlier in the pandemic, is now set to expire 60 days after the decision or 60 days after June 30 -- whichever date comes first.
A vocal opponent of Biden's plan, Foxx also accused the administration of "bypassing Congress" to implement loan forgiveness.
"Congress is the only body with the authority to enact sweeping and fundamental changes of this nature, and it is ludicrous for President Biden to assume he can simply bypass the will of the American people," she said in her statement.
Foxx told ABC News in an interview last month that she believes it is an "injustice" for taxpayers to fund the administration's "scheme." The plan would cost $400 billion, according to an estimate from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, and its nearly half-a-trillion-dollar price tag worries Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-S.C.
Despite the White House saying the cancellation would give needed economic relief, Duncan said it would be sending the U.S. further into a "debt spiral."
"The Court should invalidate the Secretary of Education's sweeping student loan forgiveness program since it trespasses on Congressional authority and violates the separation of powers," he said.
The U.S. Education Department has said the president's decision to cancel up to $10,000 for some loan recipients -- those who made less than $125,000 on their 2020 or 2021 taxes or $250,000 filing jointly -- or $20,000 for low-income recipients who received Pell grants could impact roughly 43 million Americans who owe $1.6 trillion in student loans.
That was particularly important in light of how COVID-19 upended the economy, according to the White House.
"This is why we took this action -- to make sure that tens of millions of Americans are able to deal with a time that was very difficult, especially in the last couple of years," White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told ABC News' Karen Travers last week. "That's been the important priority of the president: to make sure folks … who felt the pinch if you will, who felt the hurt the most these past couple of years due to what COVID did to the economy, got a little extra help."
After the cancellation program launched last year, 26 million people signed up online before it was halted by the courts.
Of that group, 16 million were approved before the department's website stopped accepting applications to let the legal process play out. However, no loan forgiveness has been discharged.
Last month, over a dozen advocacy groups like the NAACP filed briefs in support of the president's plan.
"Student loan borrowers from all walks of life suffered profound financial harms during the pandemic and their continued recovery and successful repayment hinges on the Biden Administration's student debt relief plan," Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in response to the coalition of groups joining in support of the plan. "We will continue to defend our legal authority to provide the debt relief working and middle-class families clearly need and deserve."
