A top Republican lawmaker says she's 'open to suggestions for ways to stop' Biden's student-loan forgiveness plan
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- Biden announced up to $20,000 in student-loan forgiveness for some federal borrowers.
- GOP Rep. Virginia Foxx said she's looking for ways to block that relief.
- Other Republicans said they are looking to overturn the debt cancellation in court.
If you have an idea on how to block President Joe Biden's student-loan forgiveness, send it Rep. Virginia Foxx's way.
After President Joe Biden announced up to $20,000 in federal student-loan forgiveness at the end of August, many Republican lawmakers ramped up their criticism of the relief, blasting it as costly, illegal, and unfair to those who already paid off their debt.
The Republican leader of the House education committee was no exception — for months leading up to Biden's announcement, Foxx pushed back on broad debt relief and even introduced legislation to block it from happening.
Now, Foxx and some her Republican colleagues are eyeing legal action to overturn Biden's loan forgiveness.
"Republicans on the committee are doing everything we can to bring this to the attention of the American people, to have them understand why it's so wrong for the Biden administration to be paying off hundreds of thousands of dollars for people who are very wealthy," Foxx said during a Tuesday event hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.
"We hope that there will be ways to stop it," she added. "We're looking for ways to stop it, and we're open to suggestions for ways to stop it. And right now, we don't know exactly what's going to happen. But we do believe there will be actions that will come forward that will be able to stop it. And we're working as hard as we can to find out what those are going to be."
Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz also recently told The Washington Post that he's "brainstorming" ways to block student-loan forgiveness in court. Conservative groups and GOP attorneys general are seeking ways to legally challenge the loan forgiveness, as well. But Democratic lawmakers, and the Biden administration, maintain the authority is there to carry out this one-time blanket relief under the HEROES Act of 2003, which gives the Education Secretary the ability to waive or modify student-loan balances in connection with a national emergency, like COVID-19.
In response to Cruz's comments, Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar called him a "miserable little weasel" on Twitter. "Fortunately, student debt cancellation is legally sound and should withstand legal scrutiny," she wrote.
Bharat Ramamurti, the deputy director of the White House's National Economic Council, said during a recent press briefing that "the legal authority gives the secretary the ability to make sure that the pandemic and the emergency does not cause a net financial harm to those folks."
Still, Abby Shafroth, staff attorney for the National Consumer Law Center, previously told Insider that it will be difficult for those seeking to challenge the relief to prevail because they will have to prove concrete injury, and the Education Department is moving forward with the relief process and will make applications to apply for debt cancellation available in early October.
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