Neb. AG Hilgers to Newsmax: SCOTUS Student Debt Decision 'Important for Country'

Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers told Newsmax that the U.S. Supreme Court's decision on Friday to knock down President Joe Biden's more than $400 billion student debt relief plan is an "important day for the country."

"It's a really important day for our country," Hilgers said during Friday's edition of "Rob Schmitt Tonight." "Part of it is because [it is] almost a $500 billion blowout on the backs of taxpayers — middle class taxpayers I might add — but I think there's something deeper than this, which is this idea, this really an attack on the separation of powers."

The high court knocked down Biden's plan to forgive up to $20,000 in student loans for individuals earning less than $125,000 per year by using the HEROES Act and the COVID-19 public health emergency, by a vote of 6-3.

Reuters reported that Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion that Congress would have to be involved in the plan to forgive the debt of around 43 million Americans, totaling more than $400 billion.

The court's ruling to not allow the Biden administration to forgive the loans under the HEROES Act, however, does not mean the administration could find "another avenue" for a similar program, the report said.

Hilgers, who represented Nebraska in the lawsuit, said that the ruling was correct, and that the president does not have the Constitutional authority to enact such a large plan without the consent or direction of Congress.

"We fought a war just about 250 years ago — which we will be reminded of that, by the way, next Tuesday on our Independence Day — against consolidated power," Hilgers said. "We know what happens when one person has consolidated power, and the United States, for 250 years, [has] split power, and we gave Congress the power of the purse. What the president tried to do was a breathtaking attempt to grab the power of the purse from Congress."

Instead of either working with Congress on the program or working to get more Democrats elected to vote for that kind of program, Biden tried an "end run" around Congress using the Department of Education, which is part of the executive branch.

"He went around Congress and that was an attempted abuse of his authority," he said. "I'm very grateful that a free court put a stop to it."

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