Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach is leading a group of six states in filing a lawsuit against President Biden's latest attempt at student loan forgiveness on Thursday.
Kansas was among the six states who successfully challenged Biden's original student loan forgiveness program last year. Kobach says this latest program flies in the face of the Supreme Court's 2023 ruling and breaks many of the same rules.
"Not since the civil war has a president told the Supreme Court, ‘Yeah you blocked me, but I’m gonna do it anyway.’" Kobach told Fox News Digital in an interview. "Biden is trying to twist federal law once again, and his new plan is just as illegal as the old plan."
Biden announced his new $138 billion student loan plan in February, somewhat smaller than the $430 billion program from 2023.
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"The Supreme Court blocked it, but that didn’t stop me," Biden boasted at the time.
Biden reaffirmed his commitment in a statement on social media this week, saying, "I'm not backing down."
"From day one, I promised to fix broken student loan programs and make sure higher education is a ticket to the middle class, not a barrier to opportunity," Biden wrote on X.
Kobach says Biden's program seeks to reduce monthly loan payments to near zero by adjusting the terms of loan repayment, rather than forgiving the loans outright. The effect of the move is the same, however, and transfers mountains of debt onto American taxpayers.
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The Kansas lawsuit further argues that Biden's move violates the Supreme Court's "major questions doctrine," in which Congress is presumed to retain authority to assign major policy decisions to an agency.
Kobach argues that forgiving $138 billion in student loan debt – a number he says has grown since Biden's announcement – is certainly a major policy decision falling under the purview of Congress.
Kobach went on to argue that the loan forgiveness program is simply bad policy, saying it shifts debt from some of America's most wealthy, upper class citizens onto all American taxpayers.
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"As a parent scraping to set aside money to help my own children get through college without taking on student loans, I feel the unfairness directly," Kobach wrote in a February op-ed for the Washington Free Beacon.
The Supreme Court struck down Biden's $430 billion student loan program in 2023 with a 6-3 vote.
Biden reaffirmed his commitment to the student loan push in a Tuesday statement on social media.
"From day one, I promised to fix broken student loan programs and make sure higher education is a ticket to the middle class, not a barrier to opportunity. I’m not backing down," Biden wrote.
