Republican presidential candidate and Miami Mayor Francis Suarez applauded the Supreme Court’s decision on Friday to halt the “tremendous overreach” of President Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan.
“They absolutely got it right,” Suarez told Fox News on Saturday, adding, “This was a tremendous overreach by the president, trying to cancel hundreds of billions of student loans for people oftentimes who are doctors and lawyers and accountants that is being subsidized by those who didn’t have an opportunity to go to college.”
“I don’t see why everyone who didn’t go to college, didn’t accumulate debt, has to subsidize the debt of everyone else. It just made no sense,” he continued. “I think the Supreme Court definitely got it right in checking executive authority in this case.”
The six conservatives justices on the Supreme Court ruled on Friday that Congress had not authorized the executive branch to forgive the estimated $430 billion in debt that would have been cancelled under Biden’s plan.
More than 40 million borrowers would be eligible for some form of student debt relief under the plan, which would have forgiven up to $20,000 in loans for Pell Grant recipients and $10,000 for other borrowers if they made less than $125,000.
Suarez, who jumped into the crowded Republican primary race last month, echoed his competitors in cheering the high court’s decision.
Former Vice President Mike Pence said on Friday that he was “pleased” that the court struck down the plan, which he argued “subsidizes the education of elites on the backs of hardworking Americans.”
Former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley similarly remarked that “a president cannot just wave his hand and eliminate loans for students he favors, while leaving out all those who worked hard to pay back their loans or made other career choices.”