BREAKING: 18 states sue Biden administration over bid to cancel TRILLIONS in student debt… as president makes latest bid despite legal concerns

Eighteen Republican-led states are trying to block President Biden’s attempt to forgive student loans to cancel billions in student loan debt.

On Tuesday, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey announced that he is leading a coalition of seven states in a lawsuit against the Biden administration over its SAVE plan.

The lawsuit comes after 11 other states, led by Kansas, recently filed another lawsuit against the Biden administration over the student loan debt forgiveness program that began earlier this year.

‘With the stroke of a pen, Joe Biden is trying to saddle working Missourians with half a trillion dollars in college debt, Missouri’s attorney general said in a statement.

“The United States Constitution makes clear that the president lacks the authority to unilaterally ‘cancel’ student loan debt for millions of Americans without express authorization from Congress,” he added.

The Penn Wharton Budget Model estimated that the SAVE plan could cost as much as $474.9 billion over those years.

Missouri is joined in the lawsuit by the Republican attorneys general of Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, North Dakota, Ohio and Oklahoma.

The lawsuit, filed in the District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, states that the latest attempt to ‘circumvent the Constitution is only the latest in a long but troubling pattern of the president relying on innocuous language from decades-old statues to impose drastic, expensive policy changes.’

Last month, Kansas was joined by Alabama, Alaska, Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, Texas and Utah in another lawsuit filed in Kansas.

President Biden at an event to address student loan debt in Madison, WI on Monday

Protesters gathered outside the Supreme Court when the court blocked President Biden’s previous student loan plan last June

The Republican attorneys general are questioning the SAVE program, which was announced last summer after the Supreme Court blocked Biden’s $400 billion plan to wipe out debt last June.

Like other income-driven repayment plans, the SAVE plan calculates monthly payments based on income and family size, but it reduces payments for most borrowers.

The program lowers payments from 10 percent of discretionary income to five percent, and many borrowers would pay $0 a month.

Those with original balances of $12,000 or less would have loans forgiven after 10 years. All borrowers would receive forgiveness after repaying 20 to 25 years.

In February, the administration began canceling debt under the plan for the first time, including $1.2 billion for 153,000 borrowers.

The administration has said nearly 8 million borrowers have signed up for the plan, and more than 4.5 million borrowers have payments of $0, while another million borrowers have monthly payments of less than $100.

The Department of Education said it would continue to identify borrowers who qualify for debt forgiveness on an ongoing basis.

As states challenge the SAVE program, the Biden administration on Monday announced another set of actions it was taking that, combined with the SAVE program, could help wipe out student loan debt for 30 million Americans.

These actions include efforts to cancel interest for borrowers who owe more than their original balance, for those who would qualify for other programs but have not yet enrolled, for borrowers who have been in repayments for 20 or 25 years and for those facing financial difficulties.

The Biden administration said it is confident in its new effort, which relies on the Higher Education Act, not the HEROES Act, which was used in the first attempt to cancel student loan debt.