When the Biden administration says they’re going to throw around more of your money, they sure don’t mess around. Witness the long-awaited “beta release” of his brilliant “Student Loan Forgiveness” boondoggle, which hit the innerwebs last night.
Happening Now: President Biden provides an update on student loan debt relief. https://t.co/YEmLjsMzs1
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) October 17, 2022
Um…whud he say?
It might have been more Biden mush-mouth argle-bargle, but holy smokes. The “plan” as released online from the White House has brows going through hairlines.
What does that mean, exactly – “no supporting documents/FSA (Federal Student Aid) ID needed“? It means the application to receive tens of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money looks like this:
Don't put it off — the application for student loan forgiveness is remarkably simple.https://t.co/r3fIPds7ri
This is basically it: pic.twitter.com/66soKyIBWm
— Matt Largey (@mattlargey) October 15, 2022
“Remarkably simple.” Aw, isn’t that cute? The remarkable simpletons are so happy.
BREAKING: President Joe Biden scores another MASSIVE win as the White House announces that a staggering 8 million Americans have applied for his life-changing student loan forgiveness program “without a glitch or any difficulty.” RT IF YOU THINK THAT BIDEN IS CRUSHING IT!
— Occupy Democrats (@OccupyDemocrats) October 17, 2022
Should warm the cockles of my heart, and yet I find it chilled. It’s also remarkably transparent vote buying since it also means any Joe Schmuckatelli can fill out an application to get their “student loan” paid back and pony up the documents proving anything, any portion of his claim – should he even be asked to – two years later.
It’s not incompetence. It’s deliberate. The aim, from top to bottom, is to illegally give people cash, and then to run against anyone who tries to take the handout away.
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) October 17, 2022
And isn’t it interesting how the dates for this money giveaway “sign-up” runs alongside of the mid-term elections? Get your name on the dole list and don’t forget who got you there to begin with!
So we can add “deliberately fraud-ridden” to “flatly unconstitutional.” That injunction can’t come soon enough. https://t.co/sxtUikFeuy
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) October 17, 2022
Charles is absolutely right. There is little to no difference (other than the number of zeros behind the dollar sign) between this unvetted, unregulated, unsubstantiated, unverified sign-up scheme than there was handing out $2000 debit cards to Hurricane Katrina “victims,” only no one was blatantly buying votes then. Or the currently AWOL HUNDREDS of billions in missing COVID “relief.”
…Even if the highest estimates are inflated, the total fraud in all Covid relief funds amounts to a mind-boggling sum of taxpayer money that could rival the $579 billion in federal funds included in President Joe Biden’s massive 10-year infrastructure spending plan, according to prosecutors, government watchdogs and private experts who are trying to plug the leaks.
For God’s sake, IS THIS NOT A FAMILIAR REFRAIN?!
…“The Small Business Administration, in sending that money out, basically said to people, ‘Apply and sign and tell us that you’re really entitled to the money,’” said Horowitz, the chair of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee. “And, of course, for fraudsters, that’s an invitation. … What didn’t happen was even minimal checks to make sure that the money was getting to the right people at the right time.”
What are the odds one or two or thousands of these applicants will forget that they never had student loans to begin with?
At the end of September, after being first announced, three different lawsuits were filed in an attempt to stop this in its tracks. The first came out of Indiana, based on the premise that the government would be conferring a massive state tax liability on the recipient of the largesse, ergo it was a “lawless” order.
President Biden’s plan to forgive up to $20,000 in federal student loan debt per borrower was hit with its first major lawsuit Tuesday — just a day after the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated the bailout would cost taxpayers $400 billion.
The libertarian Pacific Legal Foundation filed the suit in an Indiana federal court on behalf of one of its attorneys, Frank Garrison, who argues that the loan forgiveness would force him to pay a hefty state tax bill.
The lawsuit asks for an injunction halting the executive action, which could affect up to 43 million people beginning next month.
“Nothing about loan cancellation is lawful or appropriate,” the lawsuit says. “In an end-run around Congress, the administration threatens to enact a profound and transformational policy that will have untold economic impacts. The administration’s lawless action should be stopped immediately.”
The second lawsuit was filed by six different state attorney generals, based on the legality of Biden’s using COVID as the excuse necessitating this move, however, he’d also declared the pandemic “over,” which nullified the same.
Six Republican-led states sued the Biden administration Thursday in the latest bid to upend the president’s plan to wipe out student loan debt for millions of Americans.
The lawsuit, the second filed challenging the write-off this week, claims that the White House is overstepping its legal bounds by canceling the debt and notes President Biden’s recent comment to CBS News’ “60 Minutes” that the coronavirus pandemic is over.
Thursday’s challenge, filed in federal court in Missouri, said Biden’s forgiveness plan is “not remotely tailored to address the effects of the pandemic on federal student loan borrowers,” as required by the 2003 federal law that the administration is using as legal justification.
And the third was filed by the Arizona AG challenging this plan’s probable detrimental effect on the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. There’s definitely going to have to be a constitutional challenge – the president has no personal “new” funding ability. Congress has the power of the purse. Folks like Lawrence Tribe have pointed out finding a plaintiff with sufficient legal standing to challenge this ruling could be difficult, and he’s not sure these filings meet the threshold of “harm.” On the other hand, as another legal beagle says, the question of presidential overreach may be so important, a shakier case might make it all the way up the chain.
…“They keep looking for different ways to establish standing, and that’s all well and good, but in the end, it is the merits that matter, and there is little merit in their challenge,” Tribe said.
Higher education and legal expert Mark Kantrowitz said it was possible a judge may overlook an imperfect case of standing, however, because of the larger questions at play here, including the scope of the president’s power.
“The president’s student loan forgiveness plan will likely be overturned if it reaches the U.S. Supreme Court,” Kantrowitz said.
If it lasts long enough to get to SCOTUS, it’s got to be overturned. GOT to. Most of the folks scurrying to the web last night to sign up would probably be voting blue in any event, and, if the Supremes get this, and toss it out as they should, I hope the disappointment is as deep as the red wave that I pray is coming. In the meantime…try to keep a sense of humor. Dark, but humorous.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member