GOP Attempt To Stop Student Loan Forgiveness Blocked By Judge

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A Wisconsin group called the Brown County Taxpayers Association has failed in an effort at the U.S. Supreme Court to claw back the Biden administration’s plan to forgive up to tens of thousands in student loan debt per person within the parameters of income guidelines.

The group’s application for emergency action was dealt with by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who ordinarily handles such applications challenging rulings of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Barrett didn’t provide any reasoning for her rejection of the application, although the group lost at the District Court level in Wisconsin because of a lack of standing. Judge William C. Griesbach pointed to precedent for how an individual taxpayer can establish the legally actionable standing to challenge government action in court. Paying taxes generally isn’t enough. “This court certainly has no authority to do so,” Griesbach said, addressing the group’s request to expand the parameters of exceptions to the general rule against one’s status as a taxpayer providing standing.

Before Barrett, the Brown County group also lost at the appeals court level, but the Seventh Circuit judges didn’t provide any reasoning for a refusal to alter the direction of the case. The group took direct aim at the precedent for establishing the legal standing to sue over something like Biden’s student loan debt forgiveness plan. “The argument that a president may unilaterally forgive debt owed to the U.S. Treasury through executive fiat, and that no one has standing to challenge him, threatens the very foundations of a constitutional republic,” they argued in their application for Supreme Court action. Barrett neither referred the matter to the full court nor sought comment from the Biden administration, which The New York Times points out as indications of foundational problems with the application. “Both of those moves were indications that the application was not on solid legal footing,” the Times said.

A group of GOP state officials have also sued over the debt forgiveness plans. It’s worth wondering how many of the prominent Republicans freaking out over the initiative also expressed hotheaded outrage over the Paycheck Protection Program loans, first implemented in the Trump era, which came with possibilities — taken advantage of by many — of the government forgiving debts. Even businesses tied to Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) benefited from debt forgiveness under the Paycheck Protection Program. The states’ lawsuit is currently faltering, with Missouri District Judge Henry E. Autrey having ruled the officials failed to sufficiently establish they had the legal standing to bring their case. Officials behind that challenge, which will continue at the appeals level, hail from Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, and South Carolina.