Republican States Sue To Stop President Biden From Helping Poor People

Eleven Republican-controlled states have filed a federal lawsuit against the Biden administration over the latest attempts to cancel student loan debt for certain borrowers. The states claim that President Biden doesn't have the authority to do this, but what they are really trying to prevent is a political win for the Biden administration. Cancelling the debt hurts no one, so the states have had to come up with an absurd legal argument to claim that they have been damaged. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains what's happening.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

11 Republican controlled states led of course by Kansas' Republican Attorney General Chris Kobach, have filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration in an attempt to stop their latest student loan repayment plan. That includes, of course, debt forgiveness for potentially millions of Americans who have signed up. So far more than 7 million Americans, low income Americans, by the way, 'cause this is means tested. 7 million Americans have signed up for President Biden's recently announced plan to continue making their student loan payments. The interest gets reduced a little bit under this new plan. It cannot snowball and crush the borrowers so long as they're making their payments. And then, then after 10 years of not missing any payments, they can qualify, qualify to have their debt forgiven. Okay, that's the plan. It is not a blanket, Hey, you don't have to pay this anymore. The debt is gone. It's saying, listen, you're low income, so we're gonna restructure your payments based on your income.

We're gonna get your interest under control for you. And if you don't miss a single payment for 10 years, then you can apply for possible forgiveness. And Republicans, 11 Republican controlled states, said, oh hell no. This cannot stand, you cannot help low income people. We are suing you Biden administration because we believe you have somehow overstepped your bounds here. Which isn't really the case because there is the, the safe plan, the SAVE plan that actually gives him the authority to do this. They learn their lesson the first time the Supreme Court overturned their attempts to forgive student loan debt. So they went back, crossed the T's dotted the i's made sure everything was sound, and they relaunched the plan. But that's not okay for Republicans. They don't want poor people to get a little bit of relief. They don't want the Biden administration to get a political win.

So they're trying to make poor people suffer. Now, here's the thing. You can't just file a lawsuit in America because you don't like something. In order to file a lawsuit, you have to have standing and you have to have an injury. So the question of course is what is the injury to these states? If low income people can get their student loan debt forgiven in 10 years, oh, don't worry, because these idiots say that they definitely have damages. Here's what it is. With such a generous repayment plan, fewer borrowers will have an incentive to go into public service and pursue the public service loan forgiveness program. The states

Argue, they predict more state employees will leave their jobs and it will worsen. Public school struggles to recruit and retain teachers. They argue the plan will inject hundreds of billions of dollars in loan relief into the US economy, which would require states to increase fraud protection efforts. So you're mad that there's gonna be more money in the economy because you're like, oh, great, now people are spending money. The economy's thriving. So now we've gotta be on the lookout for more fraud. Uh, that is a hypothetical. It is not an actual injury.