The first legal challenge to President Biden’s plan to wipe out billions of dollars of federal student loans arrived yesterday, when a lawyer working for a conservative legal group filed a lawsuit seeking to block debt cancellation, the New York Times reported. “In an end-run around Congress, the administration threatens to enact a profound and transformational policy that will have untold economic impacts,” Frank Garrison, a lawyer at Pacific Legal Foundation, said in a complaint filed in federal court in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana. “The administration’s lawless action should be stopped immediately.” The biggest obstacle for those seeking to fight Mr. Biden’s plan in court has been finding a plaintiff who has the legal standing to claim that they would be harmed by the policy. Mr. Garrison’s claim centers on the Biden administration’s plan to automatically cancel the debts of some borrowers, arguing that it would personally harm him by forcing him to pay taxes on those forgiven debts. Garrison, who lives in Indiana, has been pursuing loan forgiveness through a relief program for public service workers, he said in his court filing. Under that program, he would eventually qualify to have his loan debt wiped out without owing any federal or state taxes.
