Half a trillion dollars with the stroke of a pen, which would obviously be the most expensive executive order ever and incredibly unfair and not progressive. So, UM, I would like to live in a world where you could just declare that stupid and unfair and have it go away. But you can't do that. You have to go through all the legal reasons for doing it. And so a lot of legal experts were saying, yeah, it sounds illegal, but who are you gonna find withstanding that can actually sue,
that can bring that forward. And it looks like we have our first case. Yeah. Indeed, the Pacific Legal Foundation is taking the lead, and Allison Suman is a legal fellow with a Center for the Separation of Powers at the Pacific Legal Foundation, here to talk about the lawsuit and and the topics that surrounded Allison. How are you do it? Well? Thank you, it's great to be here. How are you today? We're terrific, We're glad you're here.
I'm disappointed that you can't just declare something, uh, stupid and unfair and it's good enough. So I feel that way to having been on various cases like these. UM, let me talk a little bit about what's going on here. So I think you already alluded to this concept of standing. And as you suggested a moment ago, if you have a grievance with the government, if you think what they're doing is wrong or stupid or offensive, be that as it may, that's not enough to get you into court.
You have to be able to show that you're injured in a concrete way, in a tangible way before you can get into court and make your case to a judge. And who did you find that that fits that description for this particular executive order? So this is a little bit unusual. One of our very own employees, Frank Garrison, who is a lawyer with US. I've worked with him before in a different project. He is eligible for loan
forgiveness under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. This is at a completely separate federal program where if you work for a qualifying nonprofit or government organization for or ten years, because these organizations tend to do worthwhile work and tend not to pay a lot, if you stay in those jobs and show the differment of education that you've been staying in that job after ten years, they will forgive the balance on your loans. Frank works for US or
a qualified nonprofit. So if he stays with US for about another I believe about four years, give her take his his remaining debt will be wiped out by the government and he would not owe tax on that wiped out debt under the law that created those rules. So where's his injury though, what's his complain about that? That sounds like something he would like. Okay, I'm I'm getting
to that. I'm sorry. So, because Biden wiped out twenty dollars of Frank's debt early before he would qualify for that loan forgiveness, he faces attacks um under Indiana state law. Under Indiana law, if if someone owes you, if you owe someone a debt and then that person wipes out your debt, you borrow money for a call are and then the other person says, you know what, I don't want to cleft up money back from you. That's considered part of your income, and so you owe tax on that.
So Frank, who is expecting no tax bill for having his debt wept out later, now all of a sudden is getting hit with a tax bill because of the buying executive action. And so that, in his view, gives him standing to sue and take on this big unconstitutional power grap So I have a feeling that I'm asking a question that's going to be answered with the basic concept of constitutional law that I'm just not familiar with.
But why not just file suit on behalf of the poor, beleaguered taxpayer, part of whose income is going to be used to finance this program? So that's a great question. UM. Back in the nineties, sixties and seventies, there were cases that went up to the Supreme Court on similar theories of what was called taxpayer standing. It's interesting for me to get this question over the last few days because at the time this was mostly seen as a very
liberal cause. The people who were bringing these taxpayer standing suits were environmental activists who are suing the then new Environmental Protection Agency to get it to act more aggressively, UM, to do to control pollution, what have you. And the courts were wary of what a big ep A could do to businesses, so they wanted to limit these environmental cases to situations in which people were actually concretely harmed
by supposed environmental degradation. It does have this, These cases do have this somewhat unpredictable result though that when a president does a big power grab like this, Uh, taxpayers or who don't want to be stuck um paying off other people's student loans don't have an obvious recourse. Interesting And just to be clear, you said that was a good question, but then you said everybody has been asking it the last several days. It means very way to
undermine me. Wait, did way you know, take away my moment in the sun? So I guess and again I've probably gott to enroll in the constitutional law class, which I haven't taken the thirty years. But um, so the president can do something, to my mind blatantly unconstitutional. I mean, stretch that Heroes Act from the early two thousands beyond recognition and with the stroke of a pen and act legislation. But we've got to find somebody specific who's hurt by it.
You can't sue in principle, that's correct. So because so because Frank has this specific injury, he owes tactics under any year of state law. In our view, he qualifies
to challenge that big power grabbed by the president. So what about this latest wrinkle in the last twenty four hours where they're trying to get around your particular suit, where the Department of Justice has filed notice confirming that quote, any borrower who qualifies for automatic debt relief will be given an opportunity to opt out, which, according to one Blue check Mark Twitter person said, blows up your entire standing theory. So our attorneys are aware of that, they're
looking at it carefully. I believe that they're in court this morning and they're addressing the matter with the judge. We'll see how we'll see how he how he rules on this UM. I would add that I think we would like to see something more official from the Departments of Education and Justice confirming that this is how this will actually work. Because our attorneys looked very carefully at all of the materials prepared by the White House by
Department of Education after Biden first announced this policy. At that time, there was no indication of any opt out, and so I think before before we move forward, we would like to see some kind of more official confirmation that there actually is going to be an opt out and that this is how this will work. I would add that ordinarily, efforts by a defendant to evade a judgment and ends them by changing your position abruptly. Are
not favored in the federal court. Alison Sulman is a legal fellow at the Center for the Separation of Powers. You know, I'm just thinking creatively here, a physical injury would give me standing right. Yes, well, this program chaps my ass and is really painful, no amounting. Yeah, boy, howdy.
I hope that maneuver is is unsuccessful, as you suggest, because it's just so frustrating to see the power of the executive and the abuse the abuse of that power just grow by leaps and bounds with every administration, democratic and Republican. We the people, we have to have a defense. Yeah, and you're a lawyer, so this might not seem as much this way to you as it does to me.
But it seems like such a technical, complicated way to go about this when it should be more of just a we can't have one guy who can spend a true half a trillion dollars with one stroke of a pen. I agree this is a really big reach by the president and that it's really troubling for us a specific
legal foundation. This isn't really about our having views on what should happen with student loan debt, but on the idea that under our constitutional order of government, the president shouldn't be empowered to make these decisions on his own. This is decision that should be made democratically in the most democratic branch by Congress. The heroes at which Biden has a sort of authority, just doesn't simply support the kind of broad loan forgiveness that his White House claims
it does. Clearly, clearly indeed, Allison soone of the Pacific Legal Foundation, a terrific organization, absolutely worthy of everybody's support. Allison, great to talk to you. Let's stay in touch on this case. All right, thank you so much. It was great to be here. Yeah, thank you, our pleasure. Armstrong and Jetty