Were You Looking Forward To Student Loan Forgiveness? Have A Koch And A Frown.

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://www.wonkette.com/were-you-looking-forward-to-student-loan-forgiveness-have-a-koch-and-a-frown

Yesterday, a lawsuit was filed in federal court to block the Biden administration's plan to forgive $10,000 in federal student loan debt for folks with qualifying loans and income of less than $120,000 a year. (For married couples, double that.) The plan also offers an additional $10,000 in loan forgiveness to folks who received Pell grants, to target borrowers who were more likely to come from low-income families.

The lawsuit was filed by a dude named Frank Garrison who works for the Pacific Legal Foundation, an outfit described by CNN as a "a nonprofit libertarian law firm," and which is handling the lawsuit on Garrison's behalf. The Washington Post similarly describes the foundation as "a conservative public interest law firm in California."

But as Judd Legum points out in his Popular Information newsletter.

But what you will not learn from either story is that the Pacific Legal Foundation receives extensive funding from right-wing billionaires. And this "public interest law firm" has a record of filing lawsuits that advance its donors' economic and ideological interests.

Among the PLF''s major donors are entities controlled by right-wing billionaire Charles Koch, CEO of Koch Industries. A Popular Information review of tax filings from 2019 and 2020, the latest available, found that the Charles Koch Foundation and the Charles Koch Institute donated $2,331,550 to PLF in those two years.

Oh, my, that does seem rather important to mention. But what about the Charles Koch Fund, the Charles Koch League, and the Charles Koch Society for the Advancement Of Charles Koch?

Legum also notes that the PLF gets funding from other rightwing foundations, like the Sarah Scaife Foundation and the Harry Bradley Foundation. The group also "reportedly receives major funding from Richard Uihlein, the right-wing billionaire that owns the office supply company Uline." Uihlein is a big political player in the Midwest, where he has funded pet Senate candidates and efforts to restrict LGBTQ+ rights. So we're talking a very narrow segment of the "public" in PLF's "public interest" law practices.

*snip*