How cruel can Betsy DeVos and Steven Mnuchin be? As people of great wealth and privilege, they have not a thought for those who have been impoverished by the pandemic.
Both have been sued in a class-action lawsuit on behalf of student debtors whose tax refunds they sought to garnish.
Jessica Corbett writes in Common Dreams:
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, and the federal departments they run were hit with a class-action lawsuit Friday for illegal seizures of thousands of student borrowers’ tax refunds during the coronavirus pandemic, which has left over 40 million Americans jobless and familes across the country struggling to stay in their homes and keep food on the table.
The suit (pdf)—filed by Student Defense and Democracy Forward in the U.S. District Court for D.C.—accuses the Education and Treasury departments of violating the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES) Act from late March, which halted all involuntary collection of federal student loans, including tax refund offsets, until the end of September.
“Secretaries DeVos and Mnuchin have inflicted needless financial pain on student borrowers and their families by failing to stop the illegal seizures of their tax refunds,” Democracy Forward senior counsel Jeffrey Dubner said in a statement.
“The turmoil caused by the ongoing pandemic is no excuse for breaking the law,” Dubner added. “Our class-action suit seeks to hold the administration accountable so that student borrowers can stay on their feet during this crisis.”
I hope the class action lawsuit succeeds, but if Bully Billy Barr intervenes, and that seems likely, the prospects are not great. Even so, this is an important move and needs to be publicized, as you are doing here. Otherwise few people would notice the ripoff or the hoped for remedy, not with so much else demanding our attention.
Thieves and predators at the top assisting the lesser thieves and predators further down the food chain. The collective term for a group of snakes, btw, is “a pit.”
STEVE MUNCHKIN (in Lederhosen, to the tune of the “Lollipop Song” from The Wizard of Oz, BILL BARR playing the bagpipes in the background)
We represent the Oligarch Guild,
The Oligarch Guild,
The Oligarch Guild.
And in the name of the Oligarch Guild,
We’d like to welcome you to Grifterland.
All citizens are marks in Grifterland.
Tra la la la la la la
Beautiful, Bob.
Always an original thinker with a keen sense of humor, Bob.
Maybe DeVos and Trump will bring back debtors’ prisons and workhouses. only this time they’ll be privatized?
quarrelsome
In one or more states, the GOP has already brought back debtor prisons.
“Modern-day debtors prison? Mississippi makes people work to pay off debt
https://www.clarionledger.com/in-depth/news/local/2020/01/09/debtors-prison-miss-still-sends-people-jail-unpaid-debt/2742853001/”
“Prosecutors and judges Have Brought Back Debtor’s Prisons”
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/prosecutors-and-judges-have-brought-back-debtors-prisons/