Critics ding Wisconsin Attorney General over student loan forgiveness

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Wisconsin’s attorney general wants to forgive up to $50,000 in federal backed student loans, and there are some people at the State Capitol who want to know why.

Attorney General Josh Kaul on Monday joined 15 other states in calling on Congress to erase student loan debt for millions of people throughout the country.

But critics are wondering why Kaul, Wisconsin’s top law enforcer, is wandering into the student loan business.

“Aside from the issue not being a legal enforcement matter in any way, but rather a policy matter, Attorney General Kaul put his name to a letter rife with misleading and misguided information about student debt,” Rep. Dave Murphy, R–Greenville, said Thursday.

Murphy said students who are the victims of predatory student loans are already eligible for protections, and said Kaul is welcome to help them.

“Instead of spending time writing letters to Congress, I would encourage our Wisconsin attorney general to do his job if he honestly believes colleges in our state are exploiting students with easily obtainable federal loans,” Murphy added.

Brett Healy with the MacIver Institute echoed the same sentiment.

“For the top law enforcement officials of this country to grandstand this issue and try to make it out to be a civil rights issue is disappointing and disgusting quite frankly,” Healy told The Center Square.

Healy said the issue of student loan debt is being turned from an education and financial question into a political one.

“We cannot make student debt an entitlement that all taxpayers must pay for. Student debt is the sole responsibility of the student, no one else,” Healy explained. “If you do not want to take on student debt and pay back that debt, don’t go to a college you cannot afford or get a degree in a field that won’t pay your bills. No one ever needs to take on debt for a college degree.”

Kaul’s call for student loan forgiveness is being supported exclusively by the Democratic attorneys general of Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and the District of Columbia.

“Many Americans have substantial student loan debt,” Kaul said in a statement. “This problem has been exacerbated by a variety of other factors, such as the use of deceptive marketing practices by predatory for-profit colleges and the difficulty of qualifying for loan forgiveness.”

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