The Phoenix New Times reports, Kari Lake Bashes Federal Loan Forgiveness. Unless It’s Hers:
Kari Lake just wants to be left a loan. [That’s a funny, boy!]
The Republican nominee for Arizona governor publicly opposed recent federal action to provide relief for student loan borrowers across the country. But she also benefited from a federal loan in April 2020 that was later forgiven as part of the Paycheck Protection Program.
Earlier this year: NBC News reported, ‘Biggest fraud in a generation’: The looting of the Covid relief plan known as PPP: “experts say the theft [was] as much as $80 billion — or about 10 percent — of the $800 billion handed out in a Covid relief plan known as the Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP. That’s on top of the $90 billion to $400 billion believed to have been stolen from the $900 billion Covid unemployment relief program — at least half taken by international fraudsters — as NBC News reported last year. And another $80 billion potentially pilfered from a separate Covid disaster relief program.” A 10-Year Statue of Limitations Was Established for Paycheck Protection Program Loan Fraud. So take a closer look at that loan.
That’s not stopping her from likening loan forgiveness to robbery when the money is going to college students saddled with debt, instead of her husband’s video production company that does work for her political campaign. It’s a classic case of rules for thee but not for me. [It’s the GQP way.]
Last week, Lake parroted the fledgling trope of her fellow Trump-endorsed, self-styled “MAGA patriots” (sic) after President Joe Biden proposed cancelling up to $10,000 in federal student debt for individual borrowers making less than $125,000 per year.
The trope: Bailing out people mired in student debt equals stealing from blue-collar workers and upstanding college grads who have already settled their debts. The underlying sentiment from conservative dissidents centers around the right-wing pillars [frauds] of personal responsibility and sacrifice.
“Millions of Americans – blue-collar workers hoping to improve their economic circumstances or job opportunities – borrowed to finance an education they didn’t complete. The reasons vary — the coursework didn’t fit their skills, illness or family circumstances foiled their academic careers — but the result is the same: debt, sometimes in the tens of thousands of dollars, but no degree.” They Got the Debt, but Not the Degree. Colleges got the gold mine, students got the shaft (debt). FACT SHEET: President Biden Announces Student Loan Relief for Borrowers Who Need It Most.
Many critics of student loan cancellation believe that borrowers are responsible to pay back the loan under any means necessary. But several Republican critics of Biden’s proposal, including Lake, failed to mention their own forgiven federal loans.
Borrowing Trouble
The White House tendered a biting defense of its student loan cancellation plan on Twitter, throwing down the gauntlet on Republican lawmakers, one by one, who have had their own PPP loans forgiven.
Phoenix-based ZenVideo’s PPP loan of $5,663 was forgiven, public records show. ZenVideo is owned by Lake’s husband Jeff Halperin and is held through the Halperin Family Living Trust. Lake is a trustee of the living trust, according to her campaign financial disclosure.
The Paycheck Protection Program was designed to provide small businesses with funds to cover payroll costs. Records show ZenVideo doesn’t employ any staff other than Halperin.
Federal Election Commission records have shown that ZenVideo received nearly $2,200 from Lake’s campaign. Halperin exists by Lake’s side in perpetuity, filming video clips at all her nutty parties and posting them to social media.
Democrats pounced on the hypocritical nature of Lake’s criticism of the student debt relief proposal.
“Does Kari Lake consider it a government handout when she had her own PPP loan forgiven?” Josselyn Berry, spokesperson for the Arizona Democratic Party, asked in an interview with Phoenix New Times. “Or does she reserve her criticism only for hard-working Arizonans who are trying to keep their businesses and households afloat?”
The Lake campaign did not respond to numerous New Times requests seeking comment.
I’ll bet. Because she will just say “fake news” like all the MAGA/QAnon freaks do.
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Lake’s and many others abuses of the PPP could have been prevented by a fully staffed and technology up-to-date IRS that could have coordinated with the PPP. You want payroll protection for your employees? Our records show a single employee who’s actually the owner. No PPP for you!
Yet another reason the Repugs don’t want a fully functioning IRS…puts a crimp in their chronic grifting.
And the 10 year statute of limitations with fully funded new IRS auditors – now you know what the GQP freakout is really all about – grifters going to prison.