Taking Biden to Court – WSJ

The Biden Administration has to know it lacks the authority to unilaterally cancel a half-trillion dollars in student debt, but it may have calculated that no one could demonstrate the injury needed to bring a legal challenge. Well, maybe someone can.

An Indiana borrower on Tuesday filed a federal lawsuit to block the President’s student loan write-off. He makes a strong case that he is harmed by the loan cancellation and that it’s illegal. Federal courts only hear cases and controversies. As a threshold matter, plaintiffs must show that they have suffered a concrete and particular injury.

Now the always interesting Ed Morrissey at HotAir writes:

The more the merrier? Just a couple of days after a private citizen filed a lawsuit to block

Joe Biden’s

student-loan debt forgiveness plan, six states have opened another legal front. Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, South Carolina, and Arkansas launched their own lawsuit, covering some of the same legal ground as Pacific Legal Foundation‘s lawsuit on behalf of Frank Garrison.

Mr. Garrison is the Indiana borrower, and it seems he’s not the only one who can show harm resulting from the White House scheme. Seung Min Kim reports for the Associated Press:

In the lawsuit, being filed Thursday in a federal court in Missouri, the Republican states argue that Biden’s cancellation plan is “not remotely tailored to address the effects of the pandemic on federal student loan borrowers,” as required by the 2003 federal law that the administration is using as legal justification. They point out that Biden, in an interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes” this month, declared the Covid-19 pandemic over, yet is still using the ongoing health emergency to justify the wide-scale debt relief . . . 

The states argue that Missouri’s loan servicer is facing a “number of ongoing financial harms” because of Biden’s decision to cancel loans. Other states that joined the lawsuit argue that Biden’s forgiveness plan will ultimately disrupt revenue to state coffers.

Someday, Mr. Biden may have to go to Congress if he wants funding for his bailout scheme. Imagine that.

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Another Shining Achievement of Chicago Governance
Speaking of education failures, Tracy Swartz reports in the Chicago Tribune that enrollment in the Windy City’s public school system has fallen for the 11th consecutive year, according to data released on Wednesday. It’s not exactly a sign of a thriving metropolis—or an irresistible educational opportunity. Ms. Swartz elaborates on the trend at Chicago Public Schools:

CPS is reporting enrollment of 322,106 students, down 2.5% from 330,411 students the last school year. A decade ago, there were about 403,000 CPS students… The district’s overall budget for this year is $9.4 billion, up from $9.3 billion last year, despite declining enrollment.

Ms. Swartz provides additional interesting context:

Public school enrollment has been declining across the country, especially in the wake of COVID-19. Miami-Dade County Public Schools in Florida, however, is reporting an increase of about 4,800 students from last year, to 324,961 students as of Sept. 1, now making it the nation’s third-largest district behind New York and Los Angeles, respectively, based on a Tribune review of enrollment data.

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Speaking of Losses From the Era of Lockdowns
Also in the Chicago Tribune, Northwestern University’s Dr. Jami Josefson writes this week:

As a pediatric endocrinologist at Lurie Children’s Hospital, I’ve seen firsthand an explosion of child obesity among our patients during the pandemic. My colleagues and I have also observed an alarming increase in children with new onset Type 2 diabetes, which is directly related to the widespread weight gain among our patients.

In a recent study published in the Journal of Diabetes, my colleagues found that diagnoses of Type 2 diabetes at Lurie increased nearly 300% from the pre-pandemic annual mean.

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Can an Economy Run on Batteries?
Not that it’s much consolation for American taxpayers who are required to subsidize alternative-energy companies, but U.S. citizens aren’t the only ones at risk from government-directed climate spending. The Journal’s Dave Sebastian reports on a new listing in Hong Kong:

Shares of Zhejiang Leapmotor Technology Co., a Chinese electric-vehicle maker, fell as much as 42% below their initial public offering price Thursday. The seven-year-old company raised $800 million in its IPO—significantly less than the $1.5 billion it had previously aimed for—after pricing its shares at the bottom of a guided range . . .

Five so-called cornerstone investors, including Chinese state-run investment funds, bought roughly $300 million of Leapmotor’s IPO shares and agreed to hold them for at least six months… Hangzhou, China-based Leapmotor joins an increasingly crowded field of publicly listed Chinese EV makers, which include

BYD Co.

,

Li Auto Inc.,

NIO Inc.

and

XPeng Inc.

The country’s alternative-energy car market is expanding rapidly, helped by favorable policies aimed at boosting new EV sales over traditional combustion-engine vehicles. But many of its homegrown auto makers are racking up losses while dealing with supply-chain disruptions and rising costs of batteries and other raw materials.

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Mr. Freeman will host “WSJ at Large” Friday at 7:30 p.m. EDT on the Fox Business Network. The program repeats at 9:30 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. EDT on Saturday and Sunday.

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James Freeman is the co-author of “The Cost: Trump, China and American Revival.”

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Follow James Freeman on Twitter.

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(Teresa Vozzo helps compile Best of the Web. Thanks to Wes Van Fleet.)