Hypocrisy watch at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette: Bradley Gitz, this you?

We’re nonetheless reeling from the jaw dropper editorial that ran in Arkansas’s paper of file a few weeks in the past attacking the Biden administration’s $10,000-per-person pupil mortgage forgiveness plan. As a result of it turned out the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette gladly accepted greater than $4 million in Paycheck Safety Program loans throughout the pandemic. Authorities handouts are solely OK when it’s wealthy people who find themselves pocketing them, apparently.

However even Walter Hussman himself should now bow down, as a result of there’s a brand new king of hypocrisy at Capitol and Scott. Longtime ADG Columnist Bradley Gitz took his flip railing in opposition to pupil mortgage forgiveness in a Monday column. It’s vote shopping for, Gitz charged. And it’s not honest to salt-of-the-earth working individuals who discover themselves on the road for others’ payments, he mentioned. Why ought to working class individuals subsidize college-educated individuals making good coin, he needs to know.

Undecided if Gitz has forgotten, however he scampered to make the deadline in 2005 to file for Chapter 7 chapter earlier than that possibility was taken off the desk. Chapter 7 was a extra charitable setup than the Chapter 13 chapter you will get these days. Below Chapter 7 chapter, debtors had been more likely to see a lot of their money owed canceled altogether. This federal authorized safety was there to assist individuals who, say, misplaced jobs or discovered themselves buried in medical payments. With money owed erased or restructured, individuals with chapter safety can extra simply work out methods to remain afloat.

Arkansas Occasions‘ David Koon tried to ask Gitz about his chapter again then, however wasn’t in a position to get him on the road. So we’re undecided precisely why Gitz filed for Chapter 7 chapter in 2005, however court docket paperwork steered he was searching for assist to cowl greater than $212,000 in debt.

For anybody preserving rating, that quantity is $202,000 greater than the $10,000 granted to individuals saddled with pupil debt.

Right here’s the factor: Typically bank cards, loans, payments and hire can get the higher of any of us. That’s why chapter safety exists, and why Gitz himself was in a position to search assist together with his personal debt, which he declared an incapacity to pay in 2005 regardless of his family bringing in $96,000 the yr earlier than.

We don’t know something about his life, simply as Gitz doesn’t know something in regards to the lives of the people who find themselves strolling round $10,000 lighter than they had been a couple of weeks in the past.

However we are able to’t resist suggesting that, contemplating the state of his private funds, Gitz ought to take into account shedding the lattes and avocado toast so he pays his personal payments sooner or later.