A dying pastor’s last act: Fighting DOGE cuts for those still living

Sitting in a wheelchair, weakened by lung disease, Eva Steege resolved to join the fight against the president’s slashing of the federal government.

A retired pastor and 83 years old, she had long been trying to pay off the student debt she incurred from theology school two decades ago. After struggling for years to access the loan forgiveness she had been told she was eligible for given her years of religious service, she was finally receiving guidance from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Then the Trump administration halted the agency’s efforts.

Aware she had weeks, maybe months, left to live, Steege joined a lawsuit in early February that argued the dismantling of the agency was unlawful.

“She was glad to use her voice in the hope of helping others,” said Ted Steege, 82, Eva’s husband of 29 years. “That’s just who she was.”

Tens of thousands of federal workers across the country have been fired at the direction of the U.S. DOGE Service in a chaotic, confusing and sweeping purge. Impacted employees had assisted struggling veterans, tidied national parks and, at the CFPB, served American consumers as a financial watchdog.

In early February, billionaire Elon Musk, who oversees DOGE, which stands for Department of Government Efficiency, posted on X: “CFPB RIP.” President Donald Trump called it “a very important thing to get rid of.”

But for Steege, her husband said, the agency was an invaluable resource helping her navigate the byzantine process of loan relief. She didn’t want to burden her family when she died.

Her outstanding debt was “$17,000 and some change,” her husband said, from when she earned a master of divinity at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg in her 60s. She was ordained in 2005, a lifelong dream.

She had felt called to serve God ever since girlhood, committing at a young to a life of service. She led university language courses, organized community fundraising walks to feed the hungry and helped found a church in New Hampshire, teaching piano and choir. Once she was finally ordained, she served in churches throughout the East Coast, from Massachusetts to D.C. and Maryland.

As the years passed, she tried multiple times to submit the documents necessary for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, according to the lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The program allows borrowers with lower-paying government or nonprofit jobs, including clergy and religious workers, to have their remaining federal student debt wiped after making on-time payments for a decade.

Errors, conflicting guidance and delays prevented her from receiving relief, she said in court records. (The seminary she attended declined to comment, citing federal privacy laws.)

A glimmer of hope came in early January when she met with the CFPB student loan ombudsman and learned, according to the lawsuit, she was eligible both for forgiveness and a refund of more than $15,000 in overpayments. They scheduled a follow-up meeting for Feb. 10.

It never came.

Instead, the morning of the meeting, she got an email saying it was canceled “due to new guidance CFPB employees recently received.”

When attorney Deepak Gupta called soon after and asked whether she wanted to join the lawsuit – brought by the Public Citizen Litigation Group, the National Treasury Employees Union, the NAACP and others – her husband said Steege didn’t hesitate. She got to work writing her statement as oxygen tanks helped her breathe.

“I was devastated by this decision, as I had finally found hope in the agency’s commitment to serving individuals in dire financial situations like mine,” she wrote. “Without the agency’s assistance, I am unable to explore reasonable options for loan forgiveness, forbearance, or any other form of debt relief that would allow me to live my remaining days with dignity and peace of mind.”

At that point, she had spent more than a year in home hospice. She tried to stay busy, keeping up with the news, remaining active in her church and book club. She was sure to do the New York Times crossword every Sunday and tended to her herb garden on the balcony of their 14th-story condo in College Park, Maryland. Still, her lingering debt weighed on her.

“This isn’t a political fight; this is about justice,” she and her husband agreed.

Her situation is a “perfect illustration” for how the administration’s effort to dismantle the CFPB is “harming real people,” said Gupta, one of the lawyers representing her and others in the lawsuit.

He heard about her story and fighting spirit from CFPB employees, he said. “Helping people like this was the reason they wanted to be in government,” he remembers one saying.

“Most people are nervous about being named and going up against the administration,” he said. Not Steege. “She was fearless.”

She died March 15.

Last week, a cluster of Steege’s loved ones gathered in Congressional Cemetery for her burial, nearby trees laden with pink blossoms swaying in the breeze.

Four days later, a federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from dismantling the CFPB. In her ruling, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson wrote that Steege had suffered “irreparable harm.”

“Steege’s fear of leaving her surviving family members saddled with her student loan debt came to pass,” Jackson wrote.

Steege would have been pleased by the news but also would have known that the fight isn’t over, said her husband, who has taken her place in the lawsuit.

He finds peace knowing that’s she’s now “in the loving arms of God,” he said. In a place without lawsuits and cuts and debt.