President Joe Biden’s legally suspect plan to waive up to $20,000 in student loan debt for Americans making up to $125,000 per year will cost approximately $400 billion, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. That’s an absurd amount of money to be conjured up through executive fiat in order to “aid” a set of Americans with greater economic prospects than the average American.
The CBO’s updated information encourages legal challenges to the Biden administration’s cynical and irresponsible attempt to manipulate Americans with student loan debts at the expense of others. Indeed, a libertarian group in California filed a legal challenge to Biden’s plan on Tuesday, calling it an illegal overreach that would increase state tax burdens on some beneficiaries.
To recap: In August, the Biden administration announced the plan to waive away $10,000 in student loan debt for Americans earning less than $125,000 per year, and an additional $10,000 for those who had qualified for federal Pell Grants, which aids low-income students.
The administration invoked the HEROES Act, a post-Sept. 11 law granting the secretary of the Department of Education the power to provide student loan relief in the context of a national emergency. The text of the law itself, however, makes clear that the law was intended to aid military members.
“The HEROES Act was intended to relieve student debt for soldiers risking their lives to fight for our country after 9/11,” noted Rep. Mike Waltz, R- Florida. “This is a slap in the face to veterans and Biden is using this law as an excuse for his disgraceful abuse of power.”
Yet the Biden administration decided to invoke the law, nearly two decades later, to apply to the “national emergency” of COVID-19. Ironically, Biden said this very month the COVID-19 pandemic “is over.”
“The pandemic is over,” Biden said in a “60 Minutes” interview. “We still have a problem with COVID. We’re still doing a lot of work on it. But the pandemic is over.”
So much for a national emergency necessitating a $400 billion bailout of people making as much as six figures.
The Biden administration plainly overreached its legitimate authority in seeking this student loan relief plan without congressional authorization.
Americans who didn’t seek a college degree, and those who did and sacrificed to do the right thing and pay off their debts, would be right to be bothered by the Biden administration’s misplaced priorities.
If Biden really cared about the problem of student loan debts and college affordability, he would have worked with Congress to find a solution to the perpetually surging cost of a college education. But he didn’t do that. He opted for a costly and legally suspect political stunt rather than problem-solving.
— The Orange County (Calif.) Register via TNS
