The hallmark of “progressives” going back to Woodrow Wilson is an utter disdain for the Constitution’s limits on federal authority. They think that if they can do good by using the coercive power of government, no antiquated document should get in the way. Joe Biden’s administration exhibits a complete disregard for the Constitution almost daily, and his latest initiative on student-loan “forgiveness” is a case in point.
No sooner had the Supreme Court ruled that his previous effort was ultra vires last June than the administration announced new loan cancellations through the Department of Education.
As Michael Brickman of American Enterprise Institute writes here, at least one state — Kansas — has stepped into the fray to try to use what’s left of the rule of law to prevent this from happening. Three cheers for its attorney general, Kris Kobach.
Brickman gives an excellent explanation as to why this Biden move must be prevented. I’ll just give his last one:
- It undermines our democratic institutions: While Joe Biden frames his candidacy as a movement to save democracy, his policies are undermining it. With his initial loan forgiveness effort, he found a loophole where he could claim a power he didn’t have and then vetoed a bill from bipartisan majorities of the House and Senate that attempted to stop him. The Supreme Court eventually intervened, but on the same day it issued its ruling, Biden pledged to ignore the justices and find another way. The SAVE program goes further still, utilizing a federal agency to spend hundreds of billions of dollars that Congress never appropriated. As the Supreme Court noted just last June, the powers to enact a mass debt cancellation program “are ones that Congress would likely have intended for itself.”
Student-loan forgiveness is terrible policy, and to go about it the way the Bidenistas are doing is doubly bad as it also erodes the Constitution’s separation of powers.