A benevolent king writing checks?

Yesterday, President Biden announced an executive action by which he will wipe out $10,000 of student debt for every person with less than $125,000 in income. The amount rises to $20,000 for holders of student debt who received Pell Grant assistance. While there will be many people who will benefit from the sudden release of debt, the decision by the president to unilaterally spend between $330 billion (and maybe as much as $800 billion) of taxpayer’s money should be deeply alarming for a variety of reasons.

First, it is exceedingly strange to have a president spend a third of a trillion dollars on his own authority just weeks after he signed an inaptly named Inflation Reduction Act (that was actually a massive climate and health spending bill that would have modest inflation reduction impact under the most favorable interpretation). George Orwell’s famed essay on the political abuses of the English language is entirely worth revisiting in the current context. It has not lost a scintilla of its relevance.

Second, the executive action reveals an increasing lack of respect for the U.S. Constitution. Presidents do not have the constitutional authority to make massive expenditures. Money is appropriated by the Congress in bills to be signed by the president. If presidents have the ability to suddenly transfer a third of a trillion dollars of obligations from borrowers to the American people more broadly, then there is a real question of whether we actually have a relevant legislative branch.

Third, the president’s move to forgive $330 billion dollars of obligations by transferring the debt to the American treasury represents an incredible lack of discipline with regard to governing over against blatant campaigning. U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., who is in a tough race in his state, has pressed President Biden to make the move. Others likewise believe it will improve Democrat chances in the midterm. If presidents can explode federal budgets in the months immediately preceding an election with thoughts of improving their electoral position, the possibilities for mischief will expand in such a way as to demand reform. There is no telling how much damage can be done.

Finally, this action by the president has favored the current generation of student debt holders at the expense of previous debt holders. There are many millions of Americans who have sacrificed in order to pay off the loans they contracted. Today, they stand and watch as hundreds of billions of dollars are transferred to a broader federal debt that they will be expected to help finance. They will also suffer from the inflation that this executive action is likely to exacerbate. They must wonder why they paid their debt while others now have their student debt miraculously wiped away.

There will be legal challenges to the executive action regarding student debt. I believe President Biden’s action represents an unconstitutional breach of the constitution’s separation of powers. This move by the president actually robs the American people of the protective function of their representatives in Congress.

In a normal situation, a policy would be debated in the House and Senate. Given that the two branches are relatively closely divided, the pros and cons would have to be carefully weighed and measured. The Senate, of course, is so evenly divided that the vice president has to break ties. There would be every guarantee to Americans that the merits and pitfalls of this unprecedented policy would be fully explored and that constitutional safeguards against cynical electioneering and the buying of votes could be employed.

If the president is allowed to take such a drastic action via a stroke of the pen, then we have become alienated from our own system of laws. We will have set the stage for rule by a powerful national executive largely unmediated by the legislative branch. It is my hope that the courts will take the full implications of President Biden’s move seriously.

In making this case, I do not by any means intend to suggest that there is not a debate worth having about our system of student loans. There is little question that many people have gotten in over their heads and have made agreements that they did not adequately consider. We have developed a population of borrowers who struggle to meet obligations and pay for other important needs.

Again, that would have been a debate worth having in the halls of Congress. By denying the American people the opportunity to participate in it through their representatives and by empowering the president to act as some kind of king writing checks from an account he does not own, we have infantilized our democracy and transferred debts to people who should not owe them.