Biden’s bad student debt deal

The midterm elections following the ascendance of a new president to office typically go against the president’s party. After a nightmare withdrawal from Afghanistan, a cut in domestic oil production, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, rapidly spiking inflation, and an unexpected push to the hard left, President Joe Biden and the Democrats face an especially adverse battlefield come November.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has taken to Twitter to repeatedly urge the president to take executive action to cancel student debt, which she believes can help protect Democrats from a midterm wipeout. In other words, by forgiving hundreds of billions of dollars of debt, Sen. Warren imagines the Biden administration can turn the tide and prevent possibly historic losses in the House, Senate, and many state elections.

That plan is just a straightforward and cynical proposal to buy votes. President Biden could issue such an order, which might help him in the midterms, but it would also immediately be challenged in court. Why? The U.S. Constitution. The president does not have that kind of unilateral power. Nevertheless, an announcement of debt forgiveness need only create the appearance of success to affect voters.

We hear a lot about executive orders. Their point is to allow a president to carry out the responsibility of the administration to enforce laws. Between bureaucratic rules and executive action, we see the attempts of the presidency and agencies to fill in the gaps of detail that may exist within broad legislation. However, a president does not have the power to nullify legislation, which is what a Biden debt-cancellation order would effectively do—and in an unconstitutional grab of power.

Congress, acting as agents for the American people, passed the various components of the federal student loan program. If the program needs altering, then it would be the task of Congress to make the change. At that point, it would be appropriate for the president to consider the legislation and either sign it or veto it. The veto gives a nice illustration of how executive power should actually work when it comes to legislation. An opportunity exists at the outset for a president to say no to a program. That opportunity does not extend to the time after the signature has turned a bill into law.

It is also the exclusive province of Congress to appropriate money. Canceling hundreds of billions of student debt would be equivalent to one of the largest appropriations of taxpayer funds in the history of the republic. A president does not and should not have that power. To accept that a president can do such a thing would be to throw away the separation of powers that has served us so well for the nearly 250 years of our nation’s existence.

Finally, and by no means the least of our concerns, we have the problem creating the most significant economic challenge the United States has faced in a generation, and that is the prospect of runaway inflation. Prices continue to climb to the point that a trip to the grocery store is an occasion for shock and surprise. What was initially pronounced to be short-term and transitory has turned into a fire the Federal Reserve is trying to put out without simultaneously throwing the nation into a painful recession. The last thing we need in an inflationary environment is the equivalent of yet another massive appropriation from the federal government.

None of this is to say that the federal loan program is ideal and that tuition prices are where they need to be. The reality, however, is that reforming the federal loan system should be done legislatively, not by fiat. Debt cancellation benefits a limited set of Americans to the prejudice of those who never took out loans and those who faithfully and responsibly paid off their debt. Indeed, The Wall Street Journal recently revealed how voters are divided over such a proposal.

The proper balance of the political and social considerations can be taken into account through the legislative process, which is constitutionally designed to handle such things. If presidents can make such moves with the stroke of a pen, presidential campaigns will become nothing more than contests to buy votes. That would mean disaster for our republic.