“The Supreme Court blocked it. They blocked it. But that didn’t stop me.”
Those aren’t the words of some banana republic strongman like Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro or Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Those are the words of President Joe Biden speaking from a library in Culver City, California, where he announced the transfer of $1.2 billion in wealth from taxpayers to a handpicked set of college graduates.
Specifically, Biden canceled the debts of more than 150,000 college graduates who borrowed less than $12,000 to pay for their degrees. Each of the bailout recipients had been enrolled in the Department of Education’s Saving on a Valuable Education plan, which enabled borrowers to lower or even eliminate their monthly student debt payments based on their current household income. Biden just chose to accelerate the implementation of the plan in time for this year’s election.
This $1.2 billion boondoggle is far less than the $400 billion that Biden initially tried to pay his constituents but was shot down by the Supreme Court. Undaunted, Biden is now back, again testing the outer limits of executive authority, all for the transparent purpose of delivering cash to those who are most likely to vote for him.
In the emails sent out to bailout recipients informing them of their windfall, Biden used the word “I” five times and the word “my” another five times. At no point in his message did Biden ever claim he was authorized by “Congress” to spend taxpayer money so freely.
Biden claims his latest executive bailout will help stimulate the economy by giving consumers more money to spend, but canceling the debt of college graduates is the worst form of trickle-down economics. More than 60% over 25 do not have a four-year college degree. Biden is offering these people nothing, all pumping more borrowed dollars into an already over-inflated economy.
Too many college graduates incur far too much debt to earn their degrees. Studies show that high college debt loads make it less likely young people will reach key steps toward adulthood, such as getting married and owning a home.
But the solution to college debt loads is not a free lunch for a select group of beneficiaries. The entire higher education system needs to be reformed, and pumping more money into debt forgiveness is not the answer. In fact, it will only make the problem worse because colleges will see the bailout as yet another signal from the federal government to continue raising prices faster than inflation.
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Instead of pumping more money into a corrupt system that is already failing to prepare graduates for today’s job market, the federal government should instead hold higher education institutions accountable for the unpaid debt of their students. What federal money is going to higher education should also be shifted into apprenticeships and technical education programs that have a better track record of delivering graduates with skills that are in demand, skills that lead to long-lasting, well-paid careers and the opportunity of starting one’s own business.
If Democrats want to know why they keep losing more and more working-class voters without a college degree, they need to look no further than this latest Biden college bailout.