On April 9, the New York Times carried a lead article on student debt. "Biden Announces Student Debt Relief for Millions in Swing-State Pitch." The subhead read:
During an appearance in Wisconsin, President Biden said 10 million borrowers could see debt relief of at least $5,000. The plan could help rally support among young voters.
Presidents attempting to fulfill campaign promises is nothing new. Presidential candidates campaign hard to secure a position by enduring the world's longest-ever job interview. Upon winning, they claim a mandate, convince a skeptical Congress that their campaign priorities should become legislative priorities, get bills passed after accepting compromises, and sign them into law in a Rose Garden ceremony.
Many of the nation's most transformative changes—President Reagan's tax and immigration laws, President Clinton's Crime Bill, and President Obama's Affordable Care Act—went through months of arduous give-and-take. When hurt parties filed suit in federal court, these presidents asked their DOJs to fight it all the way to the Supreme Court and win.
The problem with Biden's Madison, Wisconsin, announcement was that his plans to retire student aid debt did not follow any of the above steps. He just took it upon himself—like a monarch—to act.
"While a college degree still is a ticket to the middle class, that ticket is becoming much too expensive," Mr. Biden said during a speech to a small but enthusiastic audience filled with supporters. "Today, too many Americans, especially young people, are saddled with too much debt."
The lines following the above quote in the Times piece were shocking: "Mr. Biden announced the plan in Madison, Wis., the capital of a critical swing state." This meant that the reporter didn't find anything wrong with Biden unilaterally—that is, not having gone through Congressional appropriation—announcing a massive $50 billion program of providing debt relief of $5,000 or more for 10 million borrowers.
The second set of lines was even more shocking.
Mr. Biden's announcement was a presidential do-over. In the summer of 2022, he put in motion a plan to wipe out $400 billion in student debt for about 43 million borrowers. That was blocked by the Supreme Court, which said he exceeded his authority. In the months since, Mr. Biden has waived small amounts of debt using existing programs. But now he is attempting a larger effort closer to the scale of his first try.
In other words, President Biden has little respect for the Supreme Court. He is daring the judiciary to stop him, which he knows they won't. Impacted parties have to prove standing to sue, and a friendly judge could throw out a case on standing alone, clearing the way for Biden to implement his election promises using taxpayer dollars.
There have been numerous rumors that President Biden, too mentally frail to run the country, has handed the actual seat of power to former President Obama and a coterie of Obama's most trusted supporters who never left Washington after 2016. Biden's actions - in the callous disregard for co-equal branches that Obama nursed - have continued unabated since he took office.
When his Affordable Care Act went through Congressional hell, passing extremely narrowly in a nail-biting finish and surviving narrowly at the Supreme Court, Obama decided that involving the legislative and judicial branches was for JV presidents. Obama then sought to change America bit by bit, either by enacting executive orders or having his agencies make extreme rules with little regard for precedent or the law.
Obama implemented DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) in 2012, a controversial program that allowed illegal immigrants who arrived in the United States as children to defer deportation and receive work authorization for two years, subject to renewal. DACA is an unconstitutional overreach of executive power and encourages illegal immigration - as we have seen during the last three years when Biden opened the floodgates. Each new immigrant thinks that a DACA-type program will help them remain.
In 2012, Obama's Department of Education changed the rules of borrowing by capping monthly payments for repayment of federal student loans at a percentage of income and offering loan forgiveness after a certain number of years of payments. Called PAYE, this program never went through Congressional approval.
In 2015, Obama announced the REPAYE program, which was even more generous. For the first time, borrowers' monthly student loan payments would be calculated based on their income and family size. The maximum payment a borrower could make was 10% of discretionary income, the amount of money one earns above the poverty line. If borrowers were low-income or unemployed, they could be eligible for a $0 monthly payment.
In 2015, Obama's Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced a rule allowing spouses of H-1B visa holders - typically high-tech workers from India and China who are in the process of obtaining employment-based lawful permanent resident status (a Green Card) to apply for an Employment Authorization Document (EAD). Previously, these spouses were not allowed to work in the United States. However, with the H-4 EAD rule, Obama made millions eligible to work in any job they wished, adding to the labor supply and lowering wages.
Every Obama-era rule is now federal law.
Readers may recall Obama's 2008 campaign assertions: "Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek."
Many of us ignored these tall claims as typical Obamaesque hubris. However, we now know that Obama had a plan to change America all along. With Biden, Obama is living out his third term, with both continuing to ignore Congress and the courts and using taxpayer dollars to curry favors and win elections. God Save America!
