The silver-tongued President Joe Biden uttered those words twice in a September 60 Minutes interview. With that utterance, Biden instantly dissolved the legal fiction that is supposed to justify his forgiveness of $400 billion in student loans at the long-term cost to taxpayers of $1 trillion, including interest.
Biden is seeking to implement the most expensive executive order in U.S. history, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office — and his action threatens to undo all the measures taken so far to contain inflation.
And he is doing it based on something he openly admits is a lie. He said it himself. And as for whether the pandemic really is over, just look around. All businesses have reopened. The era of social distancing is over. Mask-wearing is a rare fashion statement at this point and is usually more about politics than health.
Biden’s handlers wanted to do student loan forgiveness in the election year, but they had a very hard time concocting a legal basis for it. In the end, they shoehorned it into a law intended to forgive student loans for service members sent to fight a war in a national emergency. The law in question was called the HEROES Act.
The legal fiction under which Biden first sought to give away government-owned property — i.e., debt — depends on a continuing national emergency. The pandemic was supposed to be his emergency. Now, Biden has admitted that that emergency is over. Therefore, his attempts at the great giveaway should be over as well.
That should be the end of the story, but of course it isn’t.
Unfortunately, Biden intends to waste taxpayers’ resources with years of protracted litigation to defend this election-year bribe to the most privileged and wealthiest members of society with the greatest earning potential. This bribe, sadly, comes at the expense of those who either paid their student loans already or never had the opportunity to go to college. As policy, it is garbage. But it is also flagrantly illegal.
Consider in your mind the image of national heroes being called to service in the moment of their nation’s need. Compare that with the image of some 22-year-old gender studies graduate who discovers after graduation that he or she (or xe) has an emergency on his or her (or xir) hands: This degree has no value at all but still costs upward of $100,000. Imagine that. Is this person deserving of relief? No, not objectively and certainly not under this law.
It doesn’t take a legal genius to realize that if a president can give away government property or spend money in this manner based on a pure pretext that even he openly admits is a lie, then the rule of law and the separation of powers don’t mean much.
Behind his pretextual emergency, Biden is usurping a function that Congress alone has the right to perform under Article 4, Section 3 of the Constitution — to dispose of “property belonging to the United States.”
Biden’s actions in this regard are a threat to the constitutional order. And as such, they are a far greater threat to American democracy than trivial if annoying issues such as election denialism or disorderly conduct at the Capitol.
Biden is behaving like a tyrant, exceeding his rightful powers and violating the law. He is abusing public office. His actions must be stopped.
