Based Underground is now a conservative news aggregator AND curated newsletter.
(The Daily Signal)—Past is prologue when it comes to the student-loan policy of progressive grandees. Hoping to hear an adoring public applaud one last time, the Biden-Harris administration released a fourth round of rules canceling student-loan debt on Oct. 25.
First came the mammoth $430 billion plan birthed before the ’22 midterms that made the student loans of 40 million borrowers eligible for cancellation.
That died the following spring at the Supreme Court only to be succeeded by the “Saving on a Valuable Education” plan, which drastically reduced the income borrowers must contribute toward repaying their loans at an estimated 10-year cost of $475 billion.
SAVE, which two Democrat-appointed judges enjoined in April, was then followed by four related rules canceling the debts of borrowers who have spent a long time in repayment without actually repaying their loans.
The latest proposal is another example of the administration’s ingrained reflex to respond to its own unpopularity with spending. Although the general objections to it are familiar, still, specific features of the latest plan are worth examining, especially because of their timing.
At this stage, the proposed rules would not be finalized until 2025. Moreover, the rules’ stated pretension is to provide an avenue for debt cancellation for “student loan borrowers for generations to come.”
The rules create two new paths for cancellation: a one-time automatic cancellation initiated by the secretary of education for loans at risk of default and an ongoing option that borrowers can access by application that “holistically” demonstrates the borrower’s hardship.
Purportedly, these address borrower needs not “sufficiently” covered in the preceding rounds of rulemaking or by readily available loan deferrals. That may be the closest the administration gets to acknowledging the redundancy of its plan that layers forgiveness atop forgiveness.
Much like the previous efforts, there’s a good deal of dissonance in how the administration presents the rule to different audiences. The Department of Education heralds the rules publicly as a courageous achievement, power procured through a righteous fight to provide “hope to millions of struggling Americans,” something no other administration has done before.
At least that last bit is true. But the rules themselves attempt to speak softly and modestly to a mostly legal audience, insisting that they are not the creation of some strange new power, but only a specification of how the secretary intends to apply the discretion that he has always had.
- Preserve your retirement with physical precious metals. Receive your free gold guide from Genesis Precious Metals to learn how.
And though the rule is supposed to help “millions,” the secretary assures would-be critics that he will exercise his discretion only in “relatively rare” circumstances where “the costs of enforcing the full amount of the debt are not justified by the expected benefits.”
So, rest assured, dear taxpayer, these rules will save you money despite all appearances that your money is being given away.
Officious paternalism works tolerably well as a description of the rules’ tenor. The administration promises to anticipate and address borrower needs before they even arise by authorizing the Department of Education to cancel loans automatically if the department deems them at risk of defaulting.
How does the department make that determination? By consulting a “non-exhaustive” 17-factor list, of course. How else?
The borrowers the administration hopes to assist are evidently so distressed that they have not even bothered to apply for relief. Perhaps after years of COVID-19-based transfer payments and the gratuitous benefits of previous loan pauses and cancellations, borrowers are just accustomed to receiving without asking.
But then it falls to the rest of us to ask: Does any other segment of the population receive this much financial solicitude from the federal government?
The proposal’s most audacious quality is not its indulgent attitude toward borrowers, but its insouciance toward the matter of legal authority.
Since it took office, the Biden-Harris administration has combed the statutes for the few stray words they could morph into transformational debt-cancelling authority.
To date, they’re still searching for a rationale that would satisfy a judge. But the fact is, they are out of plausible alternatives, so they are recycling the same tortured reading of the Higher Education Act used to justify two of the preceding attempts.
Courts have already previewed the merits of this argument: Two Democrat-appointed judges have found that opponents of the rules are “likely to succeed on the merits” of their legal challenges. But that has in no way dissuaded the administration from this fourth attempt because the administration refuses to take the hint.
In the twilight of Biden-Harris administration, its policy approach resembles a movie studio that has misunderstood its audience and run out of ideas to keep them engaged.
These rules are sequels that appeal only to the most niche audience—the coalition of organizations dedicated to the abolition of student debt and their enablers within the Department of Education.
With the broader American audience, the approach is a liability. A poll conducted by University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy found that 40% of Americans “strongly disapprove” of the Biden-Harris administration’s repeated intrigues to transfer student debt to taxpayers. Another poll from the libertarian Cato Institute found that roughly 70% of Americans disapprove of student-loan cancellation when apprised of its effects on taxes and inflation.
Nevertheless, the administration persists in offering the same non-cure for the student-debt ailment. Despite the administration’s professed interest in addressing “root causes,” these rules, like their predecessors, barely acknowledge, let alone address, the variables that have made higher education such a debt-intensive undertaking or the variables that make the American economy one in which it is difficult for borrowers to repay the burdens they have assumed.
Instead, it cues up another installment of bourgeois socialism, a redistribution of monies to those who have spent too much money to attain fewer privileges than they would like.
Ten Election Irregularities That Have Occurred During Early Voting So Far
by Just The News
A variety of election irregularities – at least ten of them – have occurred across the country in the weeks leading up to Election Day, as some states have reported record-breaking turnout during early voting. The issues range from burning ballot boxes to fake voter registrations, with the close presidential…
Will Gold and Silver Prices Drop if Donald Trump Wins?
by Sponsored Post
It’s well-established among economists that if Kamala Harris wins the presidential election, gold and silver will likely shoot up in value. But what if Donald Trump wins? With his chances of victory increasing, should gold and silver owners sell now because values will drop during his second term? “Considering everything…
Election Skullduggery From Around the Nation
by PJ Media
To the surprise of no one with an ounce of grey matter, the 2024 election irregularities have begun, and, as expected, Democrats are responsible for almost of the malfeasance. Roughly 57 million Americans have already voted as of this writing, and I’ve found a K2-sized pile of evidence showing the…
P. Diddy ‘Kept Meticulous Records’ of His Parties and ‘Has Enough Dirt to Hang Expose of Hollywood’
by End Times Headlines
Sean “P. Diddy” Combs has had zero support from exes, including Jennifer Lopez and Cameron Diaz, who are in a major panic that he’ll drag them down by spilling sordid secrets about them if he winds up wearing a number, a source exclusively tells In Touch. “It’s not like they’ve…
What if Harris Gets Away With It?
by The Blaze
On Nov. 5, the American experiment in republican government may well come to an end. Over the past two decades, we have been living through a slow-motion communist revolution. Acts of political warfare have become commonplace. The most devastating has been the corruption of our election system. Having vilified Donald…
Here Are 8 Major Election Developments That Everyone Needs to Know About
by Michael Snyder
(The Economic Collapse Blog)—Can you believe that we are less than a week away from Election Day? Over 57 million Americans have already voted, and in some states more than half of the total expected vote is already in. So it may already be too late for a last minute…
Democrats Plan for Color Revolution
by Zero Hedge
It feels like there’s been a notable shift amongst Democrats in the last month. A recent sense of fatalism – or perhaps just simple resignation to what appears to be an inevitable Trump win. But as it turns out, there are some Democrats who have been preparing for this potential…
This Election Will Not Prevent the Coming Chaos
by Mike Pottage
(WND)—It seems the justice system is overwhelmed by criminal cases involving illegals, and this puts Americans at risk of being short changed by that system. What is even more astounding is the fact this crisis was created by the Democrat Party and was 50 years in the making, and yet…
House Republicans Warn White House It Could Have Violated Federal Law by Editing Biden’s Transcript
by Just The News
House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer accused the White House on Wednesday of publishing a “false transcript” of President Joe Biden’s controversial remarks on Tuesday, and warned doing so could have violated federal law. The president appeared to say that supporters of former…
As Christians Go To The Polls, We Must Remember: The Future Of Our Nation Is At Stake
by Harbingers Daily
In just a few days, our nation will hold one of the most consequential elections in decades. Voters will go to the polls on Tuesday, Nov. 5, to cast their ballots for the next president of the United States, as well as for many crucial congressional, state and local offices….
‘Fertility Call Checks’ — Chinese Communists Cold-Call Women Demanding Details About Their Periods
by Breitbart
Chinese women are flooding regime-controlled social media with complaints that local Communist Party officials are making phone calls to harass them into having more children, the South China Morning Post reported on Tuesday. The callers, government “grassroots” officials, sometimes demand details of their private lives including the timing of their…
Absolutely Massive Food Bank Demand in the Swing States of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin
by Michael Snyder
(The Economic Collapse Blog)—The economy is the number one political issue in America right now, and it isn’t because the economy is doing well. The long-term economic collapse that I have been writing about for years is playing out right in front of our eyes, and it is going to have…