This Bothers Me
Barack Obama did not think he could cancel student loan debt. Joe Biden did not think he had the power to either. Nancy Pelosi said the President did not have that power. But here we are.
For all the talk about the Democrats being for democracy and the constitutional order, they were until they were not. They convinced a President who did not think he could do it, to use a law passed to help after 9/11 to outright cancel hundreds of billions of dollars of debt. It was an executive power grab hiding behind COVID as some sort of national emergency.
And he did it not because it was right. He did it not because the law was clear. He did it to mobilize a class of voters for an election. He subverted the constitutional order to win votes.
Time and time again, President Donald Trump did things that pushed the boundaries of the constitution and the same people cheering on Biden were livid and, frankly, many who cheered on Trump are livid now.
The constitution is not a game. It is not an option. It is the foundation of the nation, and when either side disrespects its boundaries, we should all be opposed. Instead, tribalism now allows erosion of the foundation.
Just because people want something to happen does not mean executive fiat is the way to do it. We do not elect an emperor to serve unilaterally for four years. We elected a chief executive officer to carry out the laws of Congress. The language “waive or modify any statutory or regulatory provision applicable to the student financial assistance programs” when “necessary in connection with a war or other military operation or national emergency” has never been read by any President, including this one, as broad enough to unilaterally cancel debt without Congress’s involvement until Democrats expected a midterm bloodbath.
On top of that, this is a redistribution scheme where now non-college-educated Americans will shoulder the burden, as taxpayers, for those with college degrees. We cannot take transactional outrage seriously by the left when they are willing to subvert the constitutional order for bailouts.
I know there are legitimate uses of the Executive Order, but it has become the proxy club of the masses who clamor for and demand "their" president take action on an issue. The people have come to know they can pressure the President to action far easier than they can pressure Congress to take action. ...but that is not what the office of President is for. The legislative actions of government are intended to be the result of debate and compromise across the bodies of representation, not the individual actions of one person, even if that action is thought to be Just and Right...and especially not to garner favor and support. While I do not consider this issue to be Just and Right, many do...but that simply does not matter. We have a process to effect change, and it is to come through the legislative branch, not the executive.
To your point about buying votes, this is another area that absolutely drives me nuts. If you walk through a neighborhood handing out $100 bills from your own bank account while asking people to vote for you in return, you're jailed. But if you reach into the public coiffeurs and hand out BILLIONS of dollars to buy votes, somehow that's legal. It's like jailing Martha Steward for insider trading that avoided a $45K loss while Nancy Pelosi and her husband are multi-millionaires due to their "legal" insider trading.