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Biden’s Student Loan Bailout Sends Taxpayer Funds to On-Campus Mobs


BY: CHRISTOPHER JACOBS | MAY 07, 2024

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2024/05/07/bidens-loan-forgiveness-plan-makes-taxpayers-fund-on-campus-mobs/

protests on campus

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In remarks regarding the growing unrest on college campuses nationwide last Thursday, President Biden denounced the violent acts associated with many of the demonstrations and the growing wave of antisemitism on college campuses.

But, as the saying goes, talk is cheap. There’s one simple way to give his position teeth: Congress should enact legislation prohibiting the Department of Education from making taxpayers assume or otherwise modifying student loans for any student found responsible by his university or a court of law for acts of antisemitism, trespassing, property damage, intimidation, or violence.

Loan Giveaways Encourage Campus Chaos

Biden might be loath to admit it, but in many ways the campaign for mass student loan forgiveness has helped cause the current campus debacle. This year’s seniors entered college during the 2020 election campaign, meaning that most students currently on campus spent their college career hearing promises that much if not all of their debt would be forgiven.

This leftist movement to make American taxpayers pay off other people’s college debt has further weakened the already-tenuous link between a degree and its earning potential. If they believe the government will ultimately forgive the cost of their education, students have no reason not to major in Grievance Studies, or some similar Marxist-adjacent course of study. Assuming their loan debts will get nationalized also makes students less concerned about potential employers refusing to hire them due to their participation in on-campus riots.

With less incentive for students to choose practical degrees, and officials prioritizing woke nostrums over intellectual rigor, colleges have given up all pretense of ideological balance. As a result, some institutions have become less like universities and more like madrassas, places that inculcate and radicalize youths rather than educate them.

The way Biden has continued to pursue loan forgiveness, despite a rebuke of his unconstitutional plan by the Supreme Court, set an example that demonstrators have replicated. The president may now deprecate the mob’s actions, and call for respect for the rule of law, but when he publicly brags that the nation’s highest court “didn’t stop me” from pursuing his objectives, can anyone blame the would-be jihadis on campus for thinking themselves entitled to take the law into their own hands?

Restore Sanity to Campuses

Congress can and should take a stand, by cutting off the financial spigot for participants in the bedlam. If Biden opposes the chaos on campus so strongly, he should be willing to take a break from buying votes via taxpayer loan payoffs to cut off access for those creating mayhem. And if Democrats on the left like Rep. Ilhan Omar wish to exclude from loan payoffs any participants in Islamophobic or other offensive acts, few Republicans — who oppose Biden’s forgiveness proposals outright — will object.

Some might fear this proposal would encourage already-timid university administrators to take a weaker line against the demonstrators because individuals held responsible could face significant financial repercussions. But in some cases, civil authorities may be able to act irrespective of whether the higher education institutions in question do. More importantly, this measure should deter students as much as university officials, if not more so.

Another potential concern, that Congress prohibiting loan bailouts for a narrow sliver of the population might be viewed as lawmakers permitting Biden’s power grab for other students, doesn’t appear to pass muster, either. The House passed a bill last spring disapproving Biden’s original student loan payoff plan, but the fact that the measure didn’t get enacted into law didn’t stop the Supreme Court from striking the plan down as an unconstitutional power grab.

Finally, this proposal focuses solely on actions, not speech. Like all other Americans, students can and should have the right to protest, and to express their views, however offensive others may find them. But when speech crosses into intimidation, or encampments that create safety and health concerns, let alone breaking into buildings, those actions should bring consequences — in this case, financial ones.

A Practical Solution

Prohibiting student loan payoffs is less expensive and more practical than the other alternative: giving demonstrators a one-way ticket to the Gaza Strip. It would also send a message in clear and uncertain terms about what the American people, through their elected representatives, think of the mayhem that has unfolded in recent weeks.

In the longer term, the recent campus chaos should prompt Congress to consider repealing the student loan program entirely, a reform that would incentivize students and universities to prioritize college affordability, while saving taxpayers at least $300 billion over the coming decade. But at minimum, lawmakers should act now to ensure that hard-working taxpayers are not subsidizing participants in violent demonstrations on campuses nationwide.

Chris Jacobs is founder and CEO of Juniper Research Group, and author of the book “The Case Against Single Payer.” He is on Twitter: @chrisjacobsHC.

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Biden’s Latest Student Loan Bailout Has Election-Year Bribe Written All Over It


BY: M.D. KITTLE | APRIL 09, 2024

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2024/04/09/bidens-latest-student-loan-bailout-has-election-year-bribe-written-all-over-it/

President Joe Biden speaking in Madison, Wisconsin about his new student loan bailout.

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President Joe Biden campaigned in swing-state Wisconsin on Monday to sell his latest student loan bailout program, a multibillion-dollar election-year bribe that delivers a shaky middle finger to the Supreme Court. Not surprisingly, the Democrat’s friends in the accomplice media regurgitated White House talking points on Biden’s Plan B loan- and interest-forgiveness initiative without mentioning the cost to federal debt-burdened U.S. taxpayers. 

According to Wisconsin Public Radio: 

Under the proposal, debt would be canceled for people already eligible for certain federal student loan forgiveness programs. It would also cancel debt for anyone who began repaying their undergraduate loans more than 20 years ago, or graduate loans more than 25 years ago…

According to a press release, the plan would eliminate all accrued interest for 23 million people and cancel out debt for 4 million people.

The federally subsidized public radio outlet didn’t bother with details like the price tag to taxpayers. Neither did the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in its promotional piece for Biden’s new bailout. At least The New York Times, while performing its role of Biden administration water carrier, acknowledged, “Officials did not say how much the new plan would cost in coming years, but critics have said it could increase inflation and add to the federal debt by billions of dollars.” 

How could it not? The New York Post estimated Biden’s latest bribe could rival his last failed student debt forgiveness program, a $400 billion-plus unconstitutional behemoth.  

Who is going to pay to shrink student loan debt for 23 million borrowers? The complete bailout of 4 million Americans? Debt buyouts of $5,000 or better for 10 million college loan debt holders (More than $50 billion on that account alone)? 

Taxpayers. Taxpayers with student loan debt. Taxpayers without student loan debt. Taxpayers of all kinds, particularly future taxpayers. Because unless Biden and Congress suddenly wake up and begin wholesale cutting government programs to deal with a $34.6 trillion U.S. debt — and rapidly rising — this borrower forgiveness plan will be borne by today’s consumers and future generations. 

“We’re giving people a chance to make it,” Biden told an assemblage of liberals gathered in a gymnasium at Madison Area Technical College in Wisconsin’s capital city. The Democrat will need to roll up huge vote totals again in the big-government city and left-heavy Dane County if he wants to win Wisconsin, a critical battleground he won by a razor-thin margin in 2020. 

“Today, too many Americans — especially young people — are saddled with unsustainable debts in exchange for college,” Biden said in a 15-minute mumbling speech as a historic solar eclipse darkened wide swaths of the nation’s skies. An ominous sign? 

‘Presidential Do-Over’

You didn’t need special glasses to see that Biden’s bailout, coming less than seven months before the presidential election, is designed to help bailout the octogenarian’s slumping poll numbers. The most recent RealClearPolitics average of polls shows Biden and former President Donald Trump in a dead heat nationally. But Trump leads Biden in six of the seven swing states, which have a significant say over who will occupy the White House next year, according to a Wall Street Journal poll. Biden leads only in Wisconsin, by 3 percentage points, according to the poll. Trump leads by as much as 8 points in North Carolina, and as few as 2 points in Michigan.  

“Biden wants to use your tax dollars to buy votes because more and more young people are supporting President Trump,” Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley said in a statement. He called Biden’s trip to Wisconsin the Bankrupting American Tour. 

“Biden’s student loan bailout for the wealthy was already struck down by the Supreme Court and his policies are driving historic inflation,” Whatley added. 

Indeed. Biden’s previous $400 billion student debt bailout order aimed at 43 million borrowers was released in the summer of 2022, months before the midterm elections. The Supreme Court struck down his executive fiat, declaring it an unconstitutional overreach of the executive branch. Biden has since dabbled around the edges, waving his presidential pen to knock out smaller amounts of outstanding student loan payments. 

The Times called it a “presidential do-over.” That’s not a thing. At least it doesn’t appear to be a legal thing. 

Last month, Kansas led 11 states in a lawsuit against Biden’s so-called SAVE Plan, which has canceled loans for more than 150,000 borrowers, according to the White House. The states charge that the president has again overstepped his authority and defied the Supreme Court. 

The Job Creators Network Foundation sued the Biden administration over its debt cancellation initiative struck down by the high court. The lawsuit, filed in Texas federal court, blocked the bailout at the district level and halted the application process, “allowing the legal challenge to go to the Supreme Court,” according to the conservative advocacy organization. 

‘A Blank Check’

Elaine Parker, president of the Job Creators Network, said Biden’s latest bailout suffers from the same fundamental problems. It illegally bypasses Congress and does nothing to hold the nation’s colleges and universities accountable for making much of the existing mess through exorbitant higher education costs. 

“In fact, every time this administration forgives more loans, it’s a blank check to these universities telling them to keep raising their tuition like they have been and overcharging these students,” Parker told me Monday afternoon on “The Vicki McKenna Show.” 

Biden’s boss, President Barack Obama, drove the massive federal takeover of the student loan program that has proved so costly. Former U.S. Rep. John J. Faso laid out the Obama-inflicted wound in September 2022. The New York Republican noted that Obama promoted the federal takeover of student lending as part of the bill that brought us Obamacare — the Affordable Care Act — in 2010. Another example of why you don’t pull a Pelosi and pass a bill “so you can find out what’s in it.” 

“At that time, Obama proclaimed that by cutting out the ‘middleman’, taxpayers would save $68 billion. Banks would no longer underwrite student loans and the federal government would directly lend to students,” Faso wrote. “Every one of Obama’s promises turned out to be untrue. The program didn’t save any money. Loan defaults increased. Colleges accelerated increases in tuitions and fees and student debt skyrocketed. Today’s student loan mess was caused largely by Obama’s failed program.”

As he pitched his new attempted end-around of the Supreme Court ruling, Biden surely hoped the student loan debt-laden “folks” in swing-state Wisconsin would repay his taxpayer-funded generosity with their votes in November. The White says the new program could take effect “early this fall,” or not long before the election, the New York Post reported. Impeccable timing. 

As Parker noted, Congress passed bipartisan legislation last year blocking Biden’s student loan bailouts by executive fiat. Biden vetoed it. She said other reforms are stuck in the Senate. 

“Senate Democrats do not want to take it up and discuss anything remotely close to solutions because they are in an election year and their goal is to buy these votes,” she said. 

Listen to the full interview with Elaine Parker of the Job Creators Network Foundation. 

Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.

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MORE Politically INCORRECT Cartoons for Thursday April 26, 2018


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SHUT THE BORDERS: America Cannot Afford to Take in World’s Poor and Refugees


waving flagBy Dave Jolly May 31, 2016

URL of the original posting site: http://constitution.com/shut-borders-america-cannot-afford-take-worlds-poor-refugees/
illegals

The Obama administration and other liberal Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, keep telling us that America needs to open its borders to the millions of poor and refugees. They claim that we should be giving them the same opportunities that our ancestors were given when they came to America. Obama says that we should allow tens of thousands of political Muslim refugees into the country as well.

But can American taxpayers – you and me – afford to take in millions more of the poor and refugees?

Last year, I reported that based on 2009 figures, it’s costing US taxpayers $83.8 billion a YEAR just to cover all of the costs incurred by illegal aliens already here.

total-cost-of-illegals

Now consider the fact that the yearly cost to Ohio taxpayers in 2009 was $563 million for 110,000 illegals, amounting to $5,119 per illegal. A 2012 report placed the annual cost for illegals in Ohio at $879 million. That’s an increase of $316 million (56%) in just 2 years under the Obama administration’s failure to enforce federal immigration laws. Those costs include $364 million for K-12 public education, $84 million for medical services (which you and I don’t receive), $81 for welfare, $79 for law enforcement incurred due to illegals, and $32 million for prison costs for the nearly 800 illegals in prison. It’s likely that the annual cost to Ohio taxpayers in 2016 to cover all of the expenses incurred by Obama’s illegals will easily exceed $1 billion. Considering the population of Ohio in 2015 was 11.6 million people, that’s $86 per man, woman and child. An average household of 4 are on the hook for $344 a year to pay for illegals.

In Texas, the yearly cost to taxpayers in 2009 was $6.878 billion for 1,810,000 illegal aliens, amounting to $4,905 per illegal. A newer report states that in 2013, it cost Texas taxpayers $12.1 billion a year to cover the costs of illegals. The same report stated that breaks down to ‘more than $1,197 for every Texas household headed by a native-born or naturalized U.S. citizen.’ How many Texans are aware that they are paying this much each year because of Obama allowing millions of illegals to remain in the US?

In California, the yearly cost to taxpayers in 2009 was $21.755 billion for 2,635,000 illegal aliens, amounting to $8,256 per illegal. The number of illegals in California climbed to over 3 million in 2014 for total taxpayer cost $25.3 billion a year which breaks down to around $2,370 a year for every household headed by a US citizen. That’s nearly $200 per month for illegals. How many Californians are aware that they are being billed $200 a month just to cover the costs of Obama’s illegals?

In New York, the yearly cost to taxpayers in 2009 was $9.479 billion for 750,000 illegal aliens, amounting to $12,638 per illegal.

The same organization that compiled the figures in the chart above, revised them for 2013, stating that the annual cost to US taxpayers was up to $113 billion, or annual increase of 9.73%. That breaks down to $29 billion in federal costs and $84 billion in state and local costs. They also stated:

“The annual outlay that illegal aliens cost U.S. taxpayers is an average amount per native-headed household of $1,117.” 

Consider that when you file your federal, state and local taxes each year.destruction

Based upon a 9.73% annual increase in cost for illegals, that would mean for 2016, the cost for illegals would be around $149 billion or $1,476 per native-headed household.

After saying all this, imagine how much it would cost US taxpayers to open our borders to millions more of the world’s poor and political refugees? According to one website:

“Nearly 1/2 of the world’s population — more than 3 billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day. More than 1.3 billion live in extreme poverty — less than $1.25 a day.

1 billion children worldwide are living in poverty.”

Face it, my heart goes out to these people but there is no way that US taxpayers can pay to take in even 10% of those living in poverty. We are already taxed out and our nation is on the verge of bankruptcy with a national debt of $19.3 trillion. This breaks down to $59,564 per every US citizen. Very few of us can afford to sit down and write a check to the US Treasury for $60,000 per person. Consider a household of 4, their part of the national debt comes to a whopping $238,256. The last thing we need is to be adding any more financial burden on the already breaking backs of American citizens.American women respond

Until our federal, state and local governments get their financial houses in order and learn to live within their means, American needs to enforce our immigration laws and stop the flow of illegals and refugees into our country. Additionally, I believe we need to deport most, if not all, of the illegals already here. They came here illegally and are draining our resources. Just think of the difference it would make to local, state and federal budgets if they were not having to pay out the money listed above to cover the costs of illegals?

The only solution is the shut down our borders stop bringing in the world’s poor and refugees.Picture1

I have and still advocate that we use our military construction units to build a wall along the entire 1,950 miles of southern border and then station our military personnel to protect our border instead of protecting borders in the Middle East. America needs to come first!

Picture1 true battle Picture1 In God We Trust freedom combo 2

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