American politics—the bi-partisan practice of which has always featured delivering goodies unto one’s voters—was treated this week to a particularly craven example, when news broke that the President has asked his legal team to determine if he has the authority to “forgive” student loan debt. Putting aside the dubious notion of debt forgiveness (it doesn’t disappear, it simply is redistributed to everyone else), the move is clearly a ploy to shore up flagging support with voters in the age brackets most likely to be carrying such debt. Your humble Substacker/blogger/writer has written about student loans and “Education Inc.” in the past, and you can see some of that thinking here, and here, and here, and here.
There are a thousand really good reasons to oppose this naked bit of fan service to well-educated, liberal, mostly white, mostly better than average compensated people, and no one is better at raising these objections than National Review’s Charles C.W. Cooke. You can read them here, and here, and listen to them (among other things) wielded in his Oxford-educated accent here. Here are a couple of tasty Tweets he’s posted on the subject.
Not to be outdone, I wove a tweet that combined my primary national security interest with my great disdain for this policy. I’ll start with my initial tweet and then post some of the more interesting responses.
Elicited this:
Now, Pete’s a smart cookie, and I love his bleeding heart soul to no end, but this is just wrong. Both are claims upon the treasury. To the extent that they ARE like apples and oranges, I suppose the fact that one is a requirement of the Constitution and the other isn’t could apply. Here’s another:
Presumably, this commenter believes his or her choice of ATM to hide behind grants their opinion in this matter weight. It doesn’t. I refer again to my comment above. Of course we CAN do both. But my tweet was born of this administration’s apparent preference NOT to do both. As for what we MUST do, taking on $1.7T in student loan debt at the stroke of a pen (almost certainly illegally) falls short of a Constitutional requirement. This next one is classic:
Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution is not a “social contract”.
Now this last one is worth consideration:
Now, this is pretty standard blue thinking, but it is not without merit. The problem for me though is two-fold. The first is the timing. This kind of “pump priming” agitation is always a favorite of Keynesians, but there is a big question about the degree to which it would superheat the already overheated and inflationary economy that we are suffering under these days. Second, while this tweeter cites “every other first-world democracy” here—it isn’t clear that this is a statement in favor of the policy, as none of those economies is or has been anywhere near as dynamic as the American economy has.
One of the most ridiculous criticisms of those opposed to the transferring student loan debt to the tax-paying general public is contained in this much dragged tweet:
What exactly is it telling of? That people who took on debt, received a benefit for it, and then worked to pay it off do not wish to see others walk away from their obligations? That many of those people who did pay off their loans look at a plan like Biden is considering and think, “there are probably much more deserving people to throw that kind of money at”?
The White House Correspondents’ Dinner
There are many Washington practices worthy of mockery, and they begin with the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner, a mixture of the press, the entertainment industry, and the Democratic Party (but I repeat myself) gathering to luxuriate in their common virtue. The latest edition was held this weekend, and the press is (surprise, surprise) awash with stories this morning about itself.
I will always hold this dinner in great contempt for the role it played in elevating a loud-mouthed, New York Liberal criminal to the presidency, but it has had some sorta redeemable moments in the past. To his credit, Barack Obama was damn funny in these dinners, and George W. was pretty good too.
Here are a few of the one-liners that the evening’s jester provided:
— “The great chef José Andrés is joining us tonight. … Whenever there’s a disaster anywhere in the world, Chef José is there. Which I guess is why he’s sitting at the CNN table tonight.”
— “As you all know, President Biden’s lack of a filter does get him into hot water sometimes. Last month, he caused a huge international scandal saying that Vladimir Putin should be removed from power. It was very, very upsetting to Russia. Until someone explained to them that none of the stuff Biden wants actually gets done.”
— “Fox News is sort of like a Waffle House. It’s relatively normal in the afternoon, but as soon as the sun goes down, there’s a drunk lady named Jeanine threatening to fight every Mexican who comes in.”
— “Apparently Jeff [Zucker] got fired after he tried to keep his workplace relationship a secret, which is weird because if he really didn’t want anyone to know about it, he could’ve just made a show about it on CNN Plus.”
— “This is the golden era of conspiracy theories, whether it’s the right wing believing Trump can still win the 2020 election, or the left believing Joe Biden can still win the 2024 election.”
— “Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate you. Please be careful leaving tonight. We all know this administration doesn’t handle evacuations well.”