Q&A of the Day – Why President Biden Can’t Cancel Student Loan Debt 

Q&A of the Day – Why President Biden Can’t Cancel Student Loan Debt 

Each day I feature a listener question sent by one of these methods.  

Email: brianmudd@iheartmedia.com  

Gettr, Parler & Twitter: @brianmuddradio  

iHeartRadio: Use the Talkback feature – the microphone button on our station’s page in the iHeart app.     

Today’s entry: (President Biden)/democrats know they constitutionally can’t relieve student debt. It’s all done as a way to get republicans to go against the debt reduction and looking bad by doing so. Yet idiot Mitch McConnell won’t call them out for it. 

When the heck will old dog republicans learn? 

Thanks for all the information you provide!! 

Bottom Line: Well, there’s a reason that the national political figure with the lowest favorability rating is Mitch McConnell – who currently sports only 26% favorability. Even most Republicans don’t like the guy. And I’m not the biggest fan of him either, though he’s no idiot. He’s an extremely savvy politician and Washington policy strategist. He’s a horrible political strategist in my view. I’ll always pay deference to him in what proved to be his most important role as Senate Majority leader. Imagine where this country would be today had he not successfully stalled Merrick Garland’s SCOTUS nomination by President Obama until Donald Trump was elected president? Imagine where this country would be had he not successfully ushered Trump’s three Justices, Gorsuch, Kavanagh and Coney-Barrett across the finish line? And that’s above and beyond the record pace with which he ushered Trump nominated judges through the senate across the country. It can’t be understated how effective McConnell was in that capacity. There’s a case to be made he’s the most effective Senator in US history regarding reshaping the Judiciary. So, about that whole horrible strategist thing. That plays into this whole student loan debt thing.  

McConnell is indeed of the old guard in many ways including his midterm strategy of simply being the opposition party to the democrats in power and expecting that to be good enough. Whether it was Newt Gingrich's Contract with America or the Tea Party’s platform, what’s been shown is that Americans are far more inclined to turnout to vote in meaningful numbers for a message and platform they believe in, as opposed to simply voting against something else. Agree or disagree with Rick Scott’s attempted platform, at least he attempted to have Republicans run on something and indeed McConnell was among the first to dismiss it. Speaking of dismissing... McConnell was, in fact, one of the first to dismiss Biden’s student loan debt plan as well. He immediately put out a statement repudiating the plan in no uncertain terms. He just tends to have his commentary overlooked because back to the aforementioned statement, he’s not at all an effective messenger. But that said, to your point, you’re right that Democrats know Biden’s student loan debt plan isn’t constitutional House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said as much last year.  

It was July 28th, of last year in which Speaker Pelosi said this when questioned about whether President Biden would announce a plan to cancel student loan debt, which was a campaign promise of his. Quoting Pelosi: The President Can’t Do it. So that’s not even a discussion. Not everybody realizes that. But the President can only postpone delay, but not forgive. And she was exactly right. The discussion of a President of the United States unilaterally spending hundreds of billions of dollars on student loans isn’t even a discussion – the concept is that constitutionally absurd. Yet, what’s been proven is that your news media is as constitutionally illiterate today as they were then. President Biden retains zero constitutional authority to spend your money without an act of Congress authorizing him to do so. There has been no Congressional action on appropriating funds for student loan debt relief, therefore Joe Biden can sign executive orders until his blue in the face or has his next rebound case of Covid, and he’s doing nothing but killing trees. You don’t even have to read that far into the constitution to find this one either. It’s in the first article: 

Article I, Section 8, Clause 1: 

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States 

Right, so it explicitly states that The Congress shall have the power to pay the Debts... Not the Executive branch, the Congress. Some constitutional arguments can be complicated without formal precedent. Few presented are more clear. There’s not an implication which is open to Judicial interpretation. There’s a literal statement to this effect. Now, if there were a news media which were even remotely competent, this would be the focus of the issue, lest they lead to false hopes, beliefs and angst of Americans. This action will not withstand forthcoming legal challenges and the end result is that this will not happen without an act of Congress. And btw, if by some implausible outcome – this were allowed to stand by the Judiciary, you could kiss this country goodbye because they’d have effectively enabled the Executive Branch to violate the balance of powers enabling Monarch like, or dictatorial powers, as the case would be. I don’t see how the Supreme Court would be cool with that happening, if the case were to get that far.