Debt cancellation is Biden at his cynical worst
Back in Washington after his Rehoboth vacation, President Biden is tanned, rested and, reportedly, ready to do something extremely dumb by making a back-to-school announcement on student debt cancellation. This morning, the president tweeted the outline of his plan and promised more details this afternoon. The headline pledge is an extension of the pandemic freeze on debt repayments for another four months and $10,000 in loan forgiveness for borrowers earning less than $125,000.
By pulling the trigger and acceding to the progressive clamor for loan forgiveness there is, at least, a neat symmetry to Biden’s folly. According to the Penn Wharton Budget Model, forgiveness of the magnitude Biden has in mind will increase the deficit by approximately $300 billion. That means that, just weeks after signing the Inflation Reduction Act into law, Joe Biden would be completely undoing a decade’s worth of the much-touted deficit reduction contained in the reconciliation package. And there will be a great many things not to like about the move.
A quick précis of the problems with Biden’s proposal. The measure is very likely unconstitutional. How can the move be reconciled with the constitutional rule that “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law”? As recently as last year, Biden said he did not think he had the legal authority to write off student debt.
Aside from this considerable constitutional problem, the move would, according to multiple Democratic economists and basic common sense, very likely be inflationary. It would entirely undermine the first deficit reduction legislation in years. It would, without justification, punish those Americans who prioritized paying off their college debts and those who opted for another path altogether. It exposes the fundamental lack of seriousness in the White House’s economic policymaking.
If these are the downsides, what does the move achieve? Not any meaningful long-term fix to the cost-of-college problem. And not a remotely progressive redistribution of resources. (In fact, the move would redistribute money from poorer taxpayers to rich graduates.) No, all Biden gets is a one-off bung to an important part of the Democratic coalition that also happens to tickle the erogenous zones of the left-wing of his party.
In other words, this proposal is a deeply cynical and irresponsible move which reveals Biden to be an unserious steward of the economy at a fraught moment and says a great deal about whose interests the contemporary Democratic Party exists to serve.
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Hudson Valley hope for Democrats
Yesterday’s election results made for a good night for Democrats not named Carolyn Maloney or Nikki Fried (both of whom were routed in their respective primaries). Victory for Pat Ryan in the special election in New York’s 19th Congressional District — a bellwether — is perhaps the clearest sign yet of a drastically improved environment for Democrats going into November’s midterms.
Ryan ran a campaign centered on abortion rights, another indicator of that issue’s energizing power on the left. Not that this was a single-issue race. I suspect the pandemic fading from view is an under-appreciated factor in the Democrats’ improving position. But as the signs suggest the red wave will be more of a ripple than a tsunami, Republicans must ask themselves why, with wages falling in real terms and the White House occupied by a chronically unpopular president who most Americans don’t think is fit to run again, their prospects aren’t better.
Prosecution by a thousand leaks
The Justice Department’s handling of the Mar-a-Lago raid is increasingly being defined by a maddening disconnect between on-the-record insistences that due process be followed and a drip-drip of anonymous leaks. In court, the Justice Department is arguing against the release of the affidavit containing more details about the grounds for the search of Trump’s residence. On the phone to reporters at the New York Times and the Washington Post, it’s a different story. If Merrick Garland wants to maximize public confidence in his actions, he should be far more open via official channels and seal off the unofficial channels through which we must learn about this high-profile case.
How Cheney would boost Trump
When Liz Cheney responded to last week’s resounding primary defeat by floating the possibility of a presidential run in 2024, it was far from clear whether such a move would help her mission to ensure Donald Trump never makes it back into the White House. Now, a new poll supports the theory that a hypothetical Cheney candidacy would peel off more Biden voters than Trump voters.
The Yahoo News/YouGov survey finds that were a Biden-Trump rematch held today, Biden would win 46 percent of the vote to Trump’s 42 percent. Throw Cheney into the mix, however, and she picks up 11 percent of the vote, shrinking Biden’s vote share to 32 percent and giving Trump a 40 percent share of the vote (with the number of unsure respondents also rising). Perhaps we’re getting ahead of ourselves with these hypotheticals, but the main takeaway is clear: it’s very hard to see how a Cheney presidential bid does anything other than increase the chances of a second Trump term.
What you should be reading today
The Editors: Biden’s border blues
Gilbert T. Sewall: The City of Angels is in free-fall
Rikki Schlott: Young people should see climate change as a challenge
Paul Sonne, Isabelle Khurshudyan, Serhiy Morgunov and Kostiantyn Khudov, Washington Post: How the Battle for Kyiv was won
Steven Malanga, City Journal: Trump derangement won’t end with Trump
Aaron Sibarium, Washington Free Beacon: Are prestigious Google fellowships illegal?
Poll watch
President Biden job approval
Approve: 41.2 percent
Disapprove: 55.6 percent
Net approval: -14.4 (RCP Average)
Pennsylvania Senate race
John Fetterman (D): 48 percent
Mehmet Oz (R): 44 percent (Trafalgar)
