Washington Post: Biden’s Student-Loan Bailout Is A Mistake, But SCOTUS Should Uphold It Anyway
After previously telling its readers why President Joe Biden’s student-loan bailout is a “regressive” and “expensive” mistake, The Washington Post is back with a new hot take on why the Supreme Court should uphold it as constitutional anyway.
On Wednesday, the Post’s editorial board argued that the high court, which heard oral arguments against Biden’s student-loan scheme on Tuesday, should refrain from striking down the unlawful policy because doing so would be an act of judicial overreach.
“There are limits that restrict when and how the court can exercise its authority — and this is one of the instances in which it should recognize those limits,” the WaPo editors proclaimed. Funny how the Post didn’t apply its sudden appetite for limiting judicial supremacism to the court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which reversed the judicial activism displayed in Roe v. Wade.
Under Biden’s proposal, borrowers making up to $125,000 a year would have $10,000 worth of their student loans “forgiven,” while Pell Grant recipients would have $20,000 waived. When leftists advocate for “student-loan forgiveness,” what they really mean is they want the government to transfer the loan repayment responsibility from the individual who signed for them to American taxpayers.
While the Post’s editorial board went on to claim that those contesting Biden’s policy “lack standing,” or the ability to sue, and that a refusal by SCOTUS to dismiss legal challenges to the scheme would make “the court resemble a body of nine unelected legislators,” the op-ed contradicts how the board viewed the proposal back in August.
Shortly after Biden announced the plan, the Post’s editors ran a piece titled, “Biden’s student loan announcement is a regressive, expensive mistake,” in which they referred to the policy as “ill-conceived and misdirected.”
“Widely canceling student loan debt is regressive. It takes money from the broader tax base, mostly made up of workers who did not go to college, to subsidize the education debt of people with valuable degrees,” the board admitted. “Mr. Biden’s student loan decision will not do enough to help the most vulnerable Americans. It will, however, provide a windfall for those who don’t need it — with American taxpayers footing the bill.”
(Prior analyses have shown student-loan bailouts overwhelmingly benefit Americans with high-paying degrees, such as those majoring in medicine or law).
Even if the board’s apparent newfound concern for judicial activism were true in this case —which, given the phony rationale the administration used to justify the policy, it’s not — it doesn’t change the fact that such a policy would force American taxpayers to pay off the debt of wealthy college grads. So why the sudden reversal in opinion?
One possible explanation could be found in public polling. In early 2021, for instance, Yahoo Finance and The Harris Poll released a survey showing a majority of voters opposed a student-loan bailout, with a notable 59 percent of respondents saying, “if student debt is going to be canceled, it should be done by Congress — not the White House.” Moreover, the poll found that 2 in 3 voters claimed a politician’s position on student debt bailouts is “at least somewhat important to them” when weighing how to vote, including 72 percent of voters under the age of 44.
While younger voters typically favor Democrat candidates over Republican ones, they don’t turn out to vote at the same rates as older Americans. Given these trends, it’s not implausible to imagine the Post was concerned about how Biden’s policy could affect Democrats’ performance in the 2022 midterms.
Now, after Republicans’ red wave didn’t materialize in November, The Washington Post is back to publicly propping up Biden’s disastrous policy. Similar to its sudden preference for curbs on judicial activism, the Post’s editorial board is going to endorse whatever position helps Democrats.
Whatever the reason, it’s obvious so-called news organizations like the Post abandoned the basic tenets of journalistic decency long ago. Rather than being consistent and honest with their coverage, corporate media are more interested in being mouthpieces for the Biden regime and any other Democrat like him.
Shawn Fleetwood is a Staff Writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He also serves as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
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