Once again the Obama administration is ignoring Congress (both parties!) and going it alone. Shades of the Roman Empire, whose emperors pretended that the Roman Senate was important for centuries after said Senate had absolutely no power or responsibility at all.
Not that this trend started with the Obama admin. It may have gone back as far as Lyndon Johnson? And then continued to grow over the years. Remember the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument? That was a last-minute executive order locking up nearly 2 million acres of land, mostly in Utah, signed by Pres. Bill Clinton at the end of his first term 15 years ago.
The latest move on the student loan front is a plan to “allow the estimated 5.8 million people who hold both direct government student loans and government-backed private loans to consolidate their debts into one government loan.”
That is supposed to look like Obama helping students. But the money went to universities. It was the old “we pretend to educate you, and you pretend to pay us” gambit. How? The students didn’t pay up front. Now the terms of their loans are about to get easier. And their sense of entitlement and superiority grows. They need to learn that Debt. Is. Not. Wealth.
It soon will be the taxpayers on the hook again. How long will it be before the loans are forgiven entirely? How long can the American economy stand this kind of misbehavior? It’s called “moral hazard” and many people don’t know what it is.
And now, just so you don’t get too depressed, here’s an ode on debt (not student debt, but the principal is the same):