Commentary, Musings, News, TAKE ACTION CENTER, The White House

How does this happen?

Posted on by Bill McCarthy

I’m no constitutional scholar.  And the last constitutional law course I took was something over four decades ago.

Maybe someone can correct me if I’m confused…

I thought Marbury v. Madison, decided over two centuries ago, cemented the Supreme Court’s power to determine the constitutionality of laws and administrative acts.

Even though the Court has no troops or F-16s, the government is supposed to follow it’s decisions.

But now, the Biden Administration thinks it doesn’t really have to obey the Court.

Just weeks ago the Court decided that Biden’s plan to forgive student loans was unconstitutional.

Giving away billions of taxpayer dollars by executive fiat is not how this is supposed to work.

But the Biden Department of Education just ignored the Supreme Court and proposed yet another giveaway of your money.

I’m not sure how this works.  Biden gets rebuffed by the Court.  And then comes back with the exact same thing, albeit smaller.

And the Congress does nothing.

The Biden Administration likes to decry the unfairness of it all.  Couple of thoughts on that…

  1.  Nobody forced anybody to take out thousands of dollars in student loans.  Period.  If you took out a loan, you’re expected to pay it back.
  2. College degrees are nice.  And in some cases necessary (I want my surgeon to have a medical degree).  But not everybody needs one.
  3. Most degrees are pretty much useless.  Unless you’re going to be a high school English teacher or get your PhD and teach in college, an English degree doesn’t really help much.  You get to read some good books, but there are a limited number of careers that will make use of the degree.
  4. Many degrees are actually destructive to career prospects.  Barring woke corporations, nobody really wants someone with a gender studies or art history or ethnic studies degree.  It just suggests that you’re only serious about one thing and it ain’t making money for your boss.
  5. Most people don’t have college degrees.  Should they have to pay for those that do?
  6. Barack Obama took all college loans into the federal portfolio while President.  Before that, there were federal government loans and lots of private loans.  Now they’re all government.

I do feel bad for the kids who took out loans and are having trouble paying them back.  But I paid for my kids’ education (much as it hurt at the time) and I know lots of folks who set up state-managed funds to pay for their kids.  And, in our case, state universities did well by my kids at a third of the price.

I really don’t want to pay for someone else’s kid’s useless college degree.