President Joe Biden declared yesterday that COVID-19 provides a legal basis for wiping out millions of people's student loan debt, to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. Anyone making under $125,000 per year will be eligible for the student loan forgiveness program, which will allow for the erasure of up to $10,000 to $20,000 in debt per person. And any which way you look at it, this is a bad move.
There are legal reasons to be wary. Such a huge undertaking would typically be something set out in legislation approved by Congress. Biden's basis for saying that the executive branch has the right to simply declare student loans forgiven is both egregious in its own right and troubling for the future of executive power plays.
