By: Rep. Dan Eubanks

Joe Biden believes he has the authority to unilaterally force $2,085.59 worth of someone else's personal student loan debt onto you and every other taxpaying American.  So, in the words of Dr. Phil, ask yourself, "How does that make you feel?"

According to the National Taxpayers Union, the proposed cost of Biden's student loan forgiveness program could ultimately total around $329.1 billion over the next 10 years. This is in addition to the $32 billion of debts already forgiven.  Spread this new debt across each and every taxpayer, and $2,085.59 is your personal share. You might be thinking, "Oh, but wait, that's just the national debt so it doesn't really affect me." Sadly, that line of reasoning is the very thing that enables our self-serving government officials to continue running a tab with your name on it.  Since the government actually produces nothing in and of itself, the federal, state and municipal debts that are racking up at staggering rates belong to whoever is currently paying the bills.  One of the most fundamental principles that exists in economics is that the government can give nothing away that it doesn't first take from someone else. 

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Increasing the money supply, by either printing money or taking on more debt, only devalues the dollars that both you and every other American has saved or is currently being compensated with.  This effect is known as inflation.  For all intensive purposes, inflation is nothing more than a tax, as it effectively transfers the government's debt directly onto you.  While you may not have physically written a check to the IRS, or see a deduction on your pay-stub, by devaluing your dollars through the process of inflation, you have already paid for a portion of that growing debt.  I say portion, because in reality we and our future generations will continue to pay for it as long as it exists. Ultimately, that payment will come in the form of inflation or higher taxes, but usually both. 

If you need a recent real world example, on average, most American households received a couple thousand dollars in stimulus payments from the government during the pandemic.  It felt great getting some "free" money, right?  Fast forward to 2022, and as a result of increased government borrowing and money printing, every household in our country has now paid back close to twice what they received in stimulus payments as a result of the increased costs of goods and services through inflation.  Word to the wise, there is no such thing as a free lunch. 

Like most things these days in our country, especially if they have to do with our federal government, what you see is seldom what you actually get. Bills with altruistic sounding names like the "Inflation Reduction Act", which hires 87,000 more IRS auditors, raises taxes on the "rich" and many businesses, and underwrites massive amounts of spending for more green initiatives, will do anything but lower taxes.

Biden's student loan forgiveness plan, touted as helping deal with education inequality and the high cost of education, does the exact opposite as well.  The real inequality of this plan takes place when you transfer the debt of someone (who, through their own free will, acquired it), onto individuals who had absolutely nothing to do with it.  For every taxpayer who never went to college, every parent who skimped and saved and took out loans for years to put their children through college, every student who took night classes and worked their way to a degree, those who worked two jobs after college to pay off their student loans, or the individual who refinanced their house in order to consolidate and pay off their student loan debt, their outrage should be so deafening that that politicians who support it would fear going out in public.  

This entire effort will do absolutely nothing to help with education inequality or the high cost of obtaining a degree.  If it did, it wouldn't just reward the irresponsible by punishing individuals who planned, worked hard, and did the right thing.  The fact is, that paying off people's personal loans does nothing to fix the problem of high tuition and educational borrowing costs.  How so?  Next year, millions of students will enroll in classes and run up the exact same amount of debt from those very institutions with high costs that this year's students are being forgiven.  In the end, the only real problem that has actually been fixed here, is solving how Joe Biden will underwrite his vote buying for a party that finds itself in an upcoming election crisis.  

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