Opinion | Student-Loan Forgiveness and the National Debt

The colorful Ohio Gov. Jim Rhodes once likened George Romney’s run for the presidency to “a duck trying to [make love to] a football.” I wish he had been around to put a label on the federal student-loan program. In the sad catalog of its failures, the federal government has set a new standard. President Biden’s debt-cancellation announcement represents the final confession of failure for a venture flawed in concept, botched in execution, and draped with duplicity.

The scheme’s flaws have been well chronicled. It’s regressive, rewarding the well-to-do at the expense of the less fortunate. It’s grossly unfair to those who repaid what they borrowed or never went to college. It’s grotesquely expensive, adding hundreds of billions to a federal debt that already threatens our safety-net programs and national security. Like so much of what government does, it’s iatrogenic, inflating college costs as schools continue to pocket the subsidies Uncle Sam showers on them. And it’s profanely contemptuous of the Constitution, which authorizes only Congress to spend money.