Student Loan Debt and the Perpetual National Emergency
Elizabeth Nolan Brown joins me to discuss the justification for Biden's executive order
What do Japanese internment, last year’s eviction moratorium, and Biden’s recent student loan forgiveness action have in common?
Congress never passed legislation to make them the law of the land. Instead, they sprung forth from the fountain pen of a sitting President, claiming a national emergency as the basis for exercising extralegal authority.
There is much that can and must be said about whether student loan forgiveness represents sound economic policy, and whether it’s morally justified. However, I will temporarily put aside these questions in my upcoming conversation with Elizabeth Nolan Brown to focus on the dubious legal premise for the sweeping executive order.
Elizabeth Nolan Brown is a senior editor at Reason and the main author of Reason's morning newsletter, the Reason Roundup – an essential part of my daily reading.
She is also co-founder of the libertarian feminist group Feminists for Liberty, and a professional affiliate of the journalism program at the University of Cincinnati. Last time she joined my show, Elizabeth and I discussed her work on the War on Sex Work.
Elizabeth calls Biden’s unilateral action cancelling billions of dollars of student loan debt a fiasco, and she’s hardly alone in this sentiment. Even President Obama’s former economic adviser Jason Furman has called the plan “reckless.”
Where does the President claim to derive the authority to take such a sweeping action without approval from Congress?
Find out on the show of ideas, Sunday - September 4 - at 8am PACIFIC.
ICYMI - Trump’s Return?
While I normally stand back from the political horserace, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to pick the brain of legendary political consultant Dick Morris – former adviser to the Clintons, who has more recently become a trusted adviser to Donald Trump.
Morris joined me last Sunday to lay out his predictions for the 2022 midterms and 2024 election, and explain how the new rules of the game will determine the fate of the Republican Party.
Listen to the podcast, and read the condensed summary of our conversation. Paid subscribers can also access my notes and highlights from Morris’s intriguing book, The Return: Trump’s Big 2024 Comeback.
In Other News…
The California Corner:
The Daily Wire reports that “California Asks Residents To Avoid Charging Electric Vehicles Due To Blackout Risk Days After Unveiling New Gas Car Ban.”
That’s ominous.
Meanwhile, it turns out that the Inflation Reduction Act is really a Trojan Horse for the Green New Deal vision, which seeks to fundamentally change the nature of the economy in the direction of socialism. Once again, a crisis is being used to justify radical legislation that wouldn’t pass muster under any other name.
I will be joined next week by Mises Institute senior faculty member Thomas DiLorenzo to dissect the inaccurately-named bill, which is likely to increase inflation – not reduce it:
“It has nothing to do with fighting inflation. … It’s basically the Green New Deal in disguise, sort of a Trojan horse.” – Thomas DiLorenzo
DiLorenzo’s new book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Economics, takes aim at a biased economics profession that often uses its analytical toolkit in service of a Big Government agenda. Don’t miss our conversation, next Sunday at 8 am PACIFIC/11 am ET.