Joe Biden's priorities exposed

Years ago, President George W. Bush tried telling then-Sen. Joe Biden what his priorities were. Biden allegedly told Bush to show him his budget and he'd tell President Bush what his priorities were. This fiscal year's Biden budget showed the Homeland Security budget flat.

This week, Joe Biden announced that he was tired of obeying the Constitution's prohibition forbidding him from acting like he's emperor. This week, Biden announced that he's unilaterally appropriating money to buy votes and wipe out all the deficit reduction that wasn't in the Inflation Reduction Act. Let's explain that.

The supposed deficit reduction in the Inflation Reduction Act was actually a gimmick. It didn't really exist because it relied on extending the Obamacare subsidies for 3 years even though the administration admits that it wanted the subsidies made permanent. By extending the subsidies 3 years instead of 10 years, this administration created the illusion of $300,000,000,000 of deficit reduction.

This week, Biden decided that he didn't need Congress to appropriate money to buy young people's votes. Instead, he decided that he had the justification for spending that money through the HEROES Act. That's stretching his authority more Brian Stelter at a buffet.

Rep. Tim Ryan, the Democrats' candidate for U.S. Senate from Ohio, is doing his best Joe Manchin impression on the issue. This article captures both of Ryan's 2 faces on the issue:

"As someone who’s paying off my own family’s student loans, I know the costs of higher education are too high," said a statement from the Niles-area Democrat, who is currently running for U.S. Senate. “And while there’s no doubt that a college education should be about opening opportunities, waiving debt for those already on a trajectory to financial security sends the wrong message to the millions of Ohioans without a degree working just as hard to make ends meet."

"Instead of forgiving student loans for six-figure earners, we should be working to level the playing field for all Americans — including an across-the-board tax cut for working- and middle-class families, medical debt cancellation, targeted forgiveness for essential workers and more opportunities for student borrowers to refinance their loans, and investing in apprenticeships, universal community college, and workforce development and training programs so all Americans — not just college grads — have a shot at success," his statement continued.

Ryan was more enthusiastic about the idea before his Senate campaign. When he was asked about it a 2021 interview with Ohio reporters, Ryan said doing so could be “great for people who have those student loans and families who have those student loans, including mine.” He cautioned it would also be important to also take "care of people who didn’t go to college," as part of a broader package.

He said student loan debt reduction as part of the larger package would help economic recovery after the coronavirus pandemic, giving people "more money in their pocket" that they could use to buy houses, cars, and otherwise stimulate the economy.

Ryan is almost as dishonest as Biden. There are multiple flaws with Ryan's plan. The biggest flaw is that Ryan's plan does nothing to fix the problem of out-of-control college tuition. It simply ignores the universities' role in inflating tuition. It simply throws money at the problem.

Another major flaw with Ryan's plan is that it doesn't requiring repaying the loan the recipient promised to pay. The recipients of this forgiveness will frequently be deadbeats who took advantage of Biden's vote-buying scheme.

There was a Democrat president who famously said that "People who work hard and play by the rules shouldn't be poor." Today's Democrat in the White House has essentially said that 'people who work hard and play by the rules should pay off the loans of the rich, elitist deadbeats.' This video says it all:

The father at the start of this clip worked extra-hard. He sacrificed for his children. That didn't matter to Elizabeth Warren. She wanted to throw some institutional welfare at wealthy universities with multi-billion dollar endowments. Heaven forbid that the Democrats' partners in indoctrination be held accountable for putting together a semi-worthless product.