Biden’s Student Loan Bailout Destroys The Societal Bond Of Duty

Our highest court heard oral arguments last week On President Joe Biden’s multibillion-dollar plan to eliminate student loans. Many people are surprised at which side I fall on.

From the very beginning, I rejected this plan. Four years ago, I made the same choice millions of young Americans do upon leaving high school — I enrolled at a university to invest in my passions, my future, and myself. With that investment, I was required to repay student loans. The original was a huge success for many of my friends. announcement Biden will pay up to $20,000 in student loan debt forgiveness. However, I am willing to pay my student loan debts on my own.

This initiative causes me more confusion than excitement. What is the estimated cost of this initiative and who will pay? This initiative, according to the National Taxpayer Union will be more expensive than $330 billion over the next 10 years. If you break it down, that’s $2,500 per taxpayer — $2,500 that someone can no longer invest into their own dream because they now must cover the cost of someone else’s.

Respecting Our Values

Biden’s plans have fundamentally moral consequences, besides their financial and economic implications. Biden’s plan is contrary to the founding beliefs and those of the great thinkers who created this country. Our nation was constructed on the premises of liberty and responsibility — in particular, duty.

Society is only possible if we understand the importance of duty. Hugo Grotius a natural law philosopher, was a key influence on John Locke. He stated that human rights depend upon how we understand our obligations to each other. In his example, he highlighted several obligations, including the obligation to pay your debts. Society was formed on this sense of obligation among its members — to respect the property, integrity, and character of each other, and to behave accordingly.

This is not an abstract, mysterious theory. To understand the principle that any burden you accept willingly or voluntarily is a burden, one has a moral obligation to carry it out. In full knowledge of the responsibility I had to repay my student loan debt, when I accepted it I was fully aware. To assume someone else will take care of it, and I totally and utterly neglect my obligation to repay the student loan debt would indicate a lack in character.

Destroying Society

Biden, however, has advocated for the most extreme and flagrant abdication of duty. Millions of students now believe that the bond between you and your fellow citizens doesn’t count. Students are told that a fundamental building block for a moral society does not exist.  

The true price of the Biden loan forgiven plan is that it causes one to lose the duty of self and others. If a society abandons its moral foundations, it is on a dangerous path. These misguided policies are able to be recovered, but the social cost of violating American sacred principles can’t.

This is the reason why I will respect my loan holder obligation regardless of whether the Supreme Court makes a final decision. In the spirit America’s constitution ethos, I’ll recognize what my duty really is rather than delegating it to someone because it’s easier for me. According to President Theodore Roosevelt’s words, “The things that will destroy America are prosperity at any price … safety first instead of duty first, and love of soft living and the get-rich-quick theory of life.”

My generation should be more like President Roosevelt than President Biden, and reject this unmoral loan cancellation program.

Christian Watson is an outreach Fellow for the Fund for American Studies. He also hosts the podcast. “Pensive Politics.”