Future Retirement Success
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Investing
  • Stocks
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Investing
  • Stocks

Future Retirement Success

Investing

GAO Report: Biden’s Rush to Mass-Cancel Student Debt Left Taxpayers Behind

by November 17, 2023
November 17, 2023
GAO Report: Biden’s Rush to Mass-Cancel Student Debt Left Taxpayers Behind

Neal McCluskey

A new Government Accountability Office report on the Biden administration’s student debt cancellation bonanza, which was struck down by the Supreme Court in June, says the administration was doing too little to protect taxpayers:

Education developed two processes to assess borrower incomes and account for fraud risks, but did not implement key procedures to further identify and prevent potential fraud. For example, the department approved millions of applicants before fully implementing processes to review and evaluate fraud risk, such as collecting income information from the other borrowers it had selected for verification or assessing the borrowers it had approved. In addition, the department automatically approved some borrowers based on self‐​reported data, without conducting any additional assessment of borrower risk.

This sounds like an administration in a hurry, which is certainly how the cancellation felt. After a year and a half of reaching no conclusion about mass cancellation, on August 24, 2022, Biden declared that he was good to go. By mid‐​October, as various groups scrambled to mount a legal defense against the unconstitutional $430 billion action, the Department of Education started taking—and approving—applications.

In response to the GAO, the Department says it did enough to block fraud, and would have done more had a court—perhaps unexpectedly—not issued an injunction against the cancellation effort. The administration says it knew who the vast majority of applicants were, so the fraud threat was minimal. To this, GAO responded that even if a small share of applications were fraudulent, that could still seriously add up in a $430 billion action. It is also a little hard to feel assured that the Education Department really knew all about its borrowers, since a 2022 GAO report found that the department had major record‐​keeping problems. Indeed, that incompetence is part of the justification for $39 billion in cancellation the Biden administration recently declared.

This is all part of a larger pattern of the Biden administration canceling student debt left and right in ways largely inscrutable to the public and, at least in some cases, almost certainly unconstitutional. Indeed, the same day the Supreme Court declared Biden’s jubilee unconstitutional, the president announced his administration had “finalized” a new, very generous repayment program. No act of Congress—the people’s representatives. Just Biden begetting a repayment plan expected to cost taxpayers $475 billion over ten years. Meanwhile, other repayment‐​easing endeavors are working through heavily biased regulatory procedures.

The new GAO report highlights the dangers that were in Biden’s gold rush for student borrowers. But more broadly, it helps illuminate the reality of policymaking unmoored from basic constitutional processes: the diffuse people who will pay the costs—taxpayers—are afterthoughts.

0
FacebookTwitterGoogle +Pinterest
previous post
The Bull Has Left the Bear in the Dust: It’s Time To Add Small Caps To Your Portfolio
next post
Cutting-Edge Seasonality Insights & Bitcoin 2024 Halving Impact

You may also like

This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things...

March 1, 2024

ICE Is Arresting 1,300 Percent More Noncriminals on...

June 24, 2025

Pharmaceutical Pricing Around the World

May 14, 2025

International Students Benefit the United States

April 11, 2025

GOP Cuts and State Budgets

June 6, 2025

ProPublica Profiles Army Corps Failures

November 17, 2023

Friday Feature: Riverside Educational Services

May 10, 2024

Did the Fentanyl Wave Hit Oregon Just as...

February 6, 2024

Will Economic Growth Be Short-Lived as Fiscal Challenges...

May 23, 2024

Distribution Tables Distort the Tax Policy Debate

February 28, 2025

    Get free access to all of the retirement secrets and income strategies from our experts! or Join The Exclusive Subscription Today And Get the Premium Articles Acess for Free

    By opting in you agree to receive emails from us and our affiliates. Your information is secure and your privacy is protected.

    Recent Posts

    • Trump administration takes on new battle shutting down initial Iran strike assessments

      June 29, 2025
    • Trump administration takes on new battle shutting down initial Iran strike assessments

      June 29, 2025
    • Schumer forces reading of Trump’s entire ‘big, beautiful bill’ as Senate braces for all-nighter

      June 29, 2025
    • Schumer forces reading of Trump’s entire ‘big, beautiful bill’ as Senate braces for all-nighter

      June 29, 2025
    • Trump, lawmakers react after ‘big, beautiful bill’ clears Senate hurdle

      June 29, 2025
    • How Staff Can Strengthen HIPAA Compliance and Security

      June 29, 2025

    Categories

    • Business (8,334)
    • Investing (2,081)
    • Politics (15,856)
    • Stocks (3,177)
    • About us
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms & Conditions

    Disclaimer: futureretirementsuccess.com, its managers, its employees, and assigns (collectively “The Company”) do not make any guarantee or warranty about what is advertised above. Information provided by this website is for research purposes only and should not be considered as personalized financial advice. The Company is not affiliated with, nor does it receive compensation from, any specific security. The Company is not registered or licensed by any governing body in any jurisdiction to give investing advice or provide investment recommendation. Any investments recommended here should be taken into consideration only after consulting with your investment advisor and after reviewing the prospectus or financial statements of the company.

    Copyright © 2025 futureretirementsuccess.com | All Rights Reserved