President Joe Biden’s recent executive order on student loan forgiveness is nothing more than another swing of the mallet in the progressive movement’s perpetual game of Whac-A-Mole. The quick and easy policy solution is rarely the correct one, and this move is no exception to that rule.

Indeed, Biden’s executive order favors those who have, at the expense of those who have not. In its attempt to address a symptom of the disease – and not the disease itself – that ails our system of higher education, it perpetuates public policy failures that have plagued us for decades.

Let’s begin with whom the executive order benefits. Those with a college degree stand to make anywhere from $600,000 to $1.5 million more during their lifetime. Though Biden’s proposal craftily caps the debt forgiveness at those earning less than $125,000, the majority of Coloradans earn less than $50,000 a year.

In effect, if you’re a Coloradan who didn’t take out a student loan and make $50,000 a year, your tax dollars will be subsidizing those who already make upward of 2.5 times what you do, and their potential to earn more than you over their lifetime is substantial.

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Is this the “equity” that Biden and Democrats so often yearn for?

Looking to the systematic failures of our higher-education system, we see that college tuition has drastically outpaced inflation. Tuition has increased 747.8% since 1963 (adjusted for inflation). The solution to this problem won’t be easy, but putting the burden of Ivy Leaguers’ college loans on non-college educated Coloradans who are struggling to afford groceries is no fix. The plan also fails to address the fact that our system has pushed students into degrees with little substantive value to themselves or the economy, rendering them unable to meet their loan payments.

Furthermore, Biden’s exercise of executive power will exacerbate the biggest concern to voters this November: inflation and its effects on working families. Outside organizations have put the price tag for this initiative in the vicinity of $300 billion to $500 billion through the next four years, ironically wiping out the $264 billion that the “Inflation Reduction Act” will cut from the deficit during the next decade.

It is my sincere belief that President Biden’s student loan forgiveness ploy will not only play out to be a significant political failure, but a policy failure as well. It neglects to address the underlying causes of rising costs in higher education while shockingly placing the financial burden on those who need the most help during this time of economic uncertainty.

It may have been a campaign promise from President Biden and Democrats, but that which generates cheers and hollers from a crowd of activists rarely translates to effective public policy.

Sage Naumann is a conservative commentator and strategist. He is vice president of communications at 76 Group and was previously the spokesman for the Colorado Senate Republicans. Follow him on Twitter @SageNaumann.