In 1832, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling in the case of Worcester v. Georgia. The decision –  written by then-Chief Justice John Marshall – established parameters for the relationship between the federal government and the Indian nations, affirming that Georgia had no authority over the Cherokee nation.

“John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!” then-President Andrew allegedly retorted. Whether an accurate quote or not, Jackson definitely indicated he would not enforce the Marshall Court’s decision if called to do so (although there was no need for him to do anything in the end).

Following the Supreme Court’s recent decision striking down President Joe Biden’s unconstitutional student loan forgiveness scheme, it seems our current Democratic president is echoing the attitude of the nation’s first Democratic president – doubling down on student loan cancellation, albeit at a smaller scale.

As I discussed two weeks ago, Biden’s plan to cancel at least $430 billion in student loans – up to $20,000 per borrower – was invalidated because it abused a 2003 law granting the president limited emergency powers (HEROES Act) and violated the fundamental constitutional precept that Congress – not the president – has the sole power of the purse. “The question here,” Roberts wrote, “is not whether something should be done; it is who has the authority to do it.”

That authority rests with Congress.

Yet, Biden and Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona are determined to persist – this time swiftly wiping the slate clean for $39 billion in outstanding student loan debt for over 800,000 borrowers. 

Last Thursday, I received an email from Cardona – one sent to millions of student loan debtors, like me – announcing what the administration is doing in the wake of the ruling to provide “relief.”

“We believe the Supreme Court got it wrong,” Cardona wrote. “This decision from the Supreme Court means that the Administration cannot move forward with the one-time student debt relief plan announced last year,” he added, lamenting that “more than 16 million borrowers” will not receive “relief under this program due to the Court’s ruling.” Thus, he pledged, “While we disagree with the Court’s decision, our Administration will not stop fighting to provide debt relief to borrowers.”

Make no mistake: Secretary Cardona’s official correspondence – beginning with political point-scoring against the Supreme Court – flaunts the rule of law in a vain effort to portray the Biden administration as diligent heroes.

But this unprofessional and polarizing behavior reveals the administration’s true intentions with student loans – playing politics.

Let’s be real: Biden and Cardona are shamelessly wielding student loans as a political weapon – cynically working to buy votes from younger voters without so much as a congressional debate on the matter.

Known as the heroic-sounding “SAVE Plan,” Biden’s new student loan maneuver offers generous repayment terms, including reduced payments to a maximum of 5% of discretionary income and an offer of forgiveness between 10 to 25 years. The SAVE Plan enables borrowers earning less than $32,800 to make qualified payments of $0 and counts those payments toward the required number of months for forgiveness.

As The Wall Street Journal observed, “The administration estimates that a typical graduate of a four-year public university would save nearly $2,000 a year, or about $40,000 over 20 years. That’s several thousand dollars more than the already generous Obama writeoffs, and loan balances wouldn’t grow from unpaid interest as they do now.”

The Journal compared payments under the SAVE Plan and a standard repayment plan for a graduate earning $50,000 with $50,000 in debt – finding they’d spend $5,520 less per year ($860 compared to $6,200). The estimated total cost over 10 years is $138 billion, according to the Department of Education, but the Congressional Budget Office estimated $276 billion after accounting for behavioral impacts.

That’s because, as I’ve described many times before, the federal government is responsible for the skyrocketing cost of college by making student loans so readily available for decades. The incentive structure is out of whack – encouraging colleges and universities to raise tuition more because grants and loans are so abundant.

This isn’t just a theory: The New York Fed has called the resulting increase in the cost of college a “pass-through effect on tuition.”

By cancelling student loans for existing borrowers, new students will be encouraged to borrow even more with future expectations of forgiveness. Higher ed institutions will have more reason to keep raising prices.  That’s because they will all expect future student loan forgiveness. Thus, student debt cancellation will make the problem even worse.

The SAVE Plan – which, in fairness, was unveiled last year before the Supreme Court case – uses a different legal basis than Biden’s original forgiveness plan. Yet with such sums of money in question – $39 billion now, up to $300 billion within ten years – the same fundamental legal problems regarding executive authority and the power of the purse apply.

“This should bother everybody who believes in our system of checks and balances – who believes in the Constitution,” Sen. Michael Bennet once said, noting that “Congress has the power of the purse in our Constitution.”

Unfortunately, those words were reserved for then-President Donald Trump – not Joe Biden. Where has “moderate” Bennet been on Biden’s various student loan forgiveness schemes?

Meanwhile, as Colorado’s congressional Democrats sit idly by and watch, the Biden administration channels their inner Andrew Jackson: “John Roberts has made his decision,” Biden says. “Now, let him enforce it!”

Will anyone stop him this time?