Judging Freedom - More Futile Government Efforts

Episode Date: January 10, 2023

Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, January 3rd, 2023. It's about five minutes of two in the afternoon here on the east coast of the United States. In the can the government waste time and money category, we have two stories for you, one involving the Biden administration and the other involving Republicans in the House of Representatives. The Biden administration is trying yet again to figure out a way to forgive student loans, even though two courts have held that its efforts to do so thus far are unconstitutional. The efforts are unconstitutional for two reasons. One, the manner in which they promulgated the rule did not give Congress the 30 days in which to comment on or nullify the rule.

Two, far more important, under the Constitution, only Congress can forgive federal debts, not the president. So remember, if you took out a student loan, you got the cash or the cash went from a bank to your account to the school or from the bank directly to the school. The feds were not involved other than to guarantee repayment. So if you are relieved of the obligation to repay, that means that the feds will repay your loan, so the taxpayers are on the hook. Is this something that the President of the United States can do? No. Under the Constitution, only the same entity that spends money and spends it like mad, Congress, can do this. So the president, I suppose for political reasons, but not for constitutional or valid legal ones, is attempting to demonstrate to the public his determination to relieve a class of borrowers, in this case people who make under a certain amount of money. And I can't tell you what that amount is because it's a sliding scale based upon what you earn,

how long you've been working and how much you borrowed and when you borrowed it and things like that, to relieve a certain class of persons of their obligation to repay a loan that the federal government has guaranteed. The Supreme Court is going to hear this, but in the interim, the president can't do it, but he's trying to do it again. Second act of futility. Yesterday, the House of Representatives voted, every Republican in favor, and every Democrat who voted, voted against, stripping the IRS of its authority to hire 87,000 new IRS agents. Hallelujah. I wish that could happen. I mean, I wish the IRS could be stripped of that authority. Not going to happen. The law was enacted by Congress and signed by the president. The Republican effort in the House is,

again, political. It's not legal. It's not going to make its way to the Senate. It won't even make its way onto the floor of the Senate. And if it did, it would never get the 60 votes that it needs to pass in the Senate. If it did, it would be vetoed by the president. If he did veto it, then it could only be passed if it becomes law if two-thirds of both houses of Congress passed it. You heard me rail about this before. Many times Congress does things it knows are unconstitutional or unlawful or unwise or will never become law because it gives them bragging rights back home. So Republicans will say, look, we did everything we could to get these IR agents off your back. It's those bad Democrats who did this to you. In a sense, they're right.

But this was passed by Congress under rules Congress adopted and signed by the president. And for better or for worse, it's the law of the land. Last night began my six Monday night run of my show off-Broadway in New York City called Why Is the Government in My Soup? There you go. Eric Krebs is the producer. Theater 555, which is 555 West 42nd Street. You'll see another side of me. I try to be as funny as I can. I explain President Trump and his legal woes. I explain Kanye West and the freedom of speech, Twitter and the freedom of speech. Can the mayor of New York just drag homeless people off the streets and arrest them as if they were criminals? All these interesting

constitutional issues interspersed with various aspects of humor. There's where you can get tickets, theater555.venuetix.com. It's the next five Monday nights in a row. So that's January 16, 23, 30, 6, and 13, February, 7.30 in the evening. If you're a Freedom, if you're a judging, I said Freedom Watch, my old Fox show. If you're a judging Freedom fan, come up and say hello. Shake my hand. Give me a hug. Take a selfie with me. Thanks for watching. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. freedom.