Obama’s student loan policy is dope

President Barack Obama is touring the country and promoting his most recent policy proposal, a modest overhaul of the federal student loan system. 

However, unlike his jobs bill, which was sent to Congress to die, Obama took matters into his own hands and made the changes through executive order. His actions should be applauded.

The changes to student loans involve capping monthly loan payments at 10 percent of discretionary income and allowing loan forgiveness after 20 years. With the old system, payments were capped at 15 percent and forgiven after 25 years.

The changes are modest but nevertheless welcome. The White House argues students will get to keep an extra couple hundred dollars per month.

The impetus for the change, too, is worth noting: part of the White House website called “We the People,” in which regular folks like us can sign petitions for policies desired. Obama logged on to the site, saw he had upward of 100,000 signatures in favor of legalizing marijuana, and swiftly and unilaterally acted to ease student loan payments, a policy with 30,000 signatures.

Despite this disconnect, it is encouraging to see democracy working in the Internet age in a new and exciting way. The people are truly legislating, and the president is executing.

Some might argue it is inappropriate for the president to legislate via executive order, but that argument is generally tired and specifically wrong here. Congress has already passed a law with these changes, set to go into effect in 2014. However, as the economy worsened and movements like Occupy Wall Street revealed the depth of public sentiment about the issue of the college-educated poor and unemployed, Obama acted to simply hasten the execution of the law to 2012.

The action addresses concerns about the government’s abdication of its responsibility to students, and the extra cash in students’ pockets will help stimulate economic growth. Those opposed to executive orders should not find this action too appalling. Obama made minor changes in the enforcement of a program, changing timetables rather than policies.

There are much more constitutionally appalling examples of executive orders in the past. In 1948, President Harry Truman issued Executive Order 9981, desegregating the Armed Forces. That’s not a bad thing, but Congress was specifically given the right to regulate the military in the Constitution. The Constitutionalist argument falls — when Congress fails to act, the president must.

Obama’s efforts to put a few more dollars in the pockets of students are welcome and needed.