The program isn’t just a matter of grave executive overreach, but tears directly at the social fabric. It makes into suckers those people who either paid student debt early, or who — looking at the expense and value of a college education — instead chose a different path in life. The tradesman who took out a loan for an F-150, subject to underwriting, may get to count it as a business expense. But unless he goes through bankruptcy, it would still weigh on his monthly budget.

Executive loan forgiveness threatens to make student-loan debt not just the subject of financial advantage, but to turn the act of attending an expensive college into something like an act of political allegiance. One takes on the debt and then simply trusts that it will be forgiven. A professional middle-class protection racket, or conspiracy.

It reflects a progressive faith in what might be called “pro-social negligence.” Democrats create a zone of lawlessness, predation, and danger for illegal immigrants by setting up policy and enforcement of immigration law to encourage illegal crossings. They do so because they think immigration itself is good, that it changes the nature and composition of American society in ways that they approve. Likewise, with colleges, Democrats are encouraging all the worst and most irresponsible behavior in higher education because they believe education is good in itself. The expansion of an indebted email caste is a form of self-interested patronage. It would be like your great-grandfather’s Republican Party using the Treasury to suddenly forgive all back-due country-club fees in order to keep their sons in plus fours.