Good People: Avoid Sinning By Accepting any Biden-Government Plan to “Cancel” Your Personal Debt Obligations to Others

Here we go again.  Despite such an action being ruled unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court last year, President Biden, very likely influenced by this year’s election in November and the likelihood that the Supreme Court will not be able to strike it down prior to the election, has announced another immoral debt cancellation plan to arbitrarily “cancel” $7.7 billion in outstanding student debt personal obligations of some 160,000 people, thereby unjustly placing the burden of the debt on taxpayers in general.

Below is an application of Catholic moral principles in a Q & A format which demonstrates that both President Biden and any person who accepts the "debt relief" act immorally.  In fact, accepting any kind of a government "bailout" from a personal loan, even if the government manages/oversees such loans, is another form of stealing.
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Question 1: Is it morally just for the federal government to provide government loan “cancellations/relief” to any person or groups of persons who have freely entered into a government loan agreement to obtain and pay back all money provided by the taxpaying public?

Answer: No.

Analysis: With the possible exception of things like extreme hardship, extremely low income status, and so on wherein some forms of debt relief would definitively serve the common good and might be justified, the federal government acts unjustly when it provides the temptation and opportunity for any person or group of persons to shirk his or her or their moral duty in justice to repay borrowed money from the public unless it can be clearly demonstrated (not just claimed) that the government action definitively benefits the entire common good.  This differs from a privately held debt obligation that a lender can forgive since only his or her money is directly involved, but a debt to the taxpaying public needs the full taxpaying public’s approval that would allow the government to cancel and/or provide other forms of debt relief since the burden of the unpaid money falls upon the taxpaying public in terms of unrecovered funds that could be used elsewhere for the common good. 

Moreover, there is an extreme likelihood that an even greater tax burden will be placed on the taxpaying public to make up for the lost revenue when many debts are cancelled that add up to hundreds of billions of dollars.  This being so, unjustly "cancelling" someone’s debt or a group of people’s debts owed to others is a form of wrongful discrimination in favor of the borrowers, and it is also a form of stealing (misappropriation of funds) that money from those who provided it and have a right to have it paid back. 

(See Germain Grisez’ Living a Christian Life: Volume 2, Chapter 11, Part 4:
The Common Good Is a Standard Which Governments and Citizens Can Use)
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Question 2: Given that it is morally unjust for the government to so discriminate and steal from some to give to others as set forth in the question 1 analysis, would it nevertheless still be morally permissible for a person to accept such “debt cancellation/relief” of a debt obligation?

Answer: No.

Analysis: When all of the relevant facts and moral principles are considered, then sinful material cooperation with the wrongdoing of the government also comes into play, and so seeking and accepting "debt cancellation/relief" arising from the immoral practice of the government would also be immoral. Taking advantage of an immoral action of the federal government (that also features wrongful discrimination toward others) in order to obtain financial gain, even if not personally culpable for the discrimination, and even if the immoral action is considered legal, still violates precepts of justice in accepting the temptation to avoid fulfilling a personal obligation toward fellow taxpayers and the common good of society in general, and it also lacks basic charity and empathy toward others who will indeed suffer from the government action.  At the same time, cooperating with the government in such a manner weakens individual resolve to fulfill all personal obligations with honor, and it also promotes a wrongful sense of entitlement that works against cultivating one’s humility and solidarity with fellow citizens.  

(See Germain Grisez’ Living a Christian Life: Volume 2, Chapter 11, Part 4:
The Common Good Is a Standard Which Governments and Citizens Can Use)

Nota Bene (1): The Principle of Subsidiarity also has a significant and serious application to the current issue:

“Just as it is gravely wrong to take from individuals what they can accomplish by their own initiative and industry and give it to the community, so also it is an injustice and at the same time a grave evil and disturbance of right order to assign to a greater and higher association what lesser and subordinate organizations can do.”

(See Encyclical Letters Quadragesimo Anno – 1931, and Centesimus Annus – 1991.  Also see Catechism of the Catholic Church, section 1883)

Accordingly, "taking away an individual’s debt obligation" that can be accomplished by the individual’s own initiative and industry is also gravely wrong. 

Nota Bene (2): Also from the great encyclical Centesimus Annus is another important insight on the application of the Principle of Subsidiarity:

“By intervening directly and depriving society of its responsibility, the Social Assistance State leads to a loss of human energies and an inordinate increase of public agencies, which are dominated more by bureaucratic ways of thinking than by concern for serving their clients, and which are accompanied by an enormous increase in spending.” (See Centesimus Annus, Chapter V, #48)

Of course, depriving society of its responsibility includes depriving individual members of that society from fulfilling their individual responsibilities.  A loss of human energies pertains in large part to a direct attack on individual initiative and drive by fostering a mentality of “let the State do it instead of me.”
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Additional Considerations:

From the brief assessment set forth above, it can indeed be concluded that offering "debt relief" in the manner proposed by Joe Biden is exceedingly immoral, and accepting that "relief" is also exceedingly immoral.  Moreover, even though legally it may not be the case, the fact remains that any person who has his or her debt wrongly “cancelled or reduced” by the State still owes that money to the people (taxpaying public) from whom it was borrowed. Personal obligations to persons XYZ cannot be waived by anybody (including those who claim to be speaking/acting on behalf of persons XYZ but demonstrably fail to act for the entire common good) other than persons XYZ.

Now, if and when the “debt relief” goes into effect, and it is claimed (i.e. rationalized) by anyone that the government “simply reduced my debt on its own, so there is nothing I can do…,” this person should be advised that his/her personal moral obligation cannot be relieved by the State, and so it remains in effect until he/she fully honors it.  And there is indeed something they can and must do to act morally, and that is pay the amount of the ill-gotten relief “back to the people” in the form of a contribution to the general fund, and there are many ways this can be done so that the money is directed as much as possible to where it would go without the immoral “debt relief.”

Alas, I fully recognize that many will act ignorantly and/or immorally in this regard, but hopefully there will also be many upright people who will not let Joe Biden and his government partners compromise their moral integrity in any way.

Thou Shalt Not Steal!