The Unjust Steward

  

President Joe Biden has been a public servant for practically all of his adult life. He served the people of Delaware as a senator for more than 40 years. Now, as President of the USA he is the servant of all the people.  Even though he is our chief executive, he is our servant, and we the people are his employer or master. 

So, when he issues an executive order to forgive student loans, it  may seem magnanimous and merciful to some, but he is not forgiving payments due to him but to us. He is giving away our money, not his own. It is very easy to spend or give away someone else’s money. Moreover, he is not even consulting with our representatives in Congress on this matter despite the fact that his Democratic party has majorities in both houses. This is just a clandestine form of taxation without representation.

President Biden admits to being a practicing Catholic so he must have heard the parable of the Unjust Steward many times while in attendance at Mass. Actually, he will hear it again on September 18 when it is the gospel for the 25^thSunday in Ordinary Time. 

The parable is about a servant or steward who is a crook. He was cheating his own master or employer to feather his own nest. Realizing that his fraud is about to be disclosed, and that he will be out of a job, it never occurs to him to ask for forgiveness or repent.  Instead, he goes to his master’s debtors and reduces what they owe. He hopes that they will reward him when he is out of a job. What else could he do in the face of impending doom? As he says, "to dig, I am not able, to beg, I am ashamed.” 

 

Commentators have wondered why the master seems to “commend” the unjust steward for his criminal behavior. “And the master commended that dishonest steward for acting prudently.” Personally, I detect sarcasm here. Why would any of those debtors ever trust the steward when they know that he has cheated on his own master? Interestingly, the gospel relates that the wealthy Pharisees listening to the parable laughed at Jesus.

 

Even today, it is funny to hear people like Joe Biden called public servants. It appears that in all those years that he “served” the people of Delaware, he mainly served the interests of himself and the Biden family. Somehow, on a congressman’s salary, he became one of the richest, if not the richest man, in the tiny state of Delaware, where, by the way, most of the largest companies in America are domiciled because of favorable corporate laws. Years from now, when the FBI concludes its investigation of the Hunter Biden laptop, we may finally learn the identity of the “big guy” who would get 10% of the profits of Hunter’s business dealings in China.

 

As far as college loan debt forgiveness is concerned, it is just not fair to shift the burden to others. During the Obama/Biden administration, the government took over the whole student loan operation, and promised that by taking it out of the hands of private banks, billions would be saved. Ten years later, the program is a disaster. The Biden administration plan appears to be not only a cover-up of another progressive failure, but also, a ploy to revive the sagging reputation of the Biden administration as the mid-term elections draw near. 

 

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