On issue after issue, Congress has cravenly delegated its constitutional authority to the president so it can avoid upsetting voters by actually making tough calls. But, at least on student loans, House Republicans are standing up for the Constitution and sound policy by fighting to reclaim their powers from the president’s attempt to usurp them .

On Wednesday, the House passed a resolution that would nullify the president’s attempt to unilaterally “cancel” via executive fiat (i.e. transfer to taxpayers) $10,000-$20,000 in student debt for borrowers with household incomes under $250,000. It passed along party lines, with the exception of two Democrats — Reps. Jared Golden (D-ME) and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA) — who broke with their party to support the resolution.

"Congress must reclaim its power and act today to stop the unilateral action of President Biden that is exacerbating the higher education financial crisis," said Rep. Bob Good (R-VA), who sponsored the resolution. "This bill is needed to help steer our government spending in a more responsible direction."

Republicans are absolutely right to support this resolution as a matter of constitutional principle. The president’s student loan actions are estimated to cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars, but he has attempted to enact them unilaterally, directly against Congress’s will. Yet under the Constitution, it is Congress, not the president, that is given the power to spend taxpayer money, “the power of the purse.”

So, this measure was always flagrantly unlawful .

Hence why even the likes of Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) long maintained that the president could not “cancel” student loans without an act of Congress. But Biden ignored the many legal experts on his own side cautioning against this move and went ahead with it anyway, likely as part of a blatant attempt to bribe young voters ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. This was always a clear violation of the Constitution, which is why the move has been tied up in the courts ever since Biden rolled it out and hasn’t actually taken effect.

It shouldn’t be a partisan stance for Congress to step up and take back its legal powers from a president who wants to infringe upon them. That’s ultimately what this GOP resolution does: restore our constitutional order.

It’s also a sound move on its policy merits. Hence why even the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget backed the move, saying , “This resolution would rightly exert Congress’s authority over the power of the purse while cancelling a policy that is costly, inflationary, regressive, economically unjustified, and harmful to the higher education system.”

Why is Biden’s plan “regressive” and “economically unjustified”? Well, don’t forget that it’s estimated the plan would cost taxpayers north of $500 billion, yet most of the benefits would flow to the relatively well-off. One analysis from the Wharton School of Business found that the bottom 40% of income earners — you know, the “working class” they say this is supposed to help — only get about 27% of the financial benefits from Biden’s bailout.

So, what Republicans are really doing is clawing back a taxpayer-funded bailout for the affluent. That’s something most Americans can get behind.

One other thing the resolution does is retroactively revoke the Biden administration’s latest “pause” on student debt payments, which is actually a form of debt cancellation because interest payments are being outright “forgiven” (passed on to taxpayers). On this, too, Republicans are in the right. College graduates have long since recovered from the pandemic’s economic effects, which was the original justification for the pause, and it’s actually financially benefiting doctors and lawyers the most while costing taxpayers billions per month.

Of course, Republicans will be attacked as heartless and cruel for these moves. One Democratic congressman, Maxwell Frost, even compared them to segregationists and sexists who opposed women’s suffrage for passing this resolution. But Americans should tune out the hysteria, hyperbole, and hyperventilation. When they do, they’ll surely see that, on this issue, Republicans have both the Constitution and sound economic principles on their side.

Brad Polumbo ( @Brad_Polumbo ) is an independent journalist and the co-founder of BASEDPolitics .