Congressman Jason Smith of Missouri is the top Republican on the House Budget Committee. He knows we can’t go on like this, with a serial spender in the White House.

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Smith: President Joe Biden is reportedly still haggling with Washington Democrats to revive some version of the legislative Frankenstein that is their $5-trillion Build Back Broke agenda. Having failed thus far to convince his own party to support his policies, Biden is finding new ways to rewrite America’s laws through executive actions, spending more than half a trillion worth of tax dollars in the process.

These executive actions have become so common place in the Biden administration — with 530 undertaken so far – and the implications for taxpayers so glaring, that I asked the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to determine the cost of Biden’s eight most expensive executive actions. The results are stunning: in just 16 months, Joe Biden has charged American taxpayers $532 billion — all with no input from the American people themselves or a vote by their elected representatives in Congress.

For example, after Senate Democrats refused to move forward with Biden’s budget reconciliation bill that would expand ObamaCare, Biden, with the quick stroke of a pen, did so via executive fiat, proposing $34 billion be added to the taxpayers’ tab.

What is worse, many of these executive actions are exacerbating some of the very crises American families are now dealing with. Take for example his decision to stop President Trump’s public charge rule. At a time when America is facing the worst border crisis in at least two decades — perhaps ever — Biden’s decision to abandon the public charge rule means that more welfare dollars and benefits will flow to immigrants. How much? Well according to CBO that decision alone will cost American taxpayers $20 billion.

Other executive actions have been aimed at benefiting the wealthy base of the Democratic Party. President Biden’s decision to extend the moratorium on student loan repayments overwhelmingly benefits the fewer than 40 percent of Americans who went to college and have higher lifetime earnings at the expense of the 60 percent who did not.

This pause on loan repayment has cost taxpayers nearly $100 billion so far and is a gross attack on working families who are being forced to bail out the wealthiest 20% of earners who hold nearly one-third of student loan debt. It will further add to America’s inflation crisis; and it is in addition to the $3 billion the president spent by outright and unilaterally canceling the student loan debts of 40,000 borrowers.

The president is even now considering spending roughly another $230 billion —by canceling $10,000 of student debt for households making up to $300,000. Not only does this fail to address the high prices American families are facing because of inflation, but it is a shameful political ploy and a clear overreach of the president’s executive authority in order to protect the Democrats’ wealthy base.