WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate on Thursday voted to overturn the Biden administration’s one-time student debt relief plan that is on hold due to a pending Supreme Court decision.
President Joe Biden has vowed to veto the resolution, but the 52-46 vote forced vulnerable Senate Democrats up for reelection in 2024 to take a public stance on loan forgiveness that Republicans have lambasted as a “bailout.”
The resolution, brought under the Congressional Review Act that allows Congress to reverse certain administration actions, was one of several maneuvers Republicans have used to block the one-time cancellation of up to $20,000 in federal student loan debt for borrowers who qualify. The resolution passed the U.S. House last week and now goes to the White House.
In a statement ahead of the House vote, the White House blasted the student loan measure.
“This resolution is an unprecedented attempt to undercut our historic economic recovery, and would deprive more than 40 million hard-working Americans of much-needed student debt relief,” the statement read. “Americans should be able to have a little more breathing room as they recover from the economic strains associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Senators up for reelection next year who voted with Republicans, include Democrats Jon Tester of Montana and Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and independent Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.
Partisan split
Though some Democratic senators crossed party lines Thursday, several others have criticized the resolution for not only blocking student debt relief, but requiring borrowers to pay back interest from the pause on student loan repayments first implemented by the Trump administration in 2020 due to the coronavirus and extended several times.
“My Republican colleagues talk a big game about helping working families, but this legislation shows how callous and uncaring they are, by trying to block relief that would immediately improve the lives of millions of borrowers,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the floor Wednesday.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, the Louisiana Republican who introduced the resolution, argued on the Senate floor Wednesday that the Biden administration did not have the authority to enact its debt relief program. Cassidy pointed to how Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. expressed skepticism during oral arguments in February about the policy.
Several members of the court’s conservative majority questioned whether the president could enact a program that would approve $400 billion in relief without congressional approval.
Cassidy said the Biden administration’s plan will “transfer the burden from those who willingly took out loans for college in order to make more money when they graduated, to Americans who never attended college or already fulfilled their commitment to pay off their loans.”
“It is unfair to the hundreds of millions of Americans who will bear the burden of paying off hundreds of billions of dollars of someone else’s student debt,” he said.
Sen. John Thune, the Senate minority whip, called the student loan forgiveness policy a “government handout” in a Thursday floor speech.
“It’s something of a slap in the face to Americans who chose more affordable college options or worked their way through school to avoid taking loans, or whose parents scrimped and saved to put them through college,” the South Dakota Republican said.
