The Senate on Thursday voted to torpedo President Biden’s student debt relief program.
The legislation passed the Senate on a 52-46, marking the latest blow against Mr. Biden’s signature push to provide student loan forgiveness to tens of millions of Americans.
The White House has made it clear Mr. Biden plans to veto the bill, increasing the likelihood the fate of the program is decided in the courts.
Republicans have stood firmly against the student loan forgiveness program since Mr. Biden announced in August the federal government would cancel up to $20,000 worth of federal student loans per borrower.
The proposal passed the House on a 218-203 vote last month with support from a pair of Democrats.
The Senate vote came a day after the House passed a deal to increase the nation’s borrowing limit that would force people to start paying their student loan debt again after a three-year pause that was put into place in response to the coronavirus.
Under the debt deal, payments would start around Sept. 1.
Senate Republicans on Thursday also received a helping hand from moderate members who caucus with Democrats: Sens. Joseph Manchin III of West Virginia, John Tester of Montana, and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.
Mr. Manchin, Mr. Tester, and Ms. Sinema, who switched her party affiliation to independent from Democrat late last year, are up for reelection in 2024.
“There are a number of problems with the president’s plan for forgiving student debt,” Sen. John Thune, North Dakota Republican, said before the vote. “I say ‘forgiving’ student debt, but it is more like transferring the cost of student debt from the relatively small percentage of taxpayers in this country with student debt to American taxpayers as a whole.”
“It is something of a slap in the face to Americans who chose more affordable college options or worked their way through school to avoid taking on student loans or whose parents scrimped and saved to put them through college,” he said.
Sen. Patty Murray, Washington Democrat, pushed back.
“The cold, hard reality is that if Republicans were to get their way and pass this bill into law, people across the country would have relief they are counting on snatched away from them, plans they have made upended, less money in their pockets, and monthly payments not just abruptly restarted — but maybe even abruptly jacked up by hundreds of dollars,” Ms. Murray said.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, Louisiana Republican, said the move was a matter of fairness for taxpayers.
“The president’s student loan schemes do not ‘forgive’ debt, they just shift the burden from those who chose to take out loans onto those who never went to college or already fulfilled their commitment to pay off their loans,” he said. “Our bipartisan resolution prevents average Americans, the 87% of whom currently have no student loans, from being forced to foot the bill of these unfair and irresponsible policies.”
The issue also landed in the Supreme Court earlier this year where the Republican-appointed justices questioned the fairness of the plan and wondered why Congress did not have a hand in the $400 billion program.
The court is expected to rule later this month whether the president has the unilateral authority to create the program.
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.