House Republicans adopted a resolution on
Wednesday, 218-203, that would block President Biden’s student loan
cancellation plan and restart monthly payments for student loan borrowers,
which have been paused since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Sixty percent of constituents in my
district don’t have a college degree, and yet President Biden wants to force
them to pay for the student loans of others,” asked Rep. Bob Good, Virginia
Republican who introduced the resolution. “How is that fair or free?”
“Student loan borrowers are responsible for
their debts,” he said. “Congress is responsible for the money we spend. The
president cannot unilaterally change the rules. Why is this so difficult to
understand?”
That the vote occurred alongside
high-stakes negotiations over the debt limit comes as no surprise given the
nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that repealing the program
would decrease the federal deficit by about $315 billion in the next decade.
Companion resolution was filed in the
Senate by Sen. Bill Cassidy, Louisiana Republican and ranking member of the
Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, backed by 47 of his GOP
colleagues – enough to clear the 30 vote threshold needed to force a vote on
it.
While all votes under the Congressional
Review Act are simple majority votes, that may prove difficult for Cassidy to
garner – even if some moderate Democrats privately grumbled about the
president’s plan when he announced it in August.
The White House warned in a statement of
administrative policy on Monday that Biden would veto the House measure if it
makes it to his desk, saying it would "weaken America's middle class"
and amount to “an unprecedented attempt to undercut our historic economic
recovery.”
The Biden administration has been in attack
mode for months against congressional attempts to block its signature higher
education policy, countering that the GOP efforts would deny millions of their
own middle-class and low-income constituents from receiving debt relief they
need and deserve. That includes, White House officials have pointed out,
millions of borrowers from conservative states, including 380,000 in Cassidy’s
home state of Louisiana and 2.1 million in Texas alone – all of whom have
already applied for the debt relief they are seeking to block.
Biden’s plan would cancel $10,000 in
student loan debt for borrowers making $125,000, or $250,000 for married
couples, and $20,000 for those who also received federal Pell Grants. The
proposal is estimated to cost up to $400 billion.
