Sens. Manchinema (And Tester) Vote To Repeal President Biden’s Student Loan Debt Relief

A Republican-led effort to overturn President Joe Biden’s student debt relief plan narrowly cleared a key procedural hurdle in the Senate on Wednesday as Sens. Manchinema, and Jon Tester (D-MT) voted with all Republicans to proceed to debate on the measure.

Politico reports, Senate advances repeal of Biden’s student debt relief:

On a 51-46 vote (Democratic Sens. Bennet and Warner and Republican Sen. Tillis not voting), the Senate advanced legislation that would repeal Biden’s debt cancellation program and nullify the pause on monthly payments and interest.

UPDATE: The final vote on the joint resolution was 52-46, with the same three siding with Republicans (Democratic Sens. Bennet and Warner not voting).

The bill hasn’t attracted enough support in either the House or Senate to comprise the two-thirds majority that would be needed to override a presidential veto.

Debt deal: The Senate is taking up the measure as Congress weighs a debt ceiling agreement that would also solidify the end of the pause on federal student loan payments and interest that’s been in place since March 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic.

The bill, which the House is expected to take up later on Wednesday, would require the Biden administration to resume collecting student loans and charging interest after Aug. 30.

White House officials fended off Republican efforts to include in the deal a full repeal of Biden’s student debt cancellation plan, to the chagrin of many conservative lawmakers.

Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young, a lead negotiator, said on Tuesday that Biden’s loan forgiveness was “saved” in the final deal.

“This bill does end the payment pause, but very close to the timeframe we were going to end it,” she said. The Biden administration previously said it would keep the payment pause until the end of August at the latest.

What’s next: A final vote on the Congressional Review Act resolution in the Senate is set for Thursday.

The plan is on hold while the Supreme Court deliberates over legal challenges brought by Republican attorneys general and a conservative group. The justices in the coming weeks are expected to issue a ruling on whether the plan can proceed.

The White House warned in a Statement of Administration Policy last month that Biden would veto the resolution.




5 thoughts on “Sens. Manchinema (And Tester) Vote To Repeal President Biden’s Student Loan Debt Relief”

  1. UPDATE 6/8/23: “BIDEN VETOES GOP LED BILL BLOCKING STUDENT LOAN RELIEF”, https://www.politicususa.com/2023/06/07/biden-vetoes-gop-led-bill-blocking-student-loan-relief.html

    President Biden has vetoed the Republican-led resolution that would have killed his student loan debt relief plan.

    I am returning herewith without my approval H.J. Res. 45, a resolution that would disapprove of the Department of Education’s rule relating to “Waivers and Modifications of Federal Student Loans.”

    Since Day One, my Administration has been fighting to make college cheaper and the student loan system more manageable for borrowers. My Administration has championed the largest increase to Pell Grants in the last decade — a combined increase of $900 to the maximum award for students over the last 2 years — and has a plan to double the maximum Pell Grant by 2029 to nearly $13,000. This means more money in students’ pockets to pay for college. To help individuals who had to borrow to go to college, my Administration has been building a student loan system that works. The Department of Education has proposed the most generous repayment plan ever, which will cut undergraduate loan payments in half. It has also reformed the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program to make it easier for hundreds of thousands of public service employees to get the debt relief they deserve.

    The pandemic was devastating for families across the Nation. To give borrowers the essential relief they need as they recover from the economic strains associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, the Department of Education created a program to provide up to $10,000 in debt relief — and up to $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients — reaching more than 40 million hard-working Americans. Nearly 90 percent of this relief would go to Americans earning less than $75,000 per year, and no relief would go to any individual or household in the top 5 percent of incomes.

    The demand for this relief is undeniable. In less than 4 weeks — during the period when the student debt relief application was available — 26 million people applied or were deemed automatically eligible for relief. At least 16 million of those borrowers could have received debt relief already if it were not for meritless lawsuits waged by opponents of this program.

    The Department of Education’s action is based on decades-old authority, granted by the Congress. Multiple administrations over the last two decades have used this authority, following the same procedures as my Administration, to protect borrowers from the effects of national emergencies and military deployments. The Department of Education’s exercise of this authority has never previously been subject to the Congressional Review Act.

    It is a shame for working families across the country that lawmakers continue to pursue this unprecedented attempt to deny critical relief to millions of their own constituents, even as several of these same lawmakers have had tens of thousands of dollars of their own business loans forgiven by the Federal Government.

    I remain committed to continuing to make college affordable and providing this critical relief to borrowers as they work to recover from a once-in-a-century pandemic.

    Therefore, I am vetoing this resolution.

    -Both the House and the Senate do not have the votes to override President Biden’s veto, so the President’s student loan forgiveness plan will live to see another day, and younger voters will remember Joe Biden fighting for them as they cast their ballots in 2024.

    The U.S. “Extreme” Court may soon rule on the program.

  2. Well, Biden is 80 years old, the average Senator is 64, the average Congressfolk is 60.

    So I’m not at all shocked that the two most important issues to younger voters, climate (as in pipelines) and student debt haven’t been fixed yet.

    Dems have had the conn a few times in recent history, but somehow keep letting things like student debt issues, climate change, DACA (remember them?), the clinically insane defense budget, and OMFG Roe get away from them.

    It’s almost as if already having healthcare and a pension, being too old to be pregnant, not worrying about tsunamis rolling across Kansas while the Antarctic burns in 20 or 30 years cause you’ll be dead, already having a degree that you got cheap, and all the other things that the younger generations of America care about are not urgent issues for our older reps.

    Joe’s crushing it, all things considered, I get that, but instead of taking the W and going out a hero he’s going to run again, setting up another RBG situation.

    And the RBG situation, the arrogance of that beloved but foolish tiny little white lady, led to women losing the right to make decisions about their own fucking bodies, and a very religious SCOTUS coming for the rest of us.

    Her legacy will be overshadowed, and that’s a shame on the one hand, and justice on the other.

    She fucked up.

    Dems need to run some youngbloods, us old folks are proving to be the very Boomers younger folks say we are.

    Arrogant, selfish, out of touch, and assuming our shit comes out in little white cubes once a month and smells like strawberries without ever stopping to sniff for accuracy.

    We can blame these two crooks, Manchin and She Who Shall Not Be Named, but I doubt a younger POTUS would have let this happen.

    TeaBaggers used the debt ceiling against America 12 years ago, it’s a known issue, great that we avoided tanking the world’s economy, how about next time we close the fucking barn door first, instead of giving ourselves high-fives for getting most of the horses back?

    I’m 63, my daughter’s 35, I prefer my last word to her not be “sorry”.

  3. Sinema’s comment on her vote.

    “Like many Arizonans, education was my key to opportunity. Arizonans expect—and deserve—lasting solutions that tackle the underlying problem of high education costs,” Sinema told Newsweek. “The President’s student loan forgiveness plan—fueled by politics and not reality—is unfair to hardworking Arizonans who have responsibly paid their student loans, creates false expectations, and undermines Arizona students’ economic certainty.”

    https://www.newsweek.com/two-democrats-vote-end-bidens-student-loan-cancellation-1803948

    • They should find themselves private equity sugar daddies like I did to keep them in the lifestyle to which I have become accustomed.”

      • Sinema’s argument, which is actually no more than a right wing talking point, is so stupid that it really doesn’t deserve a thoughtful response.

        It can be applied to anything, absolutely anything that the right wing decides is an undeserved freebie.

        Should we be providing free school lunches to poor children?Wouldn’t it be better to study the root causes of poverty and provide a lasting solution rather than just throw food at underfed children? Doesn’t free food create false expectations and create economic uncertainty? And is it fair to those parents who pay for school lunches?

        It’s such a stupid argument that is no more than a lame excuse for doing nothing to solve problems that affect people who could use some help.

        But it’s no surprise that Sinema would be spewing idiotic right wing talking points as she works to build a coalition of ow information supporters for her 24 re-election campaign.

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