The Senate voted along party lines Thursday on legislation to block President Joe Biden’s $400 billion student loan relief program, which would end the administration’s pause on federal student loan payments.
The measure passed on a 51-46 vote with Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va) and Jon Tester (D-MT) along with independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) joining Republicans on Wednesday to vote on the motion to proceed to the final vote.
The White House warned last month in a Statement of Administration Policy that Biden would veto the resolution.
“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 said.
The news comes after the House passed the motion on a 218-203 vote with Democrat Reps. Jared Golden (D-ME) and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA) joined Republicans in voting on the measure.
The resolution as it is currently written would end the administration’s program to cancel up to $10,000 in loans for borrowers whose income falls below certain requirements and up to $20,000 for those who received Pell Grants as well as end a pandemic-era pause on loan payments.
Despite Biden vetoing the measure, the U.S. Supreme Court, which holds a conservative majority, is expected to vote on two measures related to Biden’s student loan relief program later this month.
The debt limit bill, which passed the House on Wednesday, would end the pause on loan payments and resume at the end of August if the debt bill is signed into law before the June 5 deadline.
Republicans have long argued that the program is unfair to taxpayers and to those who paid off loans they borrowed or those who did not attend college. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that repealing the program would decrease the federal deficit by $315 billion over the next 10 years.
