Washington Watch

Biden: If Congress ends student loan pause, I’ll veto

Some 87% of Americans never took out student loans, committee report finds

The White House says that if Congress passes House Joint Resolution 45, which would terminate President Joe Biden’s student loan pause and prevent a similar rule from being issued, Biden will veto it.

Last week, the U.S. House approved the bill 218-203, with 14 lawmakers not voting.

Read it for yourself: House Joint Resolution 45 of 2023

Congress.gov reports that the bill was received in the Senate Tuesday. USA Today reported Wednesday that it will get a full Senate vote. Republicans control the House and Democrats control the Senate.

But even if the bill passes in identical forms in both houses and heads to Biden’s desk, the president has vowed a veto.

“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,” reads a statement from the White House. It goes on to say the resolution “would weaken America’s middle class.”

The House Education Committee disagrees, noting that 87% of Americans never took out student loans.

Per the conclusion of the majority report:

President Biden’s student loan scam is illegal, unfair, and immoral. There is no such thing as debt ‘forgiveness.’ President Biden is simply transferring the debt from borrowers who willingly took out student loans to hardworking taxpayers who did not. This is no insignificant portion of the population: in fact, eighty-seven percent of Americans did not take out loans. This number includes those who did not go to college, who worked to avoid loans, or who had the grit to pay their loans back. In total, the President’s illegal student loan schemes could cost taxpayers nearly $1 trillion dollars...

The Mackinac Center has sued the U.S. Department of Education over the student loan pause.

Michigan Capitol Confidential is the news source produced by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Michigan Capitol Confidential reports with a free-market news perspective.