Elizabeth Warren’s student loan bill isn’t meant to go anywhere, it’s all for show to make it look like she’s trying to do something.

Patrick Brennan writes at National Review.

Elizabeth Warren’s Student-Loan Bill Fails

This morning, the Senate tabled a proposal by Elizabeth Warren to let holders of all student loans lower the interest rates they pay to the current rate offered on new federal student loans. A vote to end debate on her bill failed in the Senate, 38 votes to 56 (60 are necessary).

Senator Waren bills the legislation as giving student-loan borrowers the opportunity to “refinance” their debt just like holders of any other loans can, but this isn’t what she’s proposing: When interest rates drop, competition forces private-sector lenders are compelled to offer borrowers the opportunity to refinance their ordinary loans. Warren is trying to bolt this logic onto federally subsidized student loans, and it doesn’t add up.

Students can refinance their loans if they want already, but for almost all of them, the only lender who will offer a lower rate is the federal government. Interest rates have dropped since, say, holders of student loans issued in 2007 took out their original loans — but they took out their loans at heavily subsidized rates that no private lender would offer without federal intervention, and Warren is just proposing to lower their payments even more. (See more on this from Jason Richwine at the Agenda.) She would have paid for this big transfer to holders of student loans with a version of the Buffett Rule, which would impose a minimum tax on high earners.

President Obama endorsed the bill on Monday in his remarks on student loans, but it appears to be dead for now (though Majority Leader Harry Reid lamented its failure).