US Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, accompanied by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, speaks to reporters at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, July 29, 2020.
Erin Scott | Reuters
The House of Representatives approved President Joe Biden’s $ 1.9 trillion stimulus package, preparing what is expected to be days of debate and political deals within and around the Senate.
The House, led by spokeswoman Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Voted widely in line with the party’s lines early Saturday to advance the massive aid plan, which includes program extensions designed to help millions of unemployed Americans and provides financial support to state and local governments.
With the bill for a Senate divided into 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans, lawmakers will begin next week to offer amendments to the House plan and are likely to approve a different version of the bill they received.
If that happens, the House will then have to approve the Senate version or the two houses will have to come together to draft a nice final bill on a conference committee. Democrats are running to send the bill to Biden’s desk by March 14, when unemployment benefits will expire.
In defending the legislation, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., emphasized on Thursday that millions of Americans remain in economic trouble.
“This is an economic and health crisis that occurs once in a century,” he wrote on Twitter. “But Republican leaders are supposed to be ‘maneuvering’ to get every Republican member to oppose COVID’s urgent and bold relief.”
“Make no mistake,” he added, “we will deliver the American Rescue Plan with overwhelming public support.”
Democrats have a small majority in the House and Senate and have chosen to try to approve Biden’s stimulus plan through a process known as budgetary reconciliation. Reconciliation allows a party to approve a bill with a simple majority of votes, but limits what can be included in the bill to items that have a significant impact on the federal deficit.
Although the House passed its bill with a federal minimum wage stipulation of $ 15 an hour, the Senate congressman decided on Thursday that the salary increase cannot be included in any bill under reconciliation.
The parliamentarian’s decision underscores the fragility of the bill’s composition in the Senate, where even a single Democratic opposition could condemn Biden’s first historic piece of legislation.
The party’s leadership is likely to focus on intermediate Democrats, like Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who are more likely to oppose provisions that they consider expensive or unnecessary.
Manchin cast doubt on the fate of the additional stimulus checks as early as January 8, before Biden took office.
The conservative Democrat said he would “absolutely” oppose another round of direct payments, but later clarified in a tweet, writing: “If the next round of stimulus checks is launched, they should be targeted at those in need.”
Others, like Vermont independent Bernie Sanders, have doubled their commitment to progressive priorities like raising the $ 15 minimum wage.
He and Senate Finance President Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Are working on an amendment to the bill that would penalize large corporations that pay their employees less than $ 15 an hour.
– Jacob Pramuk of CNBC contributed to this report.