WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden asked Senate Democrats on Tuesday to support a $ 1.9 trillion COVID relief bill and defended his proposed $ 1,400 payments to individuals, even with some party moderates trying to reduce parts of the package.
“He said that we need to approve this project and approve it soon. That’s what the American people sent us here for, and we have to get the help that America needs, ”Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y. told reporters, describing a 20-minute conference call that Biden had with Democratic senators.
The president’s cry for unity came when Democrats, with no votes left in a 50-50 Senate, rated persistent divisions over the emerging bill. This included efforts by moderates to focus spending more narrowly on the people most affected by the deadly pandemic and the resulting economic contraction.
Biden used Twitter to signal that he would not budge on his demand that lawmakers add a new $ 1,400 payment to the $ 600 that millions of individuals received from a December relief measure. This new installment represents almost a quarter of the total cost of the account.
“The fact is that $ 600 is not enough. The Senate needs to approve the American Rescue Plan and finish the job of delivering $ 2,000 in direct relief, ”Biden wrote in one of his rare uses for a medium that his predecessor, Donald Trump, sometimes used more than 100 times a day .
The huge aid package is too big a time to fail for the incumbent president, who would be politically shaken if Congress – controlled strictly by Democrats but controlled nonetheless – did not deliver on its promise. Beating the virus who killed half a million Americans and threw the economy and countless lives to pieces is Biden’s top initial priority.
So far, Republicans are following the model they established during the presidency of Barack Obama. Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Said he expected Republican Party senators to unanimously oppose the bill, as his House colleagues did earlier on Saturday when the House passed its version of the measure .
McConnell accused Democrats of ignoring signs that the economy and the violence of the deadly virus were beginning to change and avoid Republicans. Biden met with 10 Republican senators last month, who presented a $ 600 billion plan a third of his own, but efforts to find a middle ground have come to nothing.
“The new government has made a conscious effort to paralyze us,” McConnell told reporters. “We will be fighting against it in any way we can.”
Democrats are using special rules that will allow them to avoid Republican obstructions that would require them to get 60 impossible votes to pass the legislation.
The Senate bill was expected to largely mirror the package approved by the House, with the most striking divergence being the reduction in the Senate wording, raising the federal minimum wage to $ 15 an hour.
Schumer said the Senate debate would start on Wednesday and predicted, “We will have the votes we need to pass the bill.” Democrats want to send a final package to Biden by March 14, when an earlier round of emergency unemployment benefits expires.
The account has hundreds of billions of dollars for schools and colleges, vaccines and COVID-19 tests, mass transit systems, tenants and small businesses. It also offers money for childcare, tax breaks for families with children, and assistance for states that want to expand Medicaid coverage for low-income residents.
Two people said Biden told Democrats that they must sometimes accept provisions that they mostly dislike. And it was clear that there were still moving parts.
West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, perhaps the Senate’s most conservative Democrat, said he wanted to reduce his weekly emergency unemployment benefit from $ 400 to $ 300. That’s the same amount that Congress passed last December – plus the benefits state regulars – and Manchin said the higher figure would discourage people from returning to work.
“It would be terrible if the doors opened and there was no one working,” said Manchin of the reopening of companies. Leading Democrats and Progressives are opposed to reducing these benefits, but Schumer suggested a final awaited decision, saying, “They are discussing this.”
Senator Angus King, I-Maine, said he wants the $ 350 billion bill for state and local governments to specify minimum values for municipal governments and asked for $ 50 billion to improve broadband coverage.
Despite the huge influence of all Democrats because all their votes are needed, none so far has threatened to sink the legislation if they don’t get what they want. Everyone is aware of how it would undermine Biden’s presidency and the Democrats’ ability to be productive during this Congress.
“We want to get the biggest and strongest bill that can be passed and that’s what we’re going to do,” said Schumer.
There were indications that loose ends were falling into place. In one sign, 11 Democratic senators wrote to Biden urging him to use a huge infrastructure project to create regularly paid relief and unemployment benefits that would automatically be triggered by economic conditions.
Some progressives wanted these payments to be included in the COVID-19 account. Pressure from Democrats to include it in later legislation suggested an effort to satisfy progressives, while avoiding jeopardizing the current package.
Progressives, however, were still concerned with the virtual certainty that the Senate bill will not raise the minimum wage, compared to the $ 7.25 an hour fixed since 2009.
The party’s non-partisan parliamentarian said last week that including this increase violates Senate budget rules. Opposition from moderates, including Manchin and Senator Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., Left Democrats without the necessary votes to save him.
A fundraising email from Our Revolution, a progressive political committee that was started by supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Underscored the left’s anger. Sanders is the main sponsor of the Senate salary increase.
“The politician who is on the path to change is Vice President Kamala Harris,” said the email, citing the possibility – already rejected by the White House – of casting a tiebreak vote in the Senate to annul the congressman. He said the organization will “hold it accountable if it decides to turn its back on essential workers”.
Senate drafters also removed a small provision that would have provided $ 1.5 million for the maintenance and operation of a bridge in the state of New York connecting the United States and Canada. The funding was removed after some Republican lawmakers criticized it as an example of an unnecessary expense item that should not be part of COVID’s relief bill.
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AP Congressional correspondent Lisa Mascaro and writer Kevin Freking contributed to this report.