Welcome to the hard work.
Major League Baseball teams on the East Coast face difficulties. They have a big trip down the west coast that spans a few weeks. Games in Arizona. San Diego. Los Angeles. San Francisco. Oakland.
College students find the battle. That final crisis of class work, two weeks until the end of the semester – followed by the finals.
And Congress is no stranger to hard work. Especially when there is a big and expensive bill, overturning the parliamentary spike.
That is the case in the coming weeks, as Congress tries to finalize the Democrats’ $ 1.9 trillion coronavirus bill.
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Completing the fifth round of COVID aid was hard work. Negotiations began in the summer. Congress finally approved the bill just before Christmas. He then faced a threat of veto from former President Trump. But the president signed the measure just before the new year.
That was hard work. Hard work in slow motion.
The effort to approve the sixth major coronavirus package is a quick one. It will consume two weeks (or more) of traffic on the Congress stage. But that will be hard work. Maybe even devouring the next weekends.
Or three.
The House Budget Committee formally launched the “slog” process on Monday afternoon. The panel drafted its special budget reconciliation measure this week to deal with the $ 1.9 trillion coronavirus aid bill.
“We are in a race against time,” argued the Chairman of the House Budget Committee, John Yarmuth, D-Ky. “Bold action is needed before our nation is more deeply and permanently marked by the human and economic cost of inaction.”
WHAT’S IN THE $ 1.9 T BIDEN STIMULATION PLAN?
Think of this first measure as the “shell” to deal with the actual invoice. A vehicle. The final text of the coronavirus bill will “pass” within the COVID package.
The measure then goes to the House Rules Committee. House Democrats insist they will give members three full days to consider the package. That is why we are facing a vote on Friday or Saturday on this iteration of the legislation.
It is a huge bill of 600 pages.
Republicans realized how a considerable part of the plan has little to do with the actual treatment of the pandemic – whether from an economic or health perspective. Part of this is debatable. But Republicans cited $ 35 billion in grants to help with Affordable Care Act awards, $ 1 billion for disadvantaged farmers. $ 30 billion for local transit systems. And, something Republicans widely opposed last year, a staggering $ 350 billion for local and state governments.
“Now we know it’s the wrong plan, at the wrong time, for all the wrong reasons,” protested Representative Jason Smith (R-MO), the top Republican on the Budget Committee. Smith argued that the government has yet to spend more than $ 1 trillion on previous COVID packages.
The bill’s most controversial provision is an increase in the minimum hourly wage to $ 15. Republicans – and even some Democrats – are more than willing to fight it.
“What does this have to do with the relief from COVID?” asked the House minority chief, Steve Scalise, R-La. “These small businesses will have an even harder time coming back when you reach a $ 15 minimum wage. These things have nothing to do with COVID.”
Democrats are likely to have to go to the House and Senate alone to pass that measure. But it is not out of the question that Democrats could take one or two Republicans on either body to vote yes.
The Senate will not address the initial version of the reconciliation plan until at least next week. The House is prepared to receive the Senate bill next week. An amendment deadline for the House’s final plan is set for this Thursday. The Chamber would then presumably consider the final version of the bill next week or whenever the Senate sends it back through the Rotunda.
Despite Republican Party protests (mostly) about raising the minimum wage, Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough decreed the $ 15 out of order.
Here’s why this is a problem:
The House and Senate are using special budget reconciliation rules to push the coronavirus bill forward because it can get around an obstruction. There is no way for Democrats to get 60 votes to overcome conventional obstruction. But using the special budget reconciliation process for this COVID bill allows Democrats to short the bill. If Senate Democrats stand and get all 50 Senate Democrats to vote yes, they can approve the measure with Vice President Harris breaking the tie.
But the problem is that the reconciliation project cannot include policy clauses or increase the deficit over a long period.
Provisions such as the minimum wage may conflict with the two requirements listed above. Thus, House liberals are likely to vote for the minimum wage for the first package. But then an assessment must be made if it is removed from the Senate package. Democrats also have the opportunity to say that they voted in favor – but then blame the “old Senate and its bizarre budget rules” for eliminating the minimum wage increase.
But will House Democrats stay together?
Remember that there are a number of issues that senators could eliminate because this is not in line with budget rules.
You see, the Chamber does not have to comply with “budget reconciliation” restrictions. The Senate does. Therefore, it is possible that you have many of these provisions for display only.
$ 100 million to extend the Bay Area Rapid Transit caught the attention of some GOPers.
“This is one of the dangers of having such a big bill,” complained Congressman Michael Burgess, R-Texas. “We are not going to build an underground railway through Silicon Valley.”
House Democrats can only lose five votes and pass a bill on their own, without needing Republican help. And Democratic House leaders fully admit that they expect the COVID bill they sent to the Senate to be a different animal when they return. The Chamber would have to accept the Senate version to have both bodies on the same page.
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Senate Democrats may not have the votes to approve the measure on their own, even if MacDonough decides that the minimum wage provision is in place. Sens. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., And Joe Manchin, DW.Va., are opposed to raising the minimum wage on this account.
That’s why it can be hard work. You never know for sure how long it will take to enforce all provisions and ensure that the votes are in the right place.
The goal is for the two bodies to approve the project by the beginning of March. This is when a batch of benefits approved on the previous COVID invoice expires. This race against time is why the next few weeks will be hard work.
Until the Next COVID bill.