Democrats are a big step closer to achieving their first big goal of the Joe Biden era. On Saturday morning, the US House passed a $ 1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill in a quasi-partisan vote.
The 219-212 vote allows the US Senate to formally pass legislation, which Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) plans to do immediately. But the party is under the gun: many Democrats regard March 14 – the day when extended unemployment benefits have run out for millions – as a de facto deadline to put the so-called American Rescue Plan on Biden’s desk.
The legislation would restore relief for the unemployed by extending a weekly check for $ 400 through August. It also fulfills a number of other promises that Democrats made in the campaign in 2020: $ 1,400 direct stimulus checks to complement the $ 600 checks that came out in December, billions of dollars to speed up the distribution of vaccines, funds for schools and help for state and local governments. The House bill passed with an increase in the federal minimum wage – but the Senate procedural enforcer concluded that the proposal did not comply with the fast-tracking rules of a bill in the upper house. This effectively kills the prospects for a clean wage increase as part of the COVID legislation.
Previous rounds of major COVID legislation have been passed by the House with bipartisan support, but Friday’s vote almost confirmed that Biden’s first relief effort will follow a fully partisan path. The GOP, plagued by infighting after the January 6 attack and the impeachment of Donald Trump, found reason for unity in opposition to the relief plan, which they attacked as an inflated vehicle for items on the liberal wish list. Democrats had hoped that at least some Republicans would vote in favor of the plan, but no Republican lawmaker has supported the legislation, and their chances of getting many Republicans in the Senate seem slim.