Maine deputy Jared Golden was the only Democrat to vote no.
This is a breaking news update. An earlier version of this report is below.
President Joe Biden presented the case on Friday to act quickly and without Republicans, if necessary, to spend $ 1.9 trillion in relief from the coronavirus, armed with new signs of economic tension caused by the continuing pandemic.
The stakes for the county and the economy were expanded on Friday morning, shortly after Senate Democrats took a decisive vote to force the plan in the House without Republican support, a step towards final approval next month. The January employment report showed that hiring has stagnated at a rate that could prevent a return to full employment for several years – with 406,000 people choosing to leave the workforce with rising deaths from the pandemic.
“Many people are losing hope,” said Biden in a speech at the White House. “I believe that the American people are looking for help from their government right now, to do our job, not to disappoint them. So I will act. I will act quickly. I would like to do it with the support of Republicans … they simply are not willing to go as far as I think we should go. “
The speech solidified the change of a president who entered the White House promising bipartisanship and met on Monday with 10 Republican senators who proposed a lean $ 618 billion alternative. But Biden concluded in his Friday speech that aid at that level would only prolong economic pain.
His comments came several hours after the Senate passed a budgetary measure that would allow Democrats to approve the plan without Republicans. Vice President Kamala Harris cast the vote in the Senate, the first.
Senate Democrats applauded after Harris announced the 51-50 vote at around 5:30 am. The action came after an exhaustive session that lasted all night, where senators voted on amendments that could define the contours of the eventual COVID-19 bill.
The budget now returns to the House, where it will likely be approved again on Friday to reflect the changes made by the Senate. The measure can then go through committees so that the additional relief can be completed by mid-March, when the extra unemployment benefits and other pandemic aids expire. It is an aggressive schedule that will test the ability of the new government and Congress to deliver on promises.
“We have been focusing lightning on doing this,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, after Democratic leaders in the House met with Biden on Friday. “We hope to be able to put vaccines in people’s arms, money in people’s pockets, children safely in schools and workers in their jobs. That’s what we’re doing now.”
Pressure for stimuli comes amid new signs of a weakening US economy. Employers created just 49,000 jobs in January, after cutting 227,000 jobs in December, the Labor Department said on Friday. Restaurants, retailers, manufacturers and even the healthcare industry laid off workers last month, meaning private employers accounted for an insufficient gain of 6,000 jobs last month.
“At this rate, it will take 10 years to reach full employment,” Biden said at a meeting in the Oval Office with House Democrats on Friday. “This is not hyperbole. It is a fact.”
The unemployment rate fell from 6.7% to 6.3%, but there was a drop in the number of people who were working or looking for a job, a sign that some people are leaving the labor market. The US economy is 9.9 million jobs shy of its pre-pandemic level.
Biden, who has been meeting with lawmakers in recent days to discuss the package, welcomed the leaders of the House committees who will be preparing the bill under the budget process known as “reconciliation”. Money is at stake for the distribution of vaccines, direct payments to families, the reopening of schools and commercial aid.
The size of the package has been a concern for several Republican lawmakers and some economists. Larry Summers, a former Treasury secretary during the Clinton administration, said in a column in The Washington Post that the $ 1.9 trillion package was three times the projected economic deficit. A separate analysis of the Penn Wharton Budget Model found that the plan would do little to boost growth in relation to its size.
The Senate session marathon brought test votes on several Democratic priorities, including a $ 15 minimum wage. The Senate by verbal vote adopted an amendment from Senator Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, who objected to raising the salary during the pandemic. Ernst said a pay rise at this time would be “devastating” for small businesses.
The Senate also passed a 99-1 amendment that would prevent the $ 1,400 in direct checks from Biden’s proposal from going to “high-income taxpayers”. But the move, led by Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia, is basically symbolic and not mandatory and does not specify at what level a person qualifies as a higher income.
And while Biden seemed willing to break with Republicans in his speech, White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters after the Senate-approved reconciliation process still allows for bipartisanship.
“The process allows time for negotiations through the work of the committee,” said Psaki. “We are certainly hopeful that there will be opportunities for amendments by Republicans, amendments by others across the board to be part of the process that is moving forward.”
The Associated Press writer Zeke Miller contributed to this report.
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