WASHINGTON (AP) – Senate leaders and moderate Democratic Senator Joe Manchin struck a deal on Friday over emergency unemployment benefits, breaking a nine-hour stalemate that paralyzed the US relief bill COVID-19. $ 1.9 trillion from the party.
The deal, announced by the West Virginia legislature and a Democratic aide, seemed to pave the way for the Senate to start a marathon of votes that would lead to the passage of comprehensive legislation.
The general project, President Joe Biden’s top legislative priority, aims to combat the killer pandemic and restore the health of the struggling economy. It would provide direct payments of up to $ 1,400 to most Americans and money for vaccines and COVID-19 tests, help for state and local governments, help for schools and the civil aviation industry, and health insurance subsidies.
While the Senate faced votes on a pile of amendments that were likely to pass overnight, Democratic leaders’ agreement with Manchin suggested it was only a matter of time before the House passed the bill. This would send him back to the House, which was supposed to give Congress final approval and send him to Biden for his signature.
But the day’s long stalemate also underscored the headaches that party leaders face over the next two years as they try to move their Congressional agenda with their thin majorities.
Manchin is probably the most conservative Democrat in the House and a kingmaker in a 50-50 Senate that leaves his party without a vote. With the Democrats’ thin majorities – they have an advantage of only 10 votes in the House – the party needs its vote, but it cannot lean too far to the center without losing progressive support.
With 10 million fewer jobs since the pandemic a year ago, helping unemployed Americans is a top Democratic priority. But it is also an issue that has created a divide between progressives seeking to help unemployed voters deal with the bleak economy and Manchin and other moderates who wanted to cut some of the bill’s costs.
“People in the country are suffering now, with less than two weeks of cuts in reinforced unemployment checks,” said Biden at the White House, referring to the end of March 14 for the current round of emergency unemployment benefits. He called his project “a lifeline clearly needed to gain an advantage” against the pandemic.
The package faces a solid wall of Republican opposition, and Republicans have used the unemployment stalemate to accuse Biden of refusing to seek a deal with them.
“You could pick up the phone and get it over with right now,” Senator Lindsey Graham, RS.C., said of Biden.
The House’s version of the relief bill provided weekly unemployment benefits of $ 400 – in addition to regular state payments – until August. Manchin hoped to reduce those costs, saying that the level of payment would discourage people from returning to work.
When the day started, Democrats said they had reached an agreement between party moderates and progressives, extending emergency unemployment benefits by $ 300 a week in early October. That plan, sponsored by Senator Tom Carper, D-Del., Also included tax breaks on some unemployment benefits.
But around noon, lawmakers said Manchin was ready to support a less generous Republican version. This led to hours of negotiations involving White House advisers, Senate Democrats and Manchin, as the party tried to find a way to save its unemployment benefits package.
The deal announced on Friday night would provide $ 300 a week, with the final check paid on September 6, and includes a reduction in taxes on those benefits.
Before the unemployment insurance drama began, senators voted 58-42 to eliminate a progressive priority, a gradual increase from the current minimum wage from $ 7.25 an hour to $ 15 over five years.
Eight Democrats voted against the proposal, suggesting that Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., And other progressives who promise to continue the effort in the coming months will face a difficult struggle.
But eight hours after the minimum wage calling list started, it had not yet been formally closed, as all work in the Senate ceased while Democrats struggled to resolve their unemployment insurance problem.
The next step would be a mountain of amendments, mainly from opponents of the Republican Party, virtually all destined for failure, but aimed at forcing Democrats to obtain politically inappropriate votes.
Republicans say the overall project is a liberal party that ignores that the growing number of vaccinations and signs of a bustling economy suggest that the two crises are easing.
“Our country is already ready for a resounding recovery,” said Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Partly citing an unexpectedly strong report on job creation. “Democrats have inherited a tide that was already changing.”
Democrats reject this, citing the 10 million jobs the economy lost during the pandemic and countless people still struggling to buy food and pay rent.
“If you just look at a large number, you say, ‘Oh, everything is getting a little better,'” said Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y. “It is not for the lower half of America. It is not.”
In an encouraging sign for Biden, a survey by the Associated Press-NORC Public Affairs Research Center found that 70% of Americans support their treatment of the pandemic, including a notable 44% of Republicans.
Friday’s stalemate due to the unemployment benefits stalemate was not the first delay. On Thursday, Senator Ron Johnson, R-Wis., Forced city officials to read aloud the entire 628-page bill, an exhausting task that took 10 hours and 44 minutes for officials and ended little. after 2am EST.
Democrats made a series of other late changes to the bill, aimed at gaining support. They ranged from extra money for food programs and federal subsidies for health care for workers who lose jobs to funds for rural health care and language guaranteeing minimal amounts of money for smaller states.
In another late negotiation that satisfied the moderates, Biden and the Senate Democrats agreed on Wednesday to make some of the highest paid ineligible for direct checks to individuals.