On President Joe Biden’s 50th day in the Oval Office, his Democratic-led Congress approved a landmark, long-anticipated $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill.
Debate on the 628-page measure began Wednesday around 9 a.m. and continued past 1 p.m. Democrats defended the bill as a necessary pandemic response and Republicans lambasted the measure as full of funding for liberal projects that have nothing to do with the coronavirus.
The vote to approve the measure — 220-211 — was almost completely along party lines, with only one Democrat voting against the measure. Democrats hold a slim, 10-vote margin in the House. The Senate is split 50-50, with Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat serving as a tie-breaking vote.
Watch a replay of the debate below.
The White House said Biden would sign the bill on Friday.
On Thursday, the president — who has still not held a formal news conference since taking office, the longest of any president in more than 100 years — will make his first prime-time national address, the topic being the coronavirus.
Republicans say Americans have plenty of reason to be skeptical, calling the American Rescue Plan excessive and wasteful. They warn the sweeping package will run up the national debt to precarious new heights after $4 trillion in aid has already been provided.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell argued against the package as missing the moment — too big at a time when the virus is showing signs of easing and the economy is poised to come “roaring” back.
Instead of working across the aisle toward unity, as Biden has promised, McConnell said Democrats are “ramming through what they call ‘the most progressive domestic legislation in a generation,’” quoting the White House chief of staff.
“They explained their intent very clearly: to exploit this crisis as ‘a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision,’” McConnell said. This is the first COVID-19 bill that had zero support from Republicans in the House or Senate.
Biden is staking his presidency on the idea the government can use his coronavirus relief plan not only to stop a pandemic and jobs crisis but also to catapult the country forward to tackle deep issues of poverty, inequality and more.
“When I was elected, I said we were going to get the government out of the business of battling on Twitter and back in the business of delivering for the American people,” Biden said after the huge bill passed the Senate on Saturday. “Of showing the American people that their government can work for them.”
Taken together, provisions in the 628-page bill add up to one of the largest enhancements to the social safety net in decades, pushing the country into uncharted territory.
Besides stopping the pandemic and jump-starting hiring, money in the rescue package is supposed to start fixing income inequality, halve child poverty, feed the hungry, save pensions, sustain public transit, let schools reopen with confidence and help repair state and local government finances. And Biden is betting that the government can do all of this with the speed of a nation mobilizing for war without touching a tripwire of inflation.
“People have lost faith government can do good for them,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who spoke daily with Biden while ushering the bill through the Senate last weekend. Now, as vaccines become more available and other changes take place, “people are going to see that government actually is making their lives better — which is how Americans used to think of it, and we’ve gotten away from it.”
Biden’s bet, more than others in modern politics and economics, is full of questions.
Can the federal money push economic growth above 6% for the first time since Ronald Reagan’s administration in 1984? Will the 9.5 million lost jobs quickly return? Will inflation surge? Will the national debt spook voters in next year’s midterm elections? Biden has placed the biggest of markers on the theories of the 20th-century British economist John Maynard Keynes that the government can stimulate a dormant economy back to health.
A dominant feature of the bill is initiatives making it one of the biggest federal thrusts in years to assist lower- and middle-income families. Included are expanded tax credits over the next year for children, child care and family leave plus spending for renters, feeding programs and people’s utility bills.
The measure provides up to $1,400 direct payments to most Americans, extended emergency unemployment benefits and hundreds of billions for COVID-19 vaccines and treatments, schools, state and local governments and ailing industries from airlines to concert halls. There is aid for farmers of color and pension systems, and subsidies for consumers buying health insurance and states expanding Medicaid coverage for lower earners.
The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll found last week that 70% of Americans back Biden’s response to the virus, including a hefty 44% of Republicans.
Democrats control the Senate, split 50-50, only because Vice President Kamala Harris gives them the winning vote in tied roll calls. They have a 10-vote advantage in the House.
That’s almost no wiggle room for a party that ranges from West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin on the conservative side to progressives including Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Progressives had to swallow big concessions in the bill to solidify moderate support. The most painful was dropping the House-approved federal minimum-wage increase to $15 hourly by 2025.
Moderates forced tightened eligibility for the $1,400 stimulus checks, now phased out completely for individuals earning $80,000 and couples making $160,000. The House’s initial extension of the soon-to-end $400 weekly emergency jobless payments, paid on top of state benefits, was trimmed by the Senate to $300 and will now halt in early September.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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