WASHINGTON (AP) – Congress is about to pass a major $ 1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill, placing President Joe Biden at the pinnacle of a first triumph that advances democratic priorities and it shows the unity your party will need to forge future victories.
The House was expected to give final approval to Congress on Wednesday on the package, which seeks to deliver on the promises of the Democrats’ campaign to beat the pandemic and revive the weakened economy. House and Senate Republicans have unanimously opposed the package, as it is full of liberal policies and without regard to the signs that double crises are being saved.
“It’s a remarkable, historic, transformative piece of legislation that helps a lot in crushing the virus and solving our economic crisis,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, said Tuesday.
For Biden and Democrats, the bill is basically a canvas on which they have painted their core beliefs: that government programs can be a benefit, not a disaster, for millions of people, and that they spend large sums on those efforts. it can be a cure, not a curse. The measure closely follows the priorities of Democrats that several classify with the major successes of his career, and despite his slim majorities in Congress, there has never been a real suspense about his fate.
They were also empowered by three dynamics: their free control of the White House and Congress, polls that show strong support for Biden’s approach, and a time when most voters care little about national debt. soar to about $ 22 trillion stratospheric dollars. Neither side seems very concerned about the growing red ink, unless the other uses it to fund its priorities, whether it’s Democratic spending or Republican Party tax cuts.
A key feature of the bill is initiatives that make it one of the largest federal efforts in years to help low- and middle-income families. Expanded tax credits for the next year for children are included, child care and family leave plus expenses for tenants, food programs and utility bills.
The measure provides up to $ 1,400 direct to most Americans, expanded emergency unemployment benefits and hundreds of billions for COVID-19 vaccines and treatments, schools, state and local governments, and affected industries, from companies aerial to concert halls. There are grants for farmers of pension systems and colors and subsidies for consumers who buy health insurance and states that expand Medicaid coverage for people on lower incomes.
Its great expansion is one of the main points of discussion of the GOP.
“It is not focused on the relief of COVID. It’s focused on furthering the far-left agenda, ”said Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the GOP leader of House No. 2.
The NORC’s Associated Press-Center for Public Affairs Research survey found last week that 70% of Americans respond to Biden’s response to the virus, including a strong 44% of Republicans.
However, the path of the bill has underscored the challenges Democrats have in trying to build a legislative register. to convince voters to continue to lead Congress in next year’s elections.
Democrats control the Senate, which is divided between 50 and 50, only because Vice President Kamala Harris gives them the winning vote in tied calls. They have only 10 advantages in the House.
There is almost no room for a party that goes from West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin to the Conservative side to progressives like Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and the New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Progressives had to swallow large concessions to the bill to consolidate moderate support. The most painful thing was dropping the increase in the federal minimum wage approved by the House to $ 15 per hour in 2025.
Moderates were forced to bolster eligibility for $ 1,400 stimulus checks, which have now been completely eliminated for people earning $ 80,000 and couples earning $ 160,000. The House’s initial extension of the $ 400 weekly emergency emergency payments, which is paid in addition to state benefits, was reduced by the Senate to $ 300 and will now stop in early September.
Manchin was an important leader and in the midst of talks that led to a halt to all these initiatives. The Senate on Saturday passed the bill by a 50-49 vote on the party line.
The reduction in the minimum wage increase was “outrageous,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., Chair of the progressive group in Congress, which has about 100 members. But he said the general bill was “incredibly bold” and added: “It reaches all of our progressive priorities: putting money in people’s pockets, firing on guns, unemployment insurance, attention to childhood, schools “.
The Independent Tax Policy Center said the Senate-approved bill would give nearly 70 percent of this year’s tax credits to households earning $ 91,000 or less. In contrast, the Trump-era GOP tax bill gave nearly half of its 2018 reductions to the top 5% of households earning about $ 308,000, the research center said, directed by the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, of liberal tendency.
Still, keeping Democrats together will not be easier as the party tries to advance the rest of its agenda. There are lines of fault within the party on priorities such as immigration, health care and taxes.
At some point it seems likely that progressives will draw their own lines in the sand. They are already demanding that the party review the minimum wage increase, and in the midst of all this, Republicans are already showing that they are ready to launch.
The American Action Network, linked to House GOP leaders, said it launched digital ads in mostly moderate districts, calling the relief bill “a freight train with frivolous spending to fund its peers.” liberals “.
The bill passed the Senate under budget rules that prevented Republicans from throwing filibusters, which require 60 votes for most measures. This process will not be available for many advancing legislations, but either way, any flaw in the Democratic Senate will cause most laws not to be beginners.
Even with its procedural advantage, the path to Democrats ’victory in the Senate was marked by delays. Senator Ron Johnson, R-Wis., Forced employees to spend nearly 11 hours reading the entire 628-page bill; negotiations with Manchin on unemployment benefits lasted about nine hours; and voting on three dozen amendments, almost all destined to be lost in advance, took about 12 more hours.