Biden’s virus relief bill gets green light
THE US Congress has approved a $1.9 trillion (£1.3 trillion) Covid-19 relief bill.
The House gave final congressional approval to the sweeping package by a near party line 220-211 vote seven weeks after Joe Biden entered the White House and four days after the Senate passed the bill without a single Republican vote.
Republican politicians opposed the package as bloated, crammed with liberal policies and not taking heed of signs the pandemic crisis is easing.
Most noticeable to many Americans are provisions to provide up to $1,400 (£1,000) direct payments this year to most adults and extend $300 (£216) per week emergency unemployment benefits into early September.
House speaker Nancy Pelosi said: “It’s a remarkable, historic, transformative piece of legislation which goes a very long way to crushing the virus and solving our economic crisis.”
For Mr Biden and Democrats, the bill is essentially a canvas on which they have painted their core beliefs – that government programmes can be a benefit, not a bane, to millions of people and that spending huge sums on such efforts can be a cure, not a curse.
The measure so closely tracks Democrats’ priorities that several rank it among the top achievements of their careers, and despite their slender congressional majorities there was never any real suspense over its fate.
They were also empowered by three dynamics: their unfettered control of the White House and Congress, polls showing robust support for Mr Biden’s approach, and a moment when most voters care little that the national debt is soaring toward a stratospheric $22 trillion (£15.8 trillion).
Neither party seems much troubled by surging red ink – except when the other is using it to finance its priorities, be they Democratic spending or Republican tax cuts.
A dominant feature of the bill is initiatives making it one of the biggest federal thrusts in years to assist lowerand middle-income families.
Included are expanded tax credits over the next year for children, childcare and family leave plus spending for renters, feeding programmes and people’s utility bills.
The measure provides up to $1,400 in direct payments to most Americans, extended emergency unemployment benefits, and hundreds of billions for Covid-19 vaccines and treatments as well as help for schools, state and local governments and ailing industries, from airlines to concert halls.
There is aid for farmers of colour and pension systems, as well as subsidies for consumers buying health insurance and states expanding Medicaid coverage for lower earners.