Boston Herald

BIDEN PUSHES STIMULUS BILL, BIZSMART,

Biden and Yellen back fast stimulus action to boost economy

-

WASHINGTON — President Biden called on lawmakers to quickly approve his $1.9 trillion COVID-19 aid package, which passed the House of Representa­tives early Saturday and heads to the Senate.

“It’s time to act,” Biden said in brief remarks Saturday at the White House, adding that an “overwhelmi­ng” percentage of the Americans support the legislatio­n.

“We have no time to waste,” Biden said. “If we act now, decisively, quickly and boldly, we can finally get ahead of this virus, we can finally get our economy moving again.”

Treasury Secretary Janet

Yellen said in a two-part tweet that the stimulus bill “ensures that people make it to the other side of this pandemic and are met there by a strong, growing economy.”

Biden said he’d called House Speaker Nancy Pelosi moments earlier to praise “her extraordin­ary leadership” after the measure narrowly passed the House Saturday morning.

The House voted 219-212 to pass the bill, a sharp break from previous aid packages that had drawn wide bipartisan support. No Republican in the House voted for it, and no Republican senators are expected to either. Two House Democrats also voted against it. To pass the Senate,

Biden needs to either woo Republican support or avoid losing a single Democratic vote.

Democrats have all but abandoned efforts to pass a bipartisan package, accusing Republican­s of balking at the price tag while Republican­s say Biden’s bill goes well beyond pandemic-related measures.

GOP Rep. Devin Nunes on Saturday called Biden’s stimulus plan a “slush fund” for Democrats to use over the next four years.

“They’re going to be able to get the 50 votes, they’re going to buy the votes,” the California lawmaker said at the Conservati­ve Political Action Conference in Orlando,

Florida.

On Thursday, Sen. Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas, said Democrats “are exploiting a crisis to make us pay for their pet projects.”

Pelosi brushed off those sentiments, describing the plan in a letter to colleagues as “coronaviru­s-centric.”

To Biden’s point about popular support, a Quinnipiac University poll taken Jan. 28-Feb. 1 showed nearly seven in 10 Americans supported the stimulus plan against 24% who opposed it. Most Democrats, 68% of independen­ts and 47% of Republican­s approved.

The legislatio­n would provide $1,400 direct payments to taxpayers making as much as $75,000 individual­ly or $150,000 per couple. It also includes new funding for vaccinatio­ns and testing.

The president has said he believes the risk facing the U.S. is not that they overdo it, but that they don’t do enough and become trapped in a cycle of sluggish growth coming out of the coronaviru­s crisis, similar to the outcome of the 2008-09 recession. Several business groups have called on Congress to approve Biden’s package or a version of it.

Yellen, a former Federal Reserve chair, said recently that a robust recovery plan could make the difference between the U.S. returning

to full employment next year, or struggling until 2025 for a labor-market recovery.

A nonpartisa­n official said Thursday the package can’t move forward with its provision to phase in a $15 an hour minimum wage. That ruling sent Democrats looking for ways to work around Senate rules governing the fasttrack budget process they’re using to pass the stimulus plan without Republican votes.

A target deadline looms for Biden: Millions of people are set to lose supplement­al unemployme­nt benefits on March 14, when a previous round of virus stimulus expires.

 ??  ??
 ?? AP ?? SEEKING SUPORT: President Biden gestures as he boards Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., on Saturday. Biden is calling on lawmakers to quickly pass his $1.9 trillion COVID-19 aid package.
AP SEEKING SUPORT: President Biden gestures as he boards Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., on Saturday. Biden is calling on lawmakers to quickly pass his $1.9 trillion COVID-19 aid package.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United States