SENATE OKs $1.9T STIMULUS PLAN Biden’s baby heads to House amid GOP gripes
The Senate on Saturday passed the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill on a party-line vote, ending a marathon session lasting nearly 26 hours.
The American Rescue Plan Act passed 50-49 at 12:25 p.m. in the evenly divided chamber due to the absence of one Republican, Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska, who flew home on Friday after the death of his father-in-law.
Sullivan’s departure meant there was no need for Vice President Kamala Harris to cast a tiebreaker vote to gain the Democratic victory.
“This Senate has never spent $2 trillion dollars in a more haphazard way,” Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said afterward.
“Voters picked a president who promised unity and bipartisanship, but the Democrats have passed what they call the most progressive legislation in a generation on a razor-thin margin.”
No Republicans broke ranks to help Democrats pass the measure.
“This was — as we suggested all along — a very partisan process and a product that reflects a rushed, hurried attempt to get $2 trillion out the door,” Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-SD) said after the vote.
President Biden celebrated the bill’s passage, touting the measure as a critical step for the country’s return to normalcy.
The bill will get the US “in a place to get back to normal,” Biden said in a nine-minute address in the White House State Dining Room.
The rescue plan includes $75 billion for pandemic-related medical costs, such as vaccine production.
“I believe we’ll have enough by the middle of May to vaccinate — it’s going to take longer to get it in their arms, but that’s how much vaccine we’ll have,” Biden said.
Democrats shot down more than a dozen last-minute GOP amendments on Saturday, adding hours to a legislative session that began before noon on Friday.
Some of those votes could prove politically painful to moderate Dems. One GOP amendment, proposed by Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, would have withheld stimulus money from illegal immigrants.
The Senate version of the bill now heads back to the House, which must vote again on the measure — now shorn of the minimum-wage increase that the House had included and with the addition of a measure that will restrict the number of Americans receiving $1,400 stimulus checks.
The House vote is expected on Tuesday, five days before the last expansion of federal unemployment benefits is set to expire, according to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.).