House sends massive relief bill to Biden
The House cleared a $1.86 trillion COVID-19 relief package Wednesday that would provide an expanded safety net to millions of Americans enduring medical and financial fallout from the year-old pandemic.
The 220-211 vote sends the massive bill, the largest yet in terms of taxpayer commitment since the U.S. economy largely shut down last March, to President Joe Biden’s desk before enhanced unemployment benefits lapse Sunday.
Biden plans to sign the legislation on Friday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters.
The sweeping legislation would offer direct payments of up to $1,400 to millions of households, extend a $300 unemployment supplement through Labor Day, infuse state and local governments’ coffers, help schools reopen and bolster efforts to distribute vaccines.
It would increase for a year the child tax credit, make health insurance purchased on federal exchanges less expensive for two years, expand nutrition benefits and provide more assistance for rental housing, among other things.
The measure marked the first major legislative achievement for Biden, who’s scheduled to speak Thursday night about the pandemic response effort. The bill largely adhered to a framework the president laid out less than two months ago and served as a centerpiece of his 2020 campaign.
House Budget Chairman John Yarmuth said the measure was “aggressive, no doubt about it.” But, the Kentucky Democrat added, “researchers and health professionals have told us … these investments are needed if we want to save lives and defeat this pandemic once and for all.”
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said robust financial aid is needed because of what she calls a “K-shaped” economic recovery, in which the wealthy get richer and the poor fall further behind.
The legislation marks the sixth aid package Congress has passed since last March. But it’s the first to pass without bipartisan support.
Republicans assailed the
WASHINGTON —
package as an excessively costly response to an economy they say is already on the mend. House Budget Committee ranking member Jason Smith, R-MO., denounced the bill as a “socialist wish list” of policy measures that have little to do with the pandemic.
“This isn’t a rescue bill,” House Minority Leader Kevin Mccarthy said during debate. “It’s a laundry list of left-wing priorities that predate the pandemic and do not meet the needs of American families.”
Public sentiment on the legislation appeared to side with Democrats. A poll from the Pew Research Center, conducted during the first week of March and released Tuesday, shows about 70% of adults support the bill. But only 41% percent of Republican and Republicanleaning independents back the package, compared with 94% of Democrats.
The package that emerged from weeks of legislative bargaining isn’t everything Biden and top Democratic lawmakers hoped to achieve. Most notably, leaders agreed to drop a provision to more than double the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025.
That provision was stripped out after the Senate’s parliamentarian determined it violated the rules of the fast-track process known as reconciliation, which Democrats used to avoid the threat of a Republican filibuster.
Senate Democrats reduced weekly unemployment insurance supplements from $400 in the initial House bill to $300. But they extended the length of the program by about a week, from Aug. 29 to Sept. 6, and made the first $10,200 of unemployment benefits exempt from federal taxes for those earning up to $150,000.
The Senate version of the bill also accelerated the phaseout of $1,400 tax rebate checks by lowering the income threshold for individuals from $100,000 to $80,000 and for joint filers from $200,000 to $160,000.
The Senate passed the package on a party-line vote of 50-49 on Saturday, after pulling an allnighter to dispense with nearly 30 Republican amendments.
While some progressive Democrats were frustrated with the Senate changes, they overwhelmingly voted for the bill.