San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Divided Senate approves Biden’s $1.9T stimulus bill
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus bill passed a divided Senate on Saturday over unanimous Republican opposition, as Democrats pushed through a pandemic aid plan that includes an increase in safety net spending that amounts to the largest anti-poverty effort in a generation.
The package, which still must pass the House before it heads to Biden’s desk to be signed into law, is the first major legislative initiative of his presidency. The bill seeks at once to curtail the coronavirus pandemic, bolster the sluggish economy and protect the neediest people within it. Republicans
assailed it as unnecessary and unaffordable.
It would inject vast amounts of federal resources into the economy, including one-time direct payments of up to $1,400 for hundreds of millions of Americans, jobless aid of $300 a week to last through the summer, money for distributing coronavirus vaccines and relief for states, cities, schools and small businesses struggling during the pandemic.
Beyond the immediate aid, the bill, titled the American Rescue Plan, is estimated to cut poverty by one-third this year and would plant the seeds for what Democrats hope will become an income guarantee for children. It would potentially cut child poverty in half, through a generous expansion of tax credits for Americans with children — which Democrats hope to make permanent — increases in subsidies for child care, a broadening of eligibility under the Affordable Care Act and an expansion of food stamps and rental assistance.
As leading Democrats
raced to avoid a lapse in unemployment benefits set to begin March 14, the Senate approved the package 50-49, with one Republican absent. Final passage came after a grueling 27-hour session in which Democrats beat back dozens of Republican efforts to change the bill and scaled back the jobless aid to placate moderates in their own ranks who were concerned that an overly generous federal payment would keep Americans from returning to work, stifling the recovery.
The session featured the longest vote in modern Senate history, as Democratic leaders stalled for time during last-ditch negotiations with Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., a moderate holdout, to trim the unemployment benefits so the measure could proceed.
The resulting package was a narrower version of Biden’s original plan, with major progressive priorities dropped or curtailed to accommodate Manchin and other moderate Democrats. Unlike the
president’s proposal and a version passed by the House last weekend, it omits an increase in the federal minimum wage to $15. It also narrows eligibility for stimulus checks and reduces weekly unemployment payments, which Biden and Democrats had hoped to increase to $400.
Still, the bill was one of the most far-reaching federal relief efforts ever to pass Congress and represented a bid by Biden to use the
power of the government to tackle the pandemic and invigorate the economic recovery by pouring immense amounts of money into initiatives to help low-income Americans and the middle class.
“The most important thing is what we delivered for people,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. “The danger of undershooting is far greater than the danger of overshooting, and this may have been our last
chance.”
The legislation would send $1,400 direct payments to U.S. taxpayers making $75,000 a year or less and extend $300 weekly unemployment benefits through Labor Day, making a large portion of jobless aid from last year tax-free. It would provide $350 billion for state, local and tribal governments, $130 billion to primary and secondary schools, $14 billion for the distribution of vaccines, $12 billion to nutrition assistance and money for reopening businesses around the country.
It would also provide a benefit of $300 per child for those age 5 and younger and $250 per child ages 6 to 17, increasing the value of the so-called child tax credit in an effort to significantly reduce child poverty. The bill also includes $45 billion in rental, utility and mortgage assistance, $30 billion for transit agencies and billions more for small businesses and live venues.
The measure also would provide federal subsidies for people to keep the health insurance they had from work if they lost their jobs.
Even with changes, the bill remained more than double the size of the roughly $800 billion stimulus package that Congress approved in 2009, when Biden was vice president, to counter the toll of the Great Recession. Top Democrats, many of whom voted to pass that bill and recalled winnowing down the package to appease Republicans, who still opposed it almost unanimously, said they were determined not to make the same mistake again.
Because the Senate package differs from the House version, it now returns to the House for a final vote, expected Tuesday. Frustrated progressives could revolt and try to block it, but given the wide array of liberal priorities it addresses, leading progressives in the Senate signaled they were satisfied.
“Regrettably, there was no interest from Democratic leadership in negotiating a targeted, bipartisan relief package that meets the challenges at hand,” said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. “Our country is at its best when we come together as Americans to overcome the challenges we face.”