COVID relief bill on way to passage

Democrats continue push to advance legislation on raising minimum wage

WASHINGTON >> A $1.9 trillion package aimed at helping the country rebuild from the pandemic seemed headed toward House passage Friday, even as Democrats searched for a way to revive their derailed drive to boost the minimum wage.

A virtual party-line House vote was expected on the COVID-19 relief measure, which embodies President Joe Biden’s push to flush cash to individuals, businesses, states and cities. The White House issued a statement reinforcing its support for the new president’s paramount initial goal.

“The bill would allow the administration to execute its plan to change the course of the COVID-19 pandemic,” it said. “And it would provide Americans and their communities an economic bridge through the crisis.”

Republicans have lined up against the plan, calling it an overpriced and wasteful attempt to help Democratic allies like labor unions and Democratic-run states.

The bill is “a partisan circus” designed to “quickly notch some wins for the president’s buddies,” said Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo., top Republican on the House Budget Committee.

That’s making the fight a showdown over which party voters will reward for approving added federal spending to combat the coronavirus and revive the economy, on top of $4 trillion previously passed. The pandemic has killed a half-million Americans, thrown millions out of work and reconfigured the daily lives of nearly everyone from coast to coast.

The battle is also emerging as an early test of Biden’s ability to hold together his party’s fragile congressional majorities — just 10 votes in the House and an evenly divided 50-50 Senate.

At the same time, Democrats were trying to figure out how to respond to their jarring setback Thursday in the Senate.

That chamber’s nonpartisan parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, said Senate rules require that a federal minimum wage increase would have to be dropped from the COVID-19 bill, leaving the proposal on life support. The measure would gradually

lift that minimum to $15 hourly by 2025, doubling the current $7.25 floor in effect since 2009.

Hoping to revive the effort in some form, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is considering adding a provision to the Senate version of the COVID relief bill that would penalize large companies that don’t pay workers at least $15 an hour, said a senior Democratic aide who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal conversations.

That was in line with ideas floated Thursday

night by Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., a chief sponsor of the $15 plan, and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., to boost taxes on corporations that don’t hit certain minimum wage targets.

But though Democratic leaders were eager to signal to rank-and-file progressives and liberal voters that they would not yield on that fight, the idea of prodding companies to boost pay with threatened tax increases faced an uncertain fate.

Some Democrats would likely be reluctant to back

such tax hikes and give Republicans ammunition for their decades-old charge that Democrats love raising taxes.

But progressives were demanding that the Senate press ahead anyway on the minimum wage increase, even if it meant changing that chamber’s rules and eliminating the filibuster, a tactic that requires 60 votes for a bill to move forward.

The House COVID-19 bill includes the minimum wage increase, so the real battle over its fate will occur when the Senate debates

its version over the next two weeks.

The overall relief bill would provide $1,400 payments to individuals, extend emergency unemployment benefits through August, and increase tax credits for children and federal subsidies for health insurance coverage.

It also provides billions of dollars for schools and colleges, state and local governments, COVID-19 vaccines and testing, renters, food producers and struggling industries like airlines, restaurants, bars and live event venues.