House passes $1.9 trillion stimulus
AID PACKAGE PASSES DESPITE FIERCE OPPOSITION FROM GOP
>>WASHINGTON: The House passed President Joe Biden’s US$1.9 trillion (57.9 trillion baht) stimulus plan early yesterday in a nearly party-line vote, advancing a sweeping pandemic aid package that would provide billions of dollars for unemployed Americans, struggling families and businesses, schools and the distribution of coronavirus vaccines.
The vote was 219-212, with Democrats pushing the measure over unanimous Republican opposition. After hours of debate that stretched past midnight, two Democrats — Reps Jared Golden of Maine and Kurt Schrader of Oregon — broke with their party and voted against the bill.
The plan would provide $1,400 direct payments to individuals earning up to $75,000 a year and to couples earning up to $150,000. It would also expand a weekly federal unemployment benefit that is set to lapse in mid-March, increasing the payments to $400 a week from $300 and extending them through the end of August. It would increase the child tax credit; provide more than $50 billion for vaccine distribution, testing and tracing; and allocate nearly $200 billion to primary and secondary schools and $350 billion to state, local and tribal governments.
“We believe this is something that meets the moment,” said Rep John Yarmuth, D-KY, the chairman of the Budget Committee. He called the legislation “an incredible piece of work that deals with the pandemic in all of its manifestations and in a way that will be truly effective.”
The aid package, which is Biden’s first significant legislative initiative, passed over widespread opposition from Republicans, who argued that the measure was too costly and too broad in scope. Democrats, with slim margins of control in both chambers, were pushing the legislation through Congress using a fast-track budget process, known as reconciliation, that shields it from a Senate filibuster — which requires 60 votes to overcome — and allows it to pass on a simple majority vote, bypassing Republican opposition.
“This isn’t a relief bill,” said Rep Kevin McCarthy of California, the Republican leader. “It takes care of Democrats’ political allies, while it fails to deliver for American families.”
The legislation heads to the Senate, where it was expected to be amended and then sent back to the House for a final vote in Congress.
The bill could change substantially during Senate consideration. While it included a marquee progressive proposal to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2025, that measure has been ruled out of order by a top Senate official who said that it did not qualify under the strict budgetary rules governing reconciliation bills. Senate Democrats were exploring alternatives that would allow them to maintain a version of the wage increase in the stimulus package without imperilling the broader plan.
At a news conference before the measure passed, Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said House Democrats had preserved the wage increase in their bill to send a message about its importance, even if it ultimately had to be removed from the final legislation.
The minimum wage increase “is a value, this is a priority, and we will get it done, but let’s not be distracted from what is happening in this legislation,” Ms Pelosi said. “This is a spectacular piece of legislation. While the Senate has prevented us temporarily from passing one aspect of it, let us not be distracted from what is in here, because it is a great bill.”
In the Senate, Democrats sought to salvage their bid to push through the large increase in the federal minimum wage without scuttling the urgently needed pandemic aid package. But the effort faces long odds in the evenly divided chamber, where Republicans and some centrist Democrats are opposed to the idea of more than doubling the minimum wage as part of the stimulus plan.
After the Senate official’s ruling, Sen Chuck Schumer, D-NY, the majority leader, and other top Democrats were considering a plan on Friday that would penalise corporations that pay workers less than $15 per hour, a senior Democratic aide said.
Sen Ron Wyden of Oregon, the chairman of the Finance Committee, said the still-evolving proposal would impose an escalating tax on the payrolls of large corporations, starting at 5%, if any of the companies’ workers earned less than a certain hourly wage. It would include what Mr Wyden called “safeguards” to prevent companies from laying off workers and replacing them with contract employees to avoid the tax.
“While conversations are continuing, I believe this ‘Plan B’ provides us a path to move forward and get this done through the reconciliation process,” Mr Wyden said in a statement.
Democrats are using the reconciliation process in order to speed Mr Biden’s stimulus plan to enactment and steer clear of Republican obstruction. But on Thursday, Elizabeth MacDonough, the Senate parliamentarian, advised senators that their legislation to gradually increase the minimum wage to $15 by 2025 violated the stringent rules that limit what can be included in a reconciliation measure.
The ruling opened the door for Republicans to demand that the proposal be jettisoned from the stimulus bill when it comes before the Senate.