House passes $1.9 trillion Covid stimulus in US
Aid package to provide billions for jobless, struggling families
[The minimum wage increase] 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.” Nancy Pelosi | House Speaker
This isn’t a relief bill. It takes care of Democrats’ political allies, while it fails to deliver for American families.” Rep. Kevin McCarthy | Republican leader
We believe this is something that meets the moment. [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.” Rep. John Yarmuth | Democrat-Kentucky
President Joe Biden called on lawmakers to quickly approve his $1.9 trillion Covid-19 aid package, which passed the House of Representatives early yesterday and now heads to the Senate.
“It’s time to act,” Biden said in brief remarks yesterday at the White House, adding that an “overwhelming” percentage of the Americans support the legislation.
“Now, the bill moves to the United States Senate, where I hope it will receive quick action. We have no time to waste,” Biden said. “If we act now, decisively, quickly and boldly, we can finally get ahead of this virus, we can finally get our economy moving again.”
Biden said he had called House Speaker Nancy Pelosi moments earlier to praise “her extraordinary leadership” after the measure narrowly passed the House yesterday morning.
Unemployment benefit
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.
Republicans 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.