Relief package gains approval
‘Help is here,’ president says of $1.9 trillion bill
WASHINGTON — A Congress riven along party lines approved the $1.9 trillion covid-19 relief bill Wednesday, as President Joe Biden and Democrats claimed a triumph on legislation to marshal the government’s spending might against the pandemic and economic crises.
The House gave final congressional approval to the package by a near party-line vote of 220-211, seven weeks after Biden entered the White House and four days after the Senate passed the bill. Republicans in both chambers opposed the legislation, characterizing it as bloated, crammed with liberal policies and heedless of signs the crises are easing.
“Help is here,” Biden tweeted moments after the roll call, which ended with applause from Democratic lawmakers. Biden said he’d sign the measure Friday.
Most noticeable to many Americans are provisions for $1,400 direct payments this year to most adults and for the extension of $300 weekly emergency unemployment benefits into early September. But the legislation goes far beyond that.
The signing will take place a day after the president is set to deliver his first prime-time television address on the country’s response to the pandemic.
“For weeks now, an overwhelming percentage of Americans — Democrats, Independents, and Republicans — have made it clear they support the American Rescue Plan. Today, with final passage in the House of Representatives, their voice has been heard,” Biden said
in a statement.
“This legislation is about giving the backbone of this nation — the essential workers, the working people who built this country, the people who keep this country going — a fighting chance,” he added.
The measure addresses Democrats’ campaign promises and Biden’s top initial priority of easing the effects of one-two punch that first hit the country a year ago. Since then, many Americans have been relegated to hermit-like lifestyles in their homes to avoid a disease that’s killed more than 525,000 people and plunged the economy into its deepest depths since the Great Depression.
“Today we have a decision to make of tremendous consequence,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Ca- lif., “a decision that will make a difference for millions of Americans, saving lives and livelihoods.”
Biden had initially talked of bipartisanship, inviting a contingent of moderate Re- publican senators to the White House to discuss a potential deal. But they were seeking to slash the size of the rescue plan considerably, and the White House concluded that there was not a deal to be had that would meet the need.
Instead of scaling back the package in an effort to win them over and muster the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster in the Senate, Democrats turned to a budget process known as reconciliation, which requires only a majority to pass major fiscal measures.
GOP OPPOSITION
Republicans noted that they’ve overwhelmingly supported five previous relief bills that Congress has approved since the pandemic struck a year ago, when divided government under then-President Donald Trump forced the parties to negotiate. They said this one solely reflected Democratic goals by setting aside money for family planning programs and federal workers who take leave to cope with covid-19, as well as failing to require that shuttered schools reopen their doors after accepting aid.
“If you’re a member of the swamp, you do pretty well under this bill. But for the American people, it means serious problems immediately on the horizon,” said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., referring to the added federal borrowing the measure will force.
Top Republicans also sought preemptively to deny Democrats credit for any economic improvement that might follow the measure’s enactment.
“The American people are going to see an American comeback this year,” said Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, “but it won’t be because of this liberal bill.”
The four House members from Arkansas, like all Republicans, voted against the $1.9 trillion package.
Rep. Steve Womack of Rogers called the legislation “shameful,” branding it “one of the most irresponsible spending packages of all time.”
Democrats “used the promise of a $1,400 stimulus as cover to recklessly finance their socialist agenda,” he said, alleging that “a majority of this legislation has nothing to do with the pandemic.”
“We should be helping Americans get through a crisis, not leaving our children and grandchildren with mountains of debt for priorities unrelated to the coronavirus,” Womack said.
Rep. Rick Crawford of Jonesboro called the stimulus bill “a rushed and hyper partisan effort to throw money at a problem rather than leading our economy back into prosperity.”
“This legislation adds a critical amount of unnecessary debt while almost a trillion dollars from previous COVID relief remains unspent,” Crawford said, warning that the legislation would burden Americans “for generations to come.”
On social media, Rep. Bruce Westerman of Hot Springs criticized the legislation.
“Once again, the Biden Bailout passes the House without a single Republican vote,” he said on Twitter. “For every $1400 stimulus check, this bill charges each American more than $5000 for non-COVID related items — a burden that will be repaid by Rep. our grandchildren.” French Hill of Little Rock also tweeted his disapproval.
“9% of the funding in this spending package is related to #COVID19 relief. The remaining 91% fulfills @HouseDemocrats and @SpeakerPelosi’s partisan wish list,” he wrote. “If we want to provide the American people with relief, we should be focusing on vaccination and reopening our economy.”
Even so, Republican Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi touted the bill’s $29 billion for the ailing restaurant industry, tweeting that it would help eateries “survive the pandemic.” Democrats predicted this week that Republicans would do that, with Pelosi saying, “It’s typical that they will vote no and take the dough.”
BILL’S PROVISIONS
A dominant feature of the 628-page bill is the initiatives making it one of the biggest federal efforts in years to assist lower- and middle-income families. Included are expanded tax credits over the next year for children, child care and family leave — some of them credits that Democrats have signaled they’d like to make permanent — plus spending for renters, feeding programs and people’s utility bills.
Besides the direct payments and jobless-benefit extension, the measure has hundreds of billions of dollars for covid-19 vaccines and treatments, for schools, for state and local governments, and for ailing entities such as airlines and concert halls. There is aid for farmers of color, pension systems and student borrowers, and subsidies for consumers buying health insurance and states expanding Medicaid coverage for lower earners.
“Who’s going to help? Do we say this is all survival of the fittest? No,” said House Budget Committee Chairman John Yarmuth, D-Ky. “We rise to the occasion. We deliver.”
Rep. Jared Golden of Maine was the only Democrat to oppose the measure. He said in a written statement that some of the bill’s spending wasn’t urgent.
The measure was approved during promising though mixed signs of recovery.
Americans are getting vaccinated at increasingly robust rates, though that is tempered by coronavirus variants and people’s growing impatience with curbing social activities. The economy created an unexpectedly strong 379,000 jobs last month, though there remain 9.5 million fewer than before the pandemic began.
Republicans said the country will pay a price for the extra spending.
“It’s certainly good politics to say, ‘Hey, we’re going to hand you a check for $1,400,’” said Rep. Tom Rice, R-S.C. “But what they don’t talk about is what this bill costs.”
The bill’s pathway has underscored Democrats’ challenges as they seek to build a legislative record to appeal to voters.
Democrats control the Senate, split 50-50, only because Vice President Kamala Harris gives them the winning vote in tied roll calls. They have just a 10-vote advantage in the House.
That’s almost no wiggle room for a party that ranges from Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia on the conservative side to progressives such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.
On the relief bill, progressives had to swallow big concessions to solidify moderate support, including trimming the emergency jobless benefits, which in an earlier version were $400 weekly, and phasing out the $1,400 stimulus checks completely for earners at lower levels than originally proposed.
Democrats also were forced to remove an increase in the federal minimum wage, which ran afoul of the budget rules. The measure would have raised the wage to $15 by 2025.