After Intra-Party Fighting and All-Night Session, Senate Passes $1.9 Trillion Relief Package

It’s a covid compromise and the latest sign that the Democratic party isn’t moving in lockstep.

On Saturday, the Senate passed President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package after an all-night session forced by West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin (watch above). The final vote fell along party lines, 50-49. Alaska Senator Dan Sullivan, a Republican, was absent.

In a speech to the nation on Saturday afternoon, President Biden told Americans, “help is on the way.”

When we took office 45 days ago, I promised the American people help was on the way. Today I can say we’ve taken one more giant step forward on delivering on that promise,” he said.

The House will need to approve the Senate’s bill. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has guaranteed the House will pass the Senate’s version of the American Rescue Plan by March 14th, the day existing covid relief is set to expire.

Sen. Manchin, a Democrat from Republican-leaning West Virginia, objected to a number of provisions in the Senate’s draft legislation. Unable to pass the bill without the moderate lawmaker’s support, Democrats eventually ceded to his demands. Namely:

• The weekly federal supplement for jobless benefits will remain at $300. Democrats had pushed for an increase to $400.
• The extra jobless benefit will expire on September 6th. Democrats wanted to extend it to early October.
• The eligibility for a new round of $1,400 stimulus checks has tightened. Now individuals earning more than $80,000 (or households earning more than $160,000) are ineligible. Previously the caps had been $20,000 higher.

The legislation directs $350 billion to state and local governments. It funds vaccine distribution and an expansion of the child tax credit.

As part of the compromise with Sen. Manchin, unemployment benefits won’t increase, but a retroactive tax waiver on up to $10,200 of unemployment insurance benefits will go into effect. That means Americans who received UI money in 2020 will face a lower tax bill.

“This bill will deliver more help to more people than anything the federal government has done in decades,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, in a speech just before the legislation was adopted.

Progressive Democrats, led by Senator Bernie Sanders, had hoped to include a boost to the minimum wage in the legislation. That effort failed after eight Democrats voted against the amendment raising the minimum wage. It was the yet another indication that progressive priorities will be tempered by moderates like Sen. Manchin, Sen. Krysten Sinema of Arizona, and Sen. John Tester of Montana. Sen. Tester had pushed his party to include an amendment approving the Keystone XL pipeline.

Republicans spent much of Friday and early Saturday proposing amendments to the bill, including language that would cut state and local funding, trim Amtrak’s budget, stop aid to indebted minority farmers, end grants to non-profit entities, and block federal dollars to educational institutions that allow transgender athletes to compete in men’s sports.

In a tweet, Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) said, “I voted against the $1.9 trillion #COVID19 package because it’s full of wasteful spending unrelated to urgent pandemic needs. Republicans, in good faith, sought to negotiate a compromise bill that would have targeted COVID assistance to those who really need it.“