After working through the night on a mountain of amendments – almost all by Republicans and rejected – bloody senators approved the expansive package on a 50-49 party vote. It proposes the final approval of Congress by the House next week so legislators can send it to Biden for his signature.
“We are telling the American people that help is on the way,” Sen. Chuck Schumer, DN.Y. Referring to the country’s desire to return to normal, he added: “Our job right now is to help our country get from this stormy present to that hopeful future.”
The big package – its total spending is nearly a tenth of the total U.S. economy – is Biden’s top early priority. It stands as its formula to address the deadly virus and a faltering economy, twin crises that have hit the country for a year.
Saturday’s vote was also an important political moment for Biden and Democrats, who need nothing more than party unanimity in a 50-50 senate they lead, due to Vice President Kamala Harris’ casting vote. They also have a slim lead of ten votes in the House.
A small but crucial group of moderate Democrats has taken advantage of changes in the bill that have incited progressive people, not making it easier for Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, to pass the measure through the House. But the rejection of their first signature bill was not an option for the Democrats, who have been trying for two years to run Congress with virtually no room for error.
The bill provides direct payments of up to $ 1,400 for most Americans, extended emergency unemployment benefits, and large amounts of spending on COVID-19 vaccines and testing, states and cities, schools and ailments industries, along with tax cuts to help people with lower incomes, families with children and consumers who buy health insurance.
SEE ALSO: What is, is not in the Senate’s version of the COVID-19 relief bill
The package has faced stiff opposition from Republicans, who call the package a wasteful spending for the Democrats’ liberal allies, ignoring recent indications that the pandemic and the economy are likely to turn around.
“The Senate has never spent $ 2 trillion in a more random way,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell R-Ky. Of the Democrats, he said, “Their top priority was not pandemic relief. It was their Washington wish list.”
Shortly before midnight on Friday, the Senate launched a dreaded ‘vote-a-thon’ – a continuous series of votes on amendments – and by the end of the day had lost about three dozen. The Senate has been in session since 9 a.m. EST Friday.
The room was like an experiment overnight with the best techniques to stay awake. Several lawmakers apparently rested their eyes or dozed off at their desks and often buried their faces in their hands. At one point, Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, at 48 one of the younger senators, jogged into the room and did a long stretch.
The measure follows five previous interests totaling $ 4 billion that Congress has instituted since last spring and comes amid signs of a possible turnaround.
SEE ALSO: Could this be a final package with stimulus checks?
Vaccine stocks are rising, deaths and cases have declined but remain alarmingly high, and appointments were surprisingly strong last month, although the economy is 10 million jobs smaller than its pre-pandemic levels.
The Senate package was repeatedly delayed because the Democrats made eleventh-hour amendments to balance the demands by their competing moderate and progressive factions.
Work on the bill came to a halt on Friday after an agreement between the Democrats on extending emergency benefits without work apparently collapsed. Nearly 12 hours later, top Democrat and West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, perhaps the most conservative Democrat in the House, said they had an agreement and that the Senate approved it in a 50-49 party vote.
Under their compromise, $ 300 weekly emergency unemployment checks – in addition to regular government benefits – will be renewed, with a final payment on October 6. There will also be tax cuts on some of these payments, helping people to suddenly throw out the pandemic. jobs and tax penalties on the benefits risked.
The House’s emergency relief bill, which is largely similar to the Senate, provided $ 400 benefits through August. The current payments of $ 300 a week expire on March 14 and the Democrats want the account on Biden’s desk to expire.
Manchin and Republicans have argued that higher benefits without jobs discourage people from returning to work, a reason most Democrats and many economists reject.
The Unemployment Benefit Agreement was not the only step that moderated people took.
The Senate on Friday voted to cast a domestic boost in the federal minimum wage to $ 20 per hour by 2025, a major defeat for progressives. Eight Democrats opposed the increase, suggesting that Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., And other progressive people who promise to continue in the coming months are going to face a tough battle.
Party leaders also agreed to limit the suitability for the $ 1,400 stimulus checks that would apply to most Americans. The amount will be gradually reduced until, according to the Senate Bill, it reaches zero for people earning $ 80,000 and couples earning $ 160,000. These amounts were higher in the Home Version.
Many of the rejected GOP amendments were either attempts to force Democrats to cast politically awkward votes, or for Republicans to demonstrate their zeal for issues that address their voters.
These include reported attempts to ban the education funds of the bill from going to schools for the pandemic that does not reopen its doors, or from allowing male-born transgender students to participate in women’s sports. One amendment would have blocked aid to so-called sanctuary cities, where local authorities fail to help federal officials draft immigrants who are illegal in the US.
Friday’s roster on unemployment benefits was not the long delay of the bill. A day earlier, Senator Ron Johnson, R-Wis., Was forcing the clerks of the chamber to read the entire bill on 628 pages, a tedious task that lasted nearly 11 hours.
Associated Press authors Lisa Mascaro and Kevin Freking contributed to this report.
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