Home pays $ 1.9 billion relief bill

The House continued its $ 1.9 billion coronavirus relief package on Monday, which would hit the scene later this week.

The chamber’s budget committee proposed the bill in a vote of 19 to 16, as the Democrats would hastily meet a March 14 deadline to extend key unemployment programs. The party tries to pass the proposal through budget reconciliation, which makes it possible to get through the evenly divided Senate without Republican support.

The main provisions of the bill include:

• A $ 400 Weekly Work Insurance Supplement Until August 29
• Expanding the pandemic programs that expand unemployment benefits for workers and the self-employed and increase the number of weeks individuals can receive until August 29th.
• $ 1,400 direct payments for individuals earning up to $ 75,000, and couples earning up to $ 150,000 phasing out $ 100,000 and $ 200,000 in income, respectively
• Relief to households of up to $ 3,600 per child during a year
• A gradual increase in the federal minimum wage by 2025 to $ 15 per hour
• $ 20 billion for a national vaccination program Covid-19
• $ 170 billion to help reopen K-12 schools and higher education institutions and assist students
• $ 350 billion in state, local and tribal government support

The bill will move through the House Rules Committee before going to the House floor, where Democrats led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, hope to approve it only this weekend.

Democrats say they intend to streamline the distribution of Covid-19 vaccines and alleviate the more than 18 million people receiving unemployment benefits in the United States. Party leaders have argued that they cannot afford to inject too little money into the federal response as the country tries to regain a sense of normalcy.

“Without additional resources, we will never get where we need to be,” John Yarmuth, chair of the House Budget Committee, D-Ky, said at the start of the call hearing Monday afternoon.

“We are not going to wait. We are going to pass this legislation and we will reverse this pandemic and economic crisis,” Yarmuth said.

Many Republicans have funded money to promote the vaccination, but question the need for another massive relief package.

“This is the wrong plan at the wrong time and for all the wrong reasons,” Representative Jason Smith of Missouri, the top Republican on the Budget panel, said at the hearing.

Smith noted that some of the money included in the bill will only be spent in the next financial year. He also questioned why incentive money from the previous aid bills remained unspent.

Smith tried to postpone the vote pending an accounting of the already passed stimulus spending, insisting: “I’m not trying to kill your legislation.” The committee approves the proposal.

President Joe Biden has said he would rather pass a bill without any support from the IDP than negotiate for weeks and agree to a smaller plan backed by Republicans.

“Critics say the plan is too big,” Biden said earlier Monday afternoon. “Let me ask them a rhetorical question: what would you cut? What would you leave out?”

The president added that he was prepared to hear suggestions on how to make the plan ‘better and cheaper’.

“But we need to make clear who is helping us and who would hurt it,” Biden said.

The failure of Congress to renew the pandemic’s unemployment programs – from the expiration of last summer until lawmakers re-enacted a relief bill in December – has contributed to millions of Americans falling into poverty.

The bill that the House passes may not be the one that eventually becomes law. The Senate MP has yet to determine whether the chamber can pass the minimum wage increase in a reconciliation bill.

Democratic senses Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Cinema of Arizona have both indicated that they can oppose the wage increase if allowed under the Senate proposal.

This story unfolds. Please come and check for updates.

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