President Joe Biden, communications director, on Sunday called on the US House to approve the $ 1.9 billion coronavirus stimulation bill now that it has passed the Senate.
Kate Bedingfield said the government hopes there will be enough support for the measure in the Democratic House, which will consider the bill Tuesday. Democrats have only a ten-vote lead in the House.
“This is a historic and transformative piece of legislation that the Senate has just passed,” Bedingfield told CNN’s “State of the Union.” ‘If you’re a member of Congress, and you’re looking for the best thing you can do quickly to help people in your district, I think it’s going to pass this bill. We are therefore hopeful that the House will move quickly. ”
The bill was returned to the Senate after the Senate amended the measure before the legislation was passed, especially limiting the revenue for receiving the $ 1,400 stimulus checks, reducing extra unemployment insurance benefits to $ 300 from the $ 400 per week in the Senate. Home version and the removal of a provision to increase the federal minimum wage to $ 15 per hour.
Several progressive members of the House, including Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-12th Dist., Expressed concern about the Senate amendments. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, DN.Y., even tweeted the complaint from Watson Coleman that she “honestly disliked some of my colleagues and asked if I could support this bill.”
But Bedingfield calls the bill a ‘progressive piece of legislation’ because she cites praise from U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.
“You have heard Senator Sanders say that this was the best legislation for working people in the modern history of this country,” she said. “This is a bill that reflects President Biden’s conviction that the best way to get the economy back on track and grow is to invest in working people and the middle class.”
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Some of the provisions were scaled back to gain the support of U.S. Senator Joe Manchin, DW.Va., whose support was crucial because no Senate Republicans voted for the bill. Manchin said Senate amendments better focused the bill on those who need it most.
“It was a targeted piece of legislation,” Manchin said on ABC’s This Week. “It was because people needed help. And we helped every scenario. Also, we directed our cities, our provinces, our municipalities to the place where they are going to be, the first time to have money that they can use and control their own destination with infrastructure; they can now fix water pipes, sewer rules, they can get internet. ”
The legislation would provide $ 1,400 stimulus checks for individuals earning up to $ 75,000 and $ 2,800 checks for couples earning up to $ 150,000. Adult and child addicts would receive $ 1400.
The checks will phase out and end for individuals earning more than $ 80,000 and couples earning more than $ 160,000. The Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy, a progressive research group, said 400,000 New Jersey residents would receive less because of the income limit, which is lower than in the original bill passed by the House.
While 62% of Americans, including a third of Republicans, at the end of February supported the $ 1.9 billion plan in a Monmouth University poll, and 68% of Americans, including 37% of Republicans , supported this in a survey by Quinnipiac University earlier this month. , the third rank Republican of the Senate, John Barrasso of Wyoming, rejected those findings Sunday.
“When people realize what’s in this bill, they lose the enthusiasm they currently have for it because it’s not really about the coronavirus in terms of spending,” said Barrasso, chairman of the Senate Republican conference. , appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press. “It was a liberal wish list of liberal spending that was just filled with pork.”
Barrasso has complained that Biden and the Congress Democrats are refusing to cooperate with Republicans on the measure. Congress passed several bipartisan coronavirus stimulus bills last year, but then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Also sought to pass legislation that excluded democratic priorities, while refusing has to consider two billion dollar expenditures passed by the House Democrats that included another round of stimulus tests.
Manchin, however, said the Republican concerns are reflected in the bill that was passed by the Senate, even though no IDP lawmakers voted yes. He said the first lawmakers Biden met with in the White House to discuss the stimulus bill were ten Republican senators, who opposed a $ 618 spending bill he rejected.
“He thought we should do a lot more, which is his privilege, and I support him with that, but with that, we had a lot of input from Republican friends throughout the process,” Manchin told ABC.
“Many of the changes we have made have basically been brought about in this process by working with my Republican and Democratic colleagues,” he continued. “They just could not get there. And President Biden encouraged them to be involved at all times. He talked to them until the end. ”
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Jonathan D. Salant can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @JDSalant.