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House Passes $1.9T Pandemic Bill 02/27 09:36
The House approved a $1.9 trillion pandemic relief bill in a win for
President Joe Biden, even as top Democrats tried assuring agitated progressives
that they'd revive their derailed drive to boost the minimum wage.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The House approved a $1.9 trillion pandemic relief bill
in a win for President Joe Biden, even as top Democrats tried assuring agitated
progressives that they'd revive their derailed drive to boost the minimum wage.
The new president's vision for flushing cash to individuals, businesses,
states and cities battered by COVID-19 passed on a near party-line 219-212 vote
early Saturday. That ships the massive measure to the Senate, where Democrats
seem bent on resuscitating their minimum wage push and fights could erupt over
state aid and other issues.
Democrats said the still-faltering economy and the half-million American
lives lost demanded quick, decisive action. GOP lawmakers, they said, were out
of step with a public that polling shows largely views the bill favorably.
"I am a happy camper tonight," Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., said Friday.
"This is what America needs. Republicans, you ought to be a part of this. But
if you're not, we're going without you."
Republicans said the bill was too expensive and said too few education
dollars would be spent quickly to immediately reopen schools. They said it was
laden with gifts to Democratic constituencies like labor unions and funneled
money to Democratic-run states they suggested didn't need it because their
budgets had bounced back.
"To my colleagues who say this bill is bold, I say it's bloated," said House
Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. "To those who say it's urgent, I say
it's unfocused. To those who say it's popular, I say it is entirely partisan."
Moderate Democratic Reps. Jared Golden of Maine and Kurt Schrader of Oregon
were the only two lawmakers to cross party lines. That sharp partisan divide is
making the fight a showdown over who voters will reward for heaping more
federal spending to combat the coronavirus and revive the economy atop the $4
trillion approved last year.
The battle is also emerging as an early test of Biden's ability to hold
together his party's fragile congressional majorities --- just 10 votes in the
House and an evenly divided 50-50 Senate.
At the same time, Democrats were trying to figure out how to assuage
progressives who lost their top priority in a jarring Senate setback Thursday.
That chamber's nonpartisan parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, said
Senate rules require that a federal minimum wage increase would have to be
dropped from the COVID-19 bill, leaving the proposal on life support. The
measure would gradually lift that minimum to $15 hourly by 2025, doubling the
current $7.25 floor in effect since 2009.
Hoping to revive the effort in some form, Senate Majority Leader Chuck
Schumer, D-N.Y., is considering adding a provision to the Senate version of the
COVID-19 relief bill that would penalize large companies that don't pay workers
at least $15 an hour, said a senior Democratic aide who spoke on condition of
anonymity to discuss internal conversations.
That was in line with ideas floated Thursday night by Sens. Bernie Sanders,
I-Vt., a chief sponsor of the $15 plan, and Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron
Wyden, D-Ore., to boost taxes on corporations that don't hit certain minimum
wage targets.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., offered encouragement, too, calling a
minimum wage increase "a financial necessity for our families, a great stimulus
for our economy and a moral imperative for our country." She said the House
would "absolutely" approve a final version of the relief bill because of its
widespread benefits, even if it lacked progressives' treasured goal.
While Democratic leaders were eager to signal to rank-and-file progressives
and liberal voters that they would not yield on the minimum wage fight, their
pathway was unclear because of GOP opposition and questions over whether they
had enough Democratic support.
House Ways and Means Committee Chair Richard Neal, D-Mass., sidestepped a
question on taxing companies that don't boost pay, saying of Senate Democrats,
"I hesitate to say anything until they decide on a strategy."
Progressives were demanding that the Senate press ahead anyway on the
minimum wage increase, even if it meant changing that chamber's rules and
eliminating the filibuster, a tactic that requires 60 votes for a bill to move
forward.
"We're going to have to reform the filibuster because we have to be able to
deliver," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., a progressive leader.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., another high-profile progressive,
also said Senate rules must be changed, telling reporters that when Democrats
meet with their constituents, "We can't tell them that this didn't get done
because of an unelected parliamentarian."
Traditionalists of both parties --- including Biden, who served as a senator
for 36 years --- have opposed eliminating filibusters because they protect
parties' interests when they are in the Senate minority. Biden said weeks ago
that he didn't expect the minimum wage increase to survive the Senate's rules.
Pelosi, too, seemed to shy away from dismantling Senate procedures, saying,
"We will seek a solution consistent with Senate rules, and we will do so soon."
The House COVID-19 bill includes the minimum wage increase, so the real
battle over its fate will occur when the Senate debates its version over the
next two weeks.
The overall relief bill would provide $1,400 payments to individuals, extend
emergency unemployment benefits through August and increase tax credits for
children and federal subsidies for health insurance.
It also provides billions for schools and colleges, state and local
governments, COVID-19 vaccines and testing, renters, food producers and
struggling industries like airlines, restaurants, bars and concert venues.
Democrats are pushing the relief measure through Congress under special
rules that will let them avoid a Senate GOP filibuster, meaning that if they
are united they won't need any Republican votes.
It also lets the bill move faster, a top priority for Democrats who want the
bill on Biden's desk before the most recent emergency jobless benefits end on
March 14.
But those same Senate rules prohibit provisions with only an "incidental"
impact on the federal budget because they are chiefly driven by other policy
purposes. MacDonough decided that the minimum wage provision failed that test.
Republicans oppose the $15 minimum wage target as an expense that would hurt
businesses and cost jobs.
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