BREAKING: Senate Passes $1.9T COVID-19 Relief Bill
The vote came after hours of debate and amendments
After over 25 hours of debate and lots of votes on amendments, Senators have passed President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package. The final vote was 50-49, straight down party lines. Both of Georgia’s U.S. Senators, Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, joined the rest of their caucus in voting to approve the package.
Among other things, the bill would send $1,400 checks to most Americans, extend federal unemployment benefits, provide assistance to local governments, and send billions in funding to schools and vaccine distribution.
After the bill passed the House last weekend, Biden and Senate Democrats agreed to make several changes to the bill. They agreed to limit eligibility for the $1,400 checks, cutting off payments for individuals who make more than $80,000 a year and couples who make more than $160,000 a year. This will result in nearly 17 million fewer people being eligible for checks.
They also decided to lower weekly unemployment benefits from $400 to $300. However, they did extend benefits through the month of September.
A provision that would raise the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour was also removed from the bill by the Senate parliamentarian, who said that it does not follow the Senate’s governing rules. But progressive Democratic Senators forced a vote on the minimum wage increase anyway. 8 Democratic Senators voted against it, a sign that the minimum wage fight within the Democratic Party is far from over.
A jubilant Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer praised his Democratic colleagues in a press conference after the bill passed. He said that he is optimistic that the House will approve the Senate changes and that the bill will reach President Biden’s desk soon. But when asked if this would be the last COVID-19 relief bill, he said that “a lot of it depends on COVID” but stressed that the bill is one of the most important pieces of legislation in decades.
The Georgia Angle
It goes without saying that this bill would not be possible if not for the Democratic victories in the Georgia Senate runoffs. Both Ossoff and Warnock vowed to support President Biden’s next round of stimulus checks if they were elected to the Senate.
Shortly after its passage, Ossoff thanked Georgia voters for making this bill possible.
But both Democratic newcomers agree that more work can be done. Warnock, who will be running for re-election next year, has said that he will continue to fight for a $15/hour minimum wage.
Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, however, has criticized the bill’s funding formula as a bailout for blue states like California and New York. “Georgians should not be punished by a federal government hoping to tip the scales in favor of other states who chose to decimate their economies,” he wrote in a letter to Georgia’s members of Congress.
Republicans United Against the Bill
Biden is on the verge of his first big legislative victory as President. But despite his campaign promise to work with lawmakers on the other side of the aisle, not a single Republican in the House or the Senate has voted to approve this bill so far.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and his Republican colleagues have said that the bill is too expensive and that it contains several progressive priorities that have nothing to do with COVID-19. But the White House continues to tout the bill as bipartisan, pointing to its support among Republican voters.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) successfully delayed the start of debate by forcing the Senate clerk to read the 628-page bill in its entirety. Republicans offered 600 amendments to the bill both only a few of them were brought to the floor for a vote.
Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) had to leave the chamber during debate due to a family emergency, leaving Republicans one vote shy of creating tied votes in the chamber. This means that Vice President Kamala Harris was not needed to preside over tied votes.
What’s Next
The bill will now return to the House to approve all changes made by the Senate. If it passes the House, it will then head to President Biden’s desk for a signature and direct payments will begin going out to Americans almost immediately. Democrats in Congress say that they would like to have the bill on the President’s desk by the middle of March, so that unemployed Americans don’t miss out on benefits.