First green light on Biden’s $ 1.9 trillion stimulus package

After hours of debate, the bill passed in the lower house by 219 votes in favor and 212 against, with Republicans criticizing the costly and poorly targeted measures. The text will be sent to the Senate next week.

“After 12 months of death and despair, the American recovery begins”Congressman Brendan Boyle said shortly before the approval of the package, which comes four days after the United States surpassed 500,000 deaths from covid-19.

The Biden plan aims to support the economy and boost coronavirus vaccination. It provides billions of dollars to increase the inoculation and screening rate, as well as $ 130,000 million to help schools and colleges reopen.

Confident, Democrats are counting on their small majority in the upper house to get the text through. Then the lower house will have to come back to make a final version.

“We must approve the plan before March 14,” the date on which unemployment aid ends, warned Democratic majority leader Steny Hoyer.

“After a year of pandemic and economic crisis, Americans need to know that their government is acting for them. And as President Biden said: ‘Help is coming.’, said the Speaker of the House of Representatives, also Democrat Nancy Pelosi, before the vote.

For his part, Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy claimed that “Democrats are so ashamed of all the non-covid waste of money in this text that they spend it in the middle of the night.”

An unknown figure in Congress shook up the progress of this plan Thursday evening.

Head of Parliamentary Procedures Elizabeth MacDonough said the text could not include raising the minimum wage to $ 15 an hour as Biden wanted, given the simple majority voting format decided by Democrats of the Senate.

Normally 60 out of 100 votes are needed for this type of law, and in this case, with 51 votes, the text could be approved by the upper house.

Although some progressives were outraged and called for ignoring the vision of this unelected official, Biden said he “respected” his opinion. But he urged Congress to “act quickly to pass the plan.”

Biden has announced that he will try to lobby separately to raise the federal minimum wage, currently at $ 7.25. Democratic congressional leaders anticipated Friday that would be the chosen path.

Removing the minimum wage hike could even make it easier to finalize the package’s approval, as some moderate Democrats have opposed the idea.

Senator Bernie Sanders and other Democrats are studying an alternative to increase the increase in the minimum wage: to introduce into the bill an amendment that creates tax penalties for large companies that pay less than a “subsistence minimum”.

But moderate Democrats could also oppose the idea.

New aid checks of around $ 1,400 are expected to be sent to Americans, depending on their income level, and unemployment benefits will be extended until September 30, 2021.