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The United States Senate on Friday voted in favor of a $ 1.9 billion Democrat’s COVID-19 Billing Assistance Bill after enduring extraordinary half-day action, forced by ‘ a Republican enemy of President Joe Biden’s highest legal priority.
The chamber planned to start voting by noon on a mountain of amendments, mostly by GOP opponents and virtually everyone who would be rejected. This will put the Senate on track to approve its revised version of the massive measure, likely over the weekend, and send it back to the House so it can send the final package to Biden for his signature.
Moments after the Senate passed the legislation Thursday, Senator Ron Johnson, a Republican from Wisconsin, forced the clerks of the chamber to read out the entire 628-page measure. The exhausting task took the staff ten hours and 44 minutes and ended shortly after 02:00 ET (07:00 GMT), while Johnson alternately sat at his desk and walked around the mostly empty room.
Democratic leaders performed more than a dozen late increases to their package on Thursday. This reflected their need to secure the unanimous support of all their senators – as well as Vice President Kamala Harris’ decisive vote – to succeed in the uncertainly classified 50-50 chamber.
The Senate’s 51-50 ballot to start discussing the package, with Harris pushing the Democrats on top, emphasized how they navigated the package through Congress, with virtually no margin for error. In the House, their majority is a meager ten votes.
The bill, which aims to fight the coronavirus and restore the baffling economy, will present direct subsidies of up to $ 1,400 to most Americans. There is also money for COVID-19 vaccines and tests, assistance to state and local governments, assistance to schools and the airline industry, tax cuts for lower earners and families with children, and subsidies for medical insurance.
“We will not be afraid of a great challenge,” said Chuck Schumer, leader of the Senate majority, a New York Democrat.
The new provisions presented articles that appealed to all Democrats. Progressives have money improvements for nutrition programs, federal health care subsidies for workers who lose jobs, tax-free student loans, and payment for public programming and customer protection investigations.
Moderates have won funds for rural health care, a language that ensures the minimum amounts of money for smaller states and a ban on states receiving assistance with the windfall to lower taxes. And for everyone, there was money for support, cultural venues, start-ups, and after-school programs.
Even with the late revisions, there was a good chance that lawmakers would make another one and would vote to increase the bill’s $ 400 weekly emergency unemployment benefits back to $ 300.
That possible change could also extend the emergency payments until September. It was described by assistants and a lobbyist who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe internal conversations.
The leaders of Biden and the Senate on Wednesday agreed to retain the $ 400 actual unemployment benefits included in the version of the bill passed by the House on Saturday. The reduction to $ 300 – which would apparently take place once the Senate launches a ‘vote-a-drama on the number of amendments later this week – appears to reflect a need to secure support from moderate Democrats.
It also gave House President Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from California, the task of keeping the numerous progressives from her room on board. Liberals have already been hit hard when their number one priority – a federal minimum wage increase to $ 15 an hour included in the House package – of the Senate bill for violating House rules and for the lack of support from moderates.
In another bargain that satisfied moderates, Biden and the Senate Democrats on Wednesday agreed to facilitate the right to direct checks to individuals. The new provision stops paying $ 1,400 for individuals earning at least $ 80,000 and couples earning $ 160,000 completely lower than the original ceilings.
“My hope is that they do not have to think too much about it,” Massachusetts Democrat Rep. Jim McGovern said in an interview with the Senate. “If they do, there could be problems.”
Congress wants to send the bill to Biden before March 14, when a previous round of accident advantages for people thrown out of work by the pandemic expires.