House Passes Covid Relief Package on 219-212 Vote
Two Democrats voted “no” on an otherwise party line vote as the House of Representatives pass the latest Covid relief legislation package.
The House approved a massive $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package, advancing President Joe Biden’s top agenda item and providing more resources to schools and businesses, boost funding for vaccinations and testing, and grant financial relief to Americans across the country.
Democrats passed the measure early Saturday morning in a party-line vote, with Republicans united against the bill calling for slimmer, more-targeted relief.
All but two Democrats supported the bill in the 219-212 vote, and no Republicans backed the package.
Reps. Kurt Schrader, D-Ore., and Jared Golden, D-Maine, voted against the legislation.
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The Senate is expected to take up the legislation next week, after the chamber’s parliamentarian ruled that Democrats could not include a $15 minimum wage in the proposal over budgetary concerns.House Democrats kept the provision in their version of the legislation, which will be taken up again before Congress can send it to the White House for Biden’s signature by the middle of March, when federal unemployment benefits expire.
“This started almost a year ago,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said of the pandemic ahead of the House vote. “Today’s vote is a crucial step in our fight to defeat COVID-19.”
The American Rescue Plan would provide $1,400 stimulus checks to millions of Americans across the country and extend federal unemployment benefits through the summer. It would also provide hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to state and local governments, schools and vaccine and COVID-19 testing efforts — in addition to nutritional and child care assistance.
While Democrats and the White House have touted public polls showing broad bipartisan support for the measure, and the endorsements of state and local GOP leaders, House Republicans are expected to vote against the bill as a bloc. For weeks, they have argued that Democrats’ proposal is too expensive and ignores the $4 trillion in coronavirus relief approved by Congress last year, some of which remains unspent.
“This isn’t a relief bill,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Friday. “It takes care of Democrats’ political allies while it fails to deliver for American families.”
The Covid Relief Package goes off now to an uncertain future in the US Senate.
First step of a very necessary thing for Biden and his Party.Report
““This isn’t a relief bill,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Friday. “It takes care of Democrats’ political allies while it fails to deliver for American families.””
It is certainly possible that the bill is too expensive and sends money to the wrong places but… he’s going to have to show his work to convince me of that. Has he even tried to?Report
He had to say “this isn’t a good thing, it’s a bad thing!” and he was 10 minutes away from saying “We can’t afford to send $2000 checks to everybody! We should only send checks to people who need checks!” and so couldn’t argue “Biden isn’t keeping his promise!”
So he’s stuck with that.Report
Why did he have to say that?
Why couldn’t he argue that?Report
Because the GOP is only allowed to play populist enough to win elections, not enough to actually piss off the blue bloods.Report
Okay, I’m lost.
Typically, when we look at who is supporting what bill, the disagreement doesn’t lie in the text of the actual bill; it is about whether we should be trying to do what the bill is trying to do.
This is called a relief bill… its title is “American Rescue Plan.” Per this quote, McCarthy is arguing this isn’t actually a relief bill… it is something else. Specifically, it is something that “takes care of Democrats’ political allies while failing to deliver for American families.” And it certainly may well be! But if so, it would be a pretty easy case to make. “Hey everyone, look on page 32. Right there, in black-and-white, look at how all this money goes towards Democrats’ political allies. And look here… page 47… the part about relief to families… look what it ACTUALLY says!”
So, my point is this seems to be a rare moment where support for a particular piece of legislation could be swayed by actual facts from the bill itself. If that is the case, McCarthy should offer that up.Report
Part of the problem is that he didn’t read the bill.
Nobody did.
A handful of lobbyists have read the parts of the bill that they, themselves, wrote… but the Congresscritters?Report
…but the Congresscritters?
Reading bills is a staff job. Trust me on this, I used to be a legislative staffer.Report
The partylineness of the voting makes me wonder if only the staffers of the two top dogs read it and sent out emails accordingly.Report
I’m saying I don’t believe there is a coronavirus package capable of getting more than 8-10 GOP votes in the House. Even that might be overestimating.
McCarthy is saying what he has to say to appear that maybe there could be such a thing but without giving specifics that would alienate his benefactors. I suppose you could point to the alternative proposed by some GOP Senators but I can see why the administration wasn’t willing to play that game. Too little time and not likely to buy anything in the future.Report
My understanding is that the Republicans in Congress are getting an earful from the Republican state/local officials back home saying “We’re dying here. We need a bunch of money for state and local government spending.” And the polling is saying that a lot of Republican voters are in favor of the $1400 added checks, much longer term emergency UI funds, and the child tax credits. Which puts leadership in a tough position: at CPAC they have to oppose the Democrats; but they can’t throw their local officials under the bus. Vague platitudes rule the day.Report
MC and InMD,
That all makes sense. I guess what stands out here is that he could easily be “fact checked” by even his own people.
This isn’t, “Of course we voted against that evil bill… it was evil!”
This was, “We had to vote against that flawed bill because it didn’t achieve it’s stated goal, which we support.”
Unchallenged, it’s a good statement. But if challenged and if the challenge is successful… wooo buddy.Report
Given that the bill passed and is now in the Senate, I’m not sure how much energy they’ll be able to dig up for “more Republicans should have voted for this”.
Maybe, like Obamacare, the Democrats will be able to run on how good the bill is and how, since only Democrats voted for it, it represents the values of the Modern Democratic Party.Report
I saw it from the other angle. If McCarthy is correct, he’d have my full support in opposing the bill. All he has to do is show me the relevant sections.Report
I haven’t read the bill either.
If I had to guess, I’d say that the package does stuff like the following:
1. Non-covid relief thing
2. Non-covid relief thing
3. Non-covid relief thing
4. Non-covid pork barrel thing
5. Non-covid relief thing
6. Statement supporting Law Enforcement
7. Non-covid relief thing
.
.
.
186. Non-covid relief thing
187. SEND OUT $1400 CHECKS!!!
188. Extend unemployment where appropriate
189. Extend eviction moratorium
190. Marijuana taxation amendments to another law
But I say this as someone who has *NOT* read the bill.
The problem is that we are in a K shaped recovery where the people at the top of the K do not need checks at all and the people at the bottom of the K could probably do with 2 of them and the people in the middle of the K could use other, smaller, checks.
And if I were to come up with the *PERFECT* legislation, it would give the people at the bottom of the K a couple of checks that didn’t have to be paid back, give people at the top of the K a letter thanking them for keep on keeping on in these unprecedented times, and the people in the middle of the K somewhere around something in the middle (that has a clawback for the people at the top of the middle that grades out as it goes down).
But I understand that that ain’t possible for a host of reasons (how do we tell who is doing well in March 2021? Who is in the bad part of the K? We can’t use 2020 as a guide, necessarily…) and so we’re given the current bill.
Which ain’t perfect, but it’s better than nothing, and it’s better than nothing to the point where the opposition is stuck saying the shit that McCarthy said.Report
If I had to guess
Nobody said you had to. Or asked.Report
There’s a weird fixation with authoritarians, I’ve seen.
It’s like they get upset when someone does something without having been told to do it or asked to do it.
It’s nuts. I don’t understand it.Report
Take it up with an actual authoritarian, if you can find one.Or someone who is actually upset, if you can find one. As for me, if the occasion arises, I’ll vigorously defend your right to waste everyone’s time with long, substance-free snarky comments admittedly based on nothing. Can we count on you to defend the right of everyone else to point and laugh, or is that cancel culture?Report
For my part I like Jaybirds’ comments even if they sometimes drive me crazy.Report
This guy is *NOT* an unbiased observer.
That said, this comports with my guess.
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A huge part pf McCarthy’s problem (now shared by his Senate colleagues) is that while its a huge bill it no more or less takes of patronage duties then the two bills the Republicans passed. The first relief bill had $500Billion that the Treasury Secretary could hand out as he saw fit with little congressional oversight. Then there’s the other issue of how many companies in red states got PPP loans vs. blue states (Texas was in the top 3) and all the other pork larded into those bills.
And that was less than a year ago. Which means its still floating around in the collective and media memory. McCarthy knows this, just as surely as he knows @Michael Cain’s excellent point below that red state counties and municipalities are getting pretty desperate. So he’s trying to thread a particularly tight needle to essentially say the wrong people got the pork, and had the right people gottne the pork Republicans would have supported the bill. Which is a lie . . .Report
All I can say is this had to happen but hopefully it’s the last time for a very long while.Report
From Twitter:
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Oh what nonsense, those bombs were already paid for. On last year’s credit card.Report
The “Drop By” date was coming up on those bombs. They had to use them or toss them in the dumpster out back of the airfield.Report
Exactly and you know what they say about the budget, use it or lose it!Report
And now it’s passed the Senate. It’s a major accomplishment and a remarkably fast bit of legislative work for the Democrats. They’re far from out of the woods but this will give the Dems the tools to at least attempt to make a play for 2022.Report