THE BULLETIN • SUNDAY, MARCH 7, 2021 A5
COVID-19 | Relief package
Dems prevail as Senate OKs $1.9T bill
BY ALAN FRAM
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — An exhausted
Senate narrowly approved a $1.9 tril-
lion COVID-19 relief bill Saturday
as President Joe Biden and his Dem-
ocratic allies notched a victory they
called crucial for hoisting the country
out of the pandemic and economic
doldrums.
After laboring all night on a moun-
tain of amendments — nearly all from
Republicans and rejected — bleary-
eyed senators approved the sprawling
package on a 50-49 party-line vote.
That sets up final congressional ap-
proval by the House in the coming
week so lawmakers can whisk it to
Biden for his signature.
The huge measure — its cost is
nearly one-tenth the size of the en-
tire U.S. economy — is Biden’s biggest
early priority. It stands as his formula
for addressing the deadly virus and
a limping economy, twin crises that
have afflicted the country for a year.
“This nation has suffered too much
for much too long,” Biden told report-
ers at the White House after the vote.
“And everything in this package is
designed to relieve the suffering and
to meet the most urgent needs of the
nation, and put us in a better position
to prevail.”
Party unity
Saturday’s vote was also a cru-
cial political moment for Biden and
Democrats, who need nothing short
of party unanimity in a 50-50 Senate
they run with Vice President Kamala
Harris’ tiebreaking vote. They hold a
slim 10-vote House edge.
Not one Republican backed the
bill in the Senate or when it initially
passed the House, underscoring the
barbed partisan environment that’s
characterized the early days of Biden’s
presidency.
A small but pivotal band of mod-
erate Democrats leveraged changes in
the legislation that incensed progres-
sives, hardly helping Speaker Nancy
Pelosi, D-Calif., guide the measure
through the House. But rejection of
their first, signature bill was not an
option for Democrats, who face two
years of running Congress with virtu-
Alex Brandon/AP
President Joe Biden speaks in the State Dining Room of the White House on Saturday. The Senate approved a sweeping pandemic
relief package over Republican opposition. The measure now goes back to the House.
ally no room for error.
In a significant sign, the chair of the
Congressional Progressive Caucus,
representing around 100 House lib-
erals, called the Senate’s weakening of
some provisions “bad policy and bad
politics” but “relatively minor conces-
sions.” Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash.,
said the bill retained its “core bold,
progressive elements.”
“They feel like we do, we have to
get this done,” Senate Majority Leader
Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said of the
House. He added, “It’s not going to be
everything everyone wants. No bill is.”
In a written statement, Pelosi in-
vited Republicans “to join us in recog-
nition of the devastating reality of this
vicious virus and economic crisis and
of the need for decisive action.”
The bill provides direct payments
of up to $1,400 for most Americans
and extended emergency unemploy-
ment benefits. There are vast piles
of spending for COVID-19 vaccines
and testing, states and cities, schools
and ailing industries, along with tax
breaks to help lower-earning people,
families with children and consumers
buying health insurance.
Republicans call the measure a
wasteful spending spree for Demo-
crats’ liberal allies that ignores recent
indications that the pandemic and
economy was turning the corner.
“The Senate has never spent $2 tril-
lion in a more haphazard way,” said
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McCo-
nnell, R-Ky. He said Democrats’ “top
priority wasn’t pandemic relief. It was
their Washington wish list.”
‘Vote-a-rama’
The Senate commenced a dreaded
“vote-a-rama” — a continuous series
of votes on amendments — shortly
before midnight Friday, and by its end
around noon dispensed with about
three dozen. The Senate had been in
session since 9 a.m. EST Friday.
Overnight, the chamber looked like
an experiment in sleep deprivation.
Several lawmakers appeared to rest
their eyes or doze at their desks, often
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burying their faces in their hands. At
one point, Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Ha-
waii, at 48 one of the younger sena-
tors, trotted into the chamber and did
a prolonged stretch.
Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska,
missed the votes to attend his father-
in-law’s funeral.
The measure follows five earlier
ones totaling about $4 trillion enacted
since last spring and comes amid
signs of a potential turnaround.
Vaccine supplies are growing,
deaths and caseloads have eased but
remain high, and hiring was surpris-
ingly strong last month, though the
economy remains 10 million jobs
smaller than pre-pandemic levels.
The Senate package was delayed
repeatedly as Democrats made elev-
enth-hour changes aimed at balancing
demands by their competing moder-
ate and progressive factions.
Work on the bill ground to a halt Fri-
day after an agreement among Demo-
crats on extending emergency jobless
benefits seemed to collapse. Nearly 12
hours later, top Democrats and West
Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, the cham-
ber’s most conservative Democrat,
said they had a deal, and the Senate ap-
proved it on a party-line 50-49 vote.
Under their compromise, $300
weekly emergency unemployment
checks — on top of regular state bene-
fits — would be renewed, with a final
payment Sept. 6. There would also be
tax breaks on some of that aid, help-
ing people the pandemic abruptly
tossed out of jobs and risked tax pen-
alties on the benefits.
The House relief bill, largely similar
to the Senate’s, provided $400 weekly
benefits through August. The current
$300 per week payments expire March
14, and Democrats want the bill on
Biden’s desk by then to avert a lapse.
Manchin and Republicans have
asserted that higher jobless benefits
discourage people from returning to
work, a rationale most Democrats and
many economists reject.
The agreement on jobless bene-
fits wasn’t the only move that showed
moderates’ sway.
The Senate voted Friday to eject a
House-approved boost in the federal
minimum wage to $15 an hour by
2025, a defeat for progressives. Eight
Democrats opposed the increase, sug-
gesting that Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.,
and other liberals pledging to continue
the effort will face a difficult fight.
Party leaders also agreed to re-
strict eligibility for the $1,400 stimu-
lus checks for most Americans. That
amount would be gradually reduced
until, under the Senate bill, it reaches
zero for people earning $80,000 and
couples making $160,000. Those ceil-
ings were higher in the House version.
Many of the rejected GOP amend-
ments were attempts to force Demo-
crats to cast politically awkward votes
or for Republicans to demonstrate
their zeal for issues that appeal to their
voters. These included defeated efforts
to bar funds from going to schools that
don’t reopen their doors or let trans-
gender students born male participate
in female sports. One amendment
would have blocked aid to so-called
sanctuary cities, where local authori-
ties don’t help federal officials round
up immigrants in the U.S. illegally.