The Senate has just passed the 1.9 trillion dollar spending bill that has a little COVID relief in it:
NY POST – The Senate on Saturday passed President Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill on a party-line vote.
“It’s been a long day, but a new day has come,” a triumphant Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said at the start of the vote, which came after a marathon night of negotiations. “With this bill we tell the American people help is on the way.”
The measure, which aims to fulfill several of Biden’s key campaign promises at a stroke, passed 50-49 in the evenly divided chamber due to the absence of one Republican, Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan, who flew home Friday after the death of his father-in-law.
Sullivan’s departure meant there was no need for Vice President Kamala Harris to cast a tie-breaker vote to gain the Democratic victory.
But Democrats shot down more than a dozen last-minute GOP amendments Saturday to get to that point– a process that significantly delayed the bill’s ultimate passage and contributed to the 26-hour session that began before noon Friday.
Some of those votes could prove politically painful to moderate Democrats, who were forced to reject amendments thought to be popular among swing voters.
One GOP amendment, proposed by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, would have withheld stimulus money from illegal immigrants. Another, submitted by Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, would have slashed the funding given to schools that remain closed to in-person instruction as the pandemic continues.
“This Senate has never spent $2 trillion dollars in a more haphazard way,” complained Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. “Voters picked a president who promised unity and bipartisanship, but the Democrats have passed what they call the most progressive legislation in a generation on a razor-thin margin.”
The Senate version of the bill now heads back to the House of Representatives, which must vote again on the measure — now shorn of the minimum-wage increase that the House had included, and with the addition of a measure that will restrict the number of Americans receiving $1,400 stimulus checks.
The bill would have easily been bipartisan if it had been a true COVID bill. But as we all know, the bill was less than 10% COVID relief and nearly 90% Democrat agenda items. Which is absolutely shameful, but they’ll get away with it because they are Democrats.
The silver lining here is that no Republicans bowed to pressure and voted for it just because it had COVID in the name and the $15/hr minimum wage portion failed. So that’s something I guess.