Yahoo Autos House passes Biden's $1.9 trillion relief package including $1,400 stimulus checks
The House passed President Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion stimulus package on early Saturday, moving the legislation to the Senate for a vote where it likely will meet even more resistance.
The Democratic-controlled House voted 219-to-212 to pass the "American Rescue Plan." The package will now go to the Senate where it requires 51 votes to pass through reconciliation.
"This legislation is transformative, lifting 12 million Americans out of poverty and generating $1.25 for every dollar spent, and a great source of pride for us all because this legislation would cut child poverty in half," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said from the House floor on Friday evening before the vote. "As we advance this legislation, we will continue to fight for $15 [minimum wage]."
Support from the entire Democratic caucus in the Senate, along with Vice President Kamala Harris’s tie-breaking vote, is needed to get the legislation through with Republican backing. But support from more moderate Democrats like Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) — who have opposed the $15 minimum wage provision — is up in the air.
The House version of the bill included the minimum wage provision, but it may be stripped out from the final version the Senate votes on after the Senate parliamentarian ruled that the measure can't be passed using the budget reconciliation process.
Without the provision, the legislation stands a better chance to pass through Congress easily, according to Mark Harkins, a former congressional staffer and senior fellow at Georgetown’s Government Affairs Institute.
"I would be shocked if a version of the relief package that fairly closely resembles the House package does not clear the Senate in the next week to 10 days," he told Yahoo Money. "This package has fairly wide support in polling and I don’t think Sen. Manchin wants to be seen as the roadblock to President Biden’s first major legislative item."
This spring, up to 11.4 million workers stand to lose their base unemployment benefits, while all out-of-work Americans could see the extra $300 in weekly benefits disappear if no stimulus deal is passed and three unemployment programs expire, an analysis by The Century Foundation found.
