- It has stimulus payments, renewed unemployment benefits, and funds for vaccine distribution.
- The bill passed the Senate last week in a 50-49 vote and the House this week in a vote of 220-211.
President Joe Biden signed a $1.9 trillion stimulus package into law on Thursday, setting off a massive government rescue effort for struggling families and unemployed Americans. It starts the clock for the distribution of a new wave of direct payments this month.
Biden moved to secure the first major legislative victory of his presidency a day ahead of schedule , as the formal signing was originally scheduled for Friday. White House officials said they received the legislation from Congress earlier than expected.
“This historic legislation is about rebuilding the backbone of this country, giving people in this nation – working people, middle-class folks, people who built the country – a fighting chance,” Biden said at the White House on Thursday.
The president is also set to address the nation in his first prime-time address on Thursday evening, timed to the first anniversary of the nation’s initial virus lockdowns.
The House approved the measure on Wednesday in a mostly party-line vote, four days after the Senate passed it . The bill ran into fierce Republican opposition in both chambers, and no Republican lawmaker voted for it.
“The American people already built a parade that’s been marching toward victory,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said earlier Thursday in a floor speech. “Democrats just want to sprint in front of the parade and claim credit.”
But some Republicans have already tried to claim credit for some of its components. Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi tweeted in support of a provision aiding restaurants, though he was among the 49 Senate Republicans who did not support the legislation.
The White House said Wednesday that Biden, along with Vice President Kamala Harris, would soon kick off a nationwide tour to promote the sweeping legislation, with stops in Pennsylvania and Georgia. Democrats are casting it as a generational anti-poverty measure.
The rescue package largely kept its size and scope while going through both chambers of Congress over the past two months. The devastating pandemic caused Democrats to press for a large, expansive relief package, and they employed a legislative tactic called reconciliation to push it through without Republican support.
It would provide $1,400 stimulus payments for most taxpayers; $300 weekly federal jobless aid through early September; fund vaccine distribution and testing; expand the child tax credit; and distribute money for state and local governments.
The White House says a large number of direct payments will be distributed this month by the IRS.
The stimulus package made it to Biden’s desk after weeks of negotiations on Capitol Hill – the sixth emergency spending measure that Congress authorized over the past year. It amounts to roughly $5 trillion in pandemic-relief, all of it deficit-financed.
The original plan that Biden proposed and that passed the House included a $15 federal minimum wage provision and unemployment benefits of $400 per week until the end of September.
But Democrats stripped the minimum-wage provision from the bill after the Senate parliamentarian determined that it violated procedural rules in the upper chamber. They also trimmed down unemployment benefits to $300 per week, expiring on Labor Day, while exempting the first $10,200 in jobless aid from being taxable.
Democrats have raced against the clock as they worked to get the stimulus package to Biden’s desk before unemployment benefits for millions of Americans were set to on March 14.
