On March 6, 2021, the U.S. Senate passed the $1.9 trillion COVID19 bailout bill. Pictured is Senate Majority Leader Schumer at a press conference. (Photo by: Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
On March 6, the U.S. Senate passed Biden‘s $1.9 trillion bailout bill 50-49 after an all-night debate. A Democratic initiative for a $15-an-hour minimum wage failed to pass, and Republicans criticized the bill as too large.
Fox News reported that after 27 hours of continuous debate and contention, the bailout bill narrowly passed the Senate, with all Democratic lawmakers voting in favor and Republican Senator Sullivan absent from the vote because he had to travel to Alaska for his father-in-law’s funeral. The House will vote next Tuesday, after which it awaits Biden’s signature on his first major piece of legislation since taking office.
Democrats say the legislation will help save the economy and end a pandemic that has killed 520,000 Americans.
Republicans, on the other hand, have criticized the legislation as too big and a Democratic wish list. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said before the vote that “the Senate has never spent $2 trillion in a more arbitrary way or through less rigorous procedures.”
Senate Majority Leader Schumer emphasized that the legislation makes good on the promise Democrats made to the American people in the 2020 election to save the country from the depths of the pandemic and recession. The bill would provide another round of $1,400 checks, expand unemployment benefits by $300 a week and provide more Food, child care and rent to help struggling Americans.
“It’s been a long day, a long night, a long year. But a new day has dawned.” Schumer said, “We’re telling the American people that help is on the way.”
Passage of the bill didn’t go too smoothly, with Vice President Kamala Harris (D-N.Y.) casting a key vote to initiate debate Thursday afternoon. That was followed by Republican Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Texas), who asked the Senate clerk to read the 628-page legislation aloud before debate.
The Senate clerk then spent 10 hours and 44 minutes reading the bill until 2:04 a.m. Friday, when senators returned to work Friday morning to begin “voting” on a series of amendments to the bill. But that work was delayed for nearly 12 hours when Democrats needed to vote on key amendments to support unemployment benefits.
Democrat Bernie Sanders was the first senator to propose an amendment to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, and the vote around the amendment took a record 11 hours and 50 minutes until 11 p.m. Friday night. Ultimately, the amendment failed to pass because eight Democratic senators joined Republicans in opposing it. Republicans argued that raising the minimum hourly wage could cause massive job losses.
Finally, with the support of Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, Democrats passed an amendment overnight, 50-49, to update the terms of the expanded unemployment insurance. Weekly unemployment benefits would be reduced to $300 compared to the previous $400, with assistance extending through Sept. 6, longer than the House version on Aug. 29. The first $10,200 of household income below $150,000 would also be tax-free.
The all-night debate left lawmakers feeling exhausted. Nonetheless, Republicans offered a series of amendments to try to curb several expenditures in the bill, but with little success.
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