President Joe Biden has agreed to moderate Democrats’ demands to narrow eligibility for stimulus checks, but rejected a push to trim extra unemployment benefits, as he tries to win support for his $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill. Individuals earning over $80,000 now won’t qualify for the direct payments, compared with a $100,000 cap in the previously drafted legislation. The ceiling for couples will now be $160,000 against $200,000 before. Checks start at $1,400 before they begin phasing out based on yearly income. A separate push by moderates to trim supplemental unemployment benefits to $300-a-week from the $400 approved in the House won’t be included in what is initially brought to the Senate floor. The Senate’s managers’ amendment to the House bill is expected to keep the House’s figure, which is a $100-a-week increase from the current level through August. Privately, Democratic senators are suggesting that a last-minute push from Senate moderates to cut the weekly federal unemployment bonus while extending the money for a longer period of time, will fail. Biden prevailed on Senate Democrats to put their disagreements behind them during a private call with the Democrats weekly lunch on Tuesday and pass the bill quickly in its current form. Senate Democrats will proceed with debate on the package once the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation affirm that the managers’ amendment to the House bill qualifies for protections against a filibuster. Senate Majority Leader Schumer (D-New York) has pledged to complete the package in time to get it to Biden before the current extra jobless benefits expire on March 14th. Sixty-two percent of Americans support Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill pending in Congress, while 51 percent approve of the job he is doing as president, according to a new Monmouth University Poll.
Three Democratic chairs of the Senate’s major economic committees are urging President Biden to include repeat direct stimulus payments and automatic unemployment insurance extensions for struggling U.S. families as part of the administration’s next spending bill. A letter spearheaded by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) calls for President Biden’s forthcoming Build Back Better proposal to fund recurring direct payments and automatic unemployment insurance extensions that are tied to economic conditions. That would be on top of the one-time payments of $1,400 per person that are included in the $1.9 trillion relief package the House passed last week and is being considered in the Senate now. The letter has attracted at least nine other signatories, including the chairs of the Senate’s three major financial committees, and was circulated on Capitol Hill on Tuesday to garner further support. The letter does not specify a dollar amount for the recurring payments. The letter’s chief signatories are Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden (D-Oregon); Senate Budget Committee head Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), and Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Chair Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio).
The Senate convened at noon and the Senate Finance Committee will consider the nominations of Xavier Becerra to lead HHS, Katherine Tai to lead USTR and Adewale Adeyemo to be Deputy Secretary of the Treasury. The Committee split on Xavier Becerra’s nomination in a 14-14 vote that broke along party lines. Because of the tie, Senate Majority Leader Schumer would need to advance Becerra’s nomination to the full Senate for a confirmation vote that has yet to be scheduled. At 10 a.m. the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and Senate Rules and Administration Committee began a joint hearing to examine the Capitol attack featuring officials from the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, the Department of Defense and the National Guard.
The House met at 9 a.m. for legislative business. At 10 a.m. the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Legislative Branch began a hearing on the U.S. Capitol Police FY 2022 Budget featuring Acting U.S. Capitol Police chief Yogananda Pittman. The whole House will continue consideration of H.R. 1 – For the People Act of 2021. The Rule, which was adopted on Monday, provides for no further debate and made in order 56 amendments. A full list of amendments can be found here.
At 5 p.m. President Biden will speak to House Democrats during their issues conference. Biden on Wednesday also plans to convene a bipartisan meeting at the White House on battling cancer in a likely preview of what will be the centerpiece of his post-pandemic health agenda.
