Party politics regains upper hand in US

The pretense of bipartisanship in Washington gave way to party politics during the path to passage of the latest coronavirus relief funding package.

No Republicans in either the US House of Representatives or the Senate voted for the new bill, which brings total virus relief spending in the United States to more than $5 trillion.

A headline in The New York Times after the vote proclaimed, "After stimulus victory in Senate, reality sinks in: Bipartisanship is dead."

The $1.9 trillion "American Rescue Plan" was passed by the Senate on Saturday and sent back to the House after Senate amendments. The House is expected to vote to approve the measure this week before sending it to President Joe Biden for his signature.

Most Democrats praised the bill, while Republicans said it contained too much special-interest funding.

"The American Rescue Plan will go down as one of the most sweeping federal recovery efforts in history," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said before the vote.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called the bill "a parade of left-wing pet projects that they are ramming through during a pandemic".

John Thune, the No 2 Republican in the Senate, said: "It is really unfortunate that at a time when a president who came into office suggesting that he wanted to work with Republicans and create solutions in a bipartisan way and try to bring the country together and unify, the first thing out of the gate is a piece of legislation that simply is done with one-party rule."

Democratic Representative John Sarbanes said, "Looking at the behavior of the Republican Party here in Washington, it's fair to conclude that it is going to be very difficult, particularly the way leadership has positioned itself, to get meaningful cooperation from that side of the aisle."

The bill's highlights include $1,400 stimulus checks for individuals making $75,000 a year or less. There will be a reduced, scaled payment for those with adjusted gross income up to a maximum of $80,000. For heads of households, the income level is $112,500 or less, and for married couples filing jointly, $150,000 or less.

In order to win support from moderate Democrats in a Senate that is split 50-50, Democrats removed a provision that would have mandated a national $15 minimum hourly wage and agreed to reduce monthly enhanced unemployment benefits from $400 to $300, through Sept 6. The $300 would be on top of what filers receive through their state unemployment insurance programs.

The changes angered Democratic Party progressives, particularly on the minimum-wage measure, so help from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Biden will likely be needed to usher through the bill before March 14, when federal unemployment benefits are due to expire.

"Any person who thinks that a $15 minimum wage is a crazy socialist agenda is living in a dystopian capitalist nightmare," Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York said Sunday on MSNBC.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki praised the bill on Monday at her daily media briefing.

"Senator (Joe) Manchin and Senator (Bernie) Sanders and a range of Democrats in between just voted to support a $1.9 trillion package that is the most progressive piece of legislation in history," Psaki said.

The legislation would provide $350 billion to state and local governments and nearly $130 billion for schools, among other earmarks.

Some of the money allocated to the state and local governments has been criticized by Republicans as "blue state (Democrat-controlled) bailouts".

McConnell argued that only 9 percent of the latest spending measure is dedicated to coronavirus treatment and 1 percent to vaccines.

The bill provides $46 billion to expand federal, state and local testing for COVID-19 and to enhance contract-tracing capabilities with new investments to expand laboratory capacity and set up mobile testing units.

Also in the bill is $86 billion to bail out more than 180 underfunded union pensions. The legislation would not require that the funds be paid back to the government.

A slew of amendments proposed by Republican senators were mostly defeated by Democrats, including one by Republican Senator Ted Cruz that would have blocked stimulus checks from going to undocumented immigrants.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

williamhennelly@chinadailyusa.com