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US. House Passes $1.9 Trillion Covid-19 Stimulus Package; Biden Plans to Sign Friday — Update

The House passed a $1.9 trillion coronavirus-relief bill and sent it to President Biden for his signature, with Democrats muscling an expansive round of new spending and antipoverty measures through Congress just as America begins to emerge from a year of pandemic-related shutdowns.

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The relief bill offers a $1,400 check to many Americans, an extension of a $300 weekly jobless-aid supplement, and a one-year expansion of the child tax credit. It also showers money on schools, vaccine distribution efforts and state and local governments, provides support to struggling multiemployer pensions, and makes the biggest changes to the Affordable Care Act since its passage in 2010, among other measures.

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The vote was 220 to 211, with all GOP lawmakers and one Democrat, Rep. Jared Golden of Maine, voting against the bill.

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The raft of new payments, coming as vaccines have rolled out nationwide and new cases have slowed, has buoyed expectations about the speed of the economy’s recovery after a year marked by closed schools, closed businesses and more than 500,000 deaths in the U.S.

Major expansions to several aid programs for low-income Americans will be temporary under the bill, though Democrats hope to make them permanent later in a broader effort to expand the federal safety net.

“This legislation is about giving the backbone of this nation — the essential workers, the working people who built this country, the people who keep this country going — a fighting chance,” Mr. Biden said. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) called the bill a “force for fairness and justice in America,” and compared it to the ACA in its significance.

At the same time, the new payments, financed with deficit spending, have also raised some fresh worries about inflation and potentially overheating the economy. Republicans opposed the bill, attacking its price tag and calling many of its measures bloated or unnecessary and unrelated to the crisis.

“So let’s be clear. This isn’t a rescue bill, it isn’t a relief bill, it’s a laundry list of left-wing priorities that predate the pandemic and do not meet the needs of American families,” said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.).

The vote marks the first marquee win on Capitol Hill for Mr. Biden, who plans to sign the bill on Friday afternoon, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said.

 

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