Day 37: House Votes on $1.9T Stimulus

Despite the ruling yesterday from Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough, the House scheduled to vote on the pandemic relief package that includes a $15 minimum wage. The District and other states and corporations have already approved the increase, in one way or another. Earlier this week, Costco announced a company-wide $16 minimum.

MacDonough said that the wage increase doesn’t meet the guidelines of the Senate reconciliation process designed to keep from Congressfolk sneaking in tangential budget line items.

The American Rescue Plan, most Dems are hoping, will go the way of yesterday’s Equality Act vote with their majority pushing it forward. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said she’d like to get the bill signed into law before March 14th, when unemployment benefits are set to expire.

“As a matter of practice, I don’t get involved in the rules of the United States Senate,” Pelosi said, “but as a matter of values, I can just say, we will not rest until we pass the $15 minimum wage ... If it doesn’t prevail because of Senate rules we will persist. But we will not stop until we very soon pass the $15 minimum wage.”

Of the whole package she said, “It’s about putting vaccinations in the arm, money in the pocket, children in the schools, workers in their jobs. It’s what this country needs.”

Some Republicans have taken issue with the $130 billion “Reopen and Rebuild American Schools Act” and have put forth a $600 billion plan and an $11 minimum remuneration.

President Biden said his focus is on getting ahead of the coronavirus. He reportedly inherited a White House without any plan for vaccine distribution, when he started his new gig just over a month ago.