Staff Reporter: Newly elected US President Joe Biden is planning to give 1,400 directly to every American. A week before taking office, he gave this good news to the American people. Biden on Thursday evening released a wide-ranging $1.9 trillion rescue plan to jump-start a lagging economy, exponentially ramp up COVID-19 vaccinations and testing, and provide direct aid to Americans with additional $1,400 stimulus checks.
With less than a week until inauguration, Biden is giving Congress its first legislative task and asking lawmakers to swiftly pass additional emergency relief in the early days of his presidency. His plan, which comes a few weeks after Congress approved $900 billion in aid, is an ambitious proposal that includes provisions with bipartisan support as well as long-held party priorities.
Speaking from Delaware, Biden said he’s laying out the first steps of his two-pronged plan for “rescue and recovery” and will release his second proposal next month when he addresses a joint session of Congress.
“The crisis of deep human suffering is in plain sight and there’s no time to waste. We have to act and we have to act now,” Biden said, adding that his plan will “tackle the pandemic and get direct financial assistance and relief to Americans who need it the most.”
At the end of 2020, Democrats, including Biden, had rallied around $2,000 stimulus checks, especially when President Donald Trump signaled his 11th hour support for greatly increasing the amount of direct payments after Congress had already passed coronavirus relief in late December.
The last emergency package ultimately provided $600 to individuals who make less than $75,000 and $1,200 to couples who earn under $150,000 with an additional $600 for each child. Under Biden’s plan, Americans would get an additional $1,400 boost.
Other tenets of his plan include $175 billion to help with school reopening, an increase in federal unemployment benefits, $350 billion in state and local government aid and additional rental and food assistance. Biden would also pump tens of billions of dollars into a national vaccination program as he pledges to vaccinate 100 million Americans in his first 100 days in office.
Biden would increase the enhanced unemployment benefits to a weekly $400 that would last through September. That’s a bump from the additional $300-a-week federal benefit passed in last month’s emergency relief, which is set to expire by March 14.
The top Democrats in Congress have repeatedly said they’ll pursue additional coronavirus relief in the new year and quickly rallied behind Biden’s proposal. Since March, Congress has appropriated more than $3 trillion in coronavirus relief.
“The emergency relief framework announced by the incoming Biden-Harris administration tonight is the right approach,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and incoming Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said in a joint statement. “It shows that Democrats will finally have a partner at the White House that understands the need to take swift action to address the needs of struggling communities.”
But in its current form, Biden’s plan will be a tough legislative lift with slim Democratic majorities in both chambers of Congress given the large price tag and provisions like raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour – a priority that’ll excite the base but turn off Republicans.
Democrats hold an even smaller majority in the House after the 2020 elections, and the party will soon have a small edge with a 50-50 Senate split – and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris able to serve as a tie-breaking vote.
If Biden’s emergency plan doesn’t go through the budget reconciliation process – meaning it would only take a simple majority to pass – his proposal would need 60 votes and a considerable amount of buy-in from Republicans. Democrats would need at least 10 GOP senators if their caucus remained unified.
In the last round of negotiations, Republicans were resistant to increasing stimulus checks beyond the $600, though GOP Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida recently threw his support behind $2,000 checks. Another Republican, Josh Hawley of Missouri, had teamed up with progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont last year to build support for $2,000 direct payments.
State and local aid was also a major sticking point in last year’s negotiations and was ultimately taken out of the most recent package along with the GOP’s push for a liability shield to protect businesses from pandemic-related lawsuits.
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