By Princely Onyenwe, Imo
US progressives have applauded PRESIDENT Biden stimulus Bill despite the controversial opposing clogs bedevilling it’s passage.
Progressive lawmakers are praising their priorities included in the American Rescue Plan, which successfully made it through the Senate, despite some compromises and the removal of an increase to the federal minimum wage.
Report from JASON LEMON has it that the final Senate version of the massive $1.9 trillion bill, which passed in the upper chamber of Congress on Saturday, made some notable modifications to the House version approved in late February. These tweaks—which included removing the Raise the Wage Act to increase the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour, limiting the number of Americans eligible to receive $1,400 stimulus checks and lower federal unemployment payments ($300 per week instead of $400)—frustrated progressives and drew significant criticism.
Now that the final version of the bill is expected to pass in the House on Wednesday, with polling showing wide bipartisan support among voters, progressive leaders are praising the overall package.
“That’s right. We’re putting money directly into people’s pockets—not in the pockets of billionaires and massive corporations,” Representative Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), tweeted on Tuesday. The Washington Democrat retweeted an article by CNBC that reported on a study assessing that the COVID-19 relief package “gives [a] bigger boost to lower-income Americans than Trump [2017] tax cuts.”
Recall that in a Saturday statement after passage in the Senate, Jayapal described the bill as “a truly progressive and bold package that delivers on its promise to put money directly in people’s pockets and decisively crush the coronavirus’s spread, which is responsible for our economic crisis.” The congresswoman said that the bill “meets the scale of this unprecedented crisis.”
Meanwhile, senator Bernie Sanders, a progressive independent from Vermont, compared Biden’s rescue plan to the massive relief bill passed under former President Donald Trump when Republicans controlled the Senate back in March of last year.
“Under GOP control, Congress passed $1.9 trillion in tax cuts mainly for billionaires & corporations. Now, after one of the highest voter turnouts in history, we passed $1.9 trillion to help working families who are struggling,” Sanders said in a Tuesday tweet. “Do not let anyone tell you your vote doesn’t matter.
Representative Ro Khanna, a California Democrat and deputy whip of the CPC, highlighted the significant expansion of the child tax credit included in the bill.
In addition, Khanna wrote in a Twitter post saying that “the American Rescue Plan’s expanded child tax credit, we can lift millions of families out of poverty, cut child poverty in half, and help parents pay for childcare. This is worth celebrating.
9News Nigeria (Owerri)
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