In the first few weeks of his administration, Joe Biden put the lie to Donald Trump’s taunt that he was “Sleepy Joe,” as he signed 36 executive orders in the first two weeks in the White House, fixing as much as he could from the damage Donald Trump left behind. Then Biden turned his attention to working with Congress to accomplish what he couldn’t get done by edict.
His first priority was the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill, and a few days before Senate Democrats were to start the budget reconciliation process to pass the bill with Democratic votes, if necessary, a group of 10 Republicans offered a low-ball $600 billion proposal — less then one-third of the Democratic plan — as a pretense at bipartisan compromise.
Biden apparently learned his lesson about how much good faith Republicans have in their dealings from the 2009-10 negotiations over the Affordable Care Act. Back then, President Barack Obama kept Democrats, including then-Vice President Biden, working for months to reach a bipartisan compromise, making concessions in a vain attempt to get Republican ssenators to support a market-based health care reform bill based on what Republicans had proposed a few years earlier. In the end, not a single Republican voted for the bill.
This time, Biden got the “open letter” Jan. 31from the “moderate” Republicans urging him to work in a bipartisan manner to provide support to families struggling during the pandemic. He met with the Republicans at the White House Feb. 1, gave them a respectful hearing, thanked them for their time, and signaled Dems to start the reconciliation process to pass a bill that already is overwhelmingly popular with little Republican input.
The Senate started considering amendments to the the stimulus budget resolution the afternoon of Feb. 4 and considered 55 amendments in a 15-hour overnight session that finished at 5:30 a.m. on Feb. 5, with Vice President Kamala Harris breaking the 50-50 tie. Among the amendments, senators agreed to measures that block tax increases on small businesses and to create a fund for restaurants impacted by the pandemic. There was also bipartisan support to exclude the $1,400 direct payments from Americans with high incomes, though it didn’t specify the level where the checks would be cut off, and the Senate approved a new child allowance for low- and middle-income families. Senators agreed to a Republican amendment to bar an increase in the federal minimum wage, but that issue may be revisited. The House approved the budget resolution later in the day, 219-209. The actual bill will come later.
Republicans proposed to cut off stimulus checks for individuals earning between $50,000 and $75,000, or families earning between $100,000 and $150,000 for families, which was under the cutoff for stimulus checks under Trump. We agree with Sen Bernie Sanders, the Senate Budget chair, who noted, “Unbelievable … working class people who got checks from Trump would not get them from Biden.” However, the argument that “high-earning” families should not get the payments appeals to Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.), so Bernie and Biden need to change Manchin’s mind to pass the bill. (Manchin also opposes an increase in the minimum wage during the pandemic.)
Democrats have a good move with the proposed credit to families of $3,600 per child under age 6 and $3,000 per child up to age 17. That payment would phase out starting at $75,000 for a single filer and $150,000 for joint earners. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) has a similar plan, which increases the chances of bipartisan agreement. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said the child tax credit would lift 9.9 million children above or closer to the poverty line. It also would give young parents — including millions who were enamored of Trump — a solid reason to vote Democratic.
The progressive think tank Data for Progress reported that 73% of Americans — including 63% of Republicans — surveyed Jan. 29 to Feb. 1 support extending unemployment benefits that are set to expire in March, and expanding them from $300 to $400 weekly.
The poll also found 79% support for $350 billion in emergency aid for states and cities trying to prevent layoffs of essential workers and maintain services while the vaccine is distributed. Republicans proposed no funds for state and local governments.
While 77% of the American electorate support the stimulus checks, Republicans asked Biden to cut his proposed $1,400 checks to $1,000.
Republicans also oppose the $15 minimum wage, which 54% of Americans support, and which would be the first federal minimum-wage increase in more than a decade. They want to cut the child tax credit, which 70% of voters support. And they oppose funds to help schools reopen safely, over the objections of 74% of Americans who support the funding.
Even among Republicans, Biden’s stimulus relief bill has 37% approval, which is better than the 31% approval of Mitch McConnell, in a Quinnipiac Poll released Feb. 3, which also showed overall that 61% of Americans were optimistic about the the next four years under Biden and 68% supported the stimulus bill, which Republican leaders criticize as unnecessarily increasing the federal deficit.
The budget reconciliation process will pause for the Senate trial of the impeachment of Trump for his role in inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection at the US Capitol.
Trump’s lawyers indicated that their defense of Trump will rely heavily on a challenge to the constitutionality of impeaching a former president, as well as a First Amendment defense of Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric leading up to the riot, which sought to disrupt the certification of presidential election results by Congress.
House managers prosecuting the case against Trump promised to prove their case. “We live in a Nation governed by the rule of law, not mob violence incited by Presidents who cannot accept their own electoral defeat,” they wrote.
Conviction would bar Trump from holding public office in the future, and might result in taking away Trump’s $221,400 annual pension and more than $1 million annually in perks as a former president, but the trial is likely to end with nowhere near 17 Republican senators willing to join Democrats in convicting Trump. His QAnon cult is consolidating its hold over the Republican Party, with threats to purge Congress members who dared to question Trump’s role in inciting the insurrection. That sets up new conflicts to split the GOP between old-line Republicans and the QAnon wing of Trumpers.
Republicans hope to gain several seats through redistricting later this year. They hold total control of reapportionment in 18 states, including Florida, North Carolina and Texas, which are expected to gain seats after the 2020 census results are tabulated. Some election experts believe Republicans could pick up the six seats they’d need to regain the House in 2022, based solely on gains from gerrymandering, but that depends on how badly the party is fractured by the split between “classic” pre-Trump Republicans and the QAnon Trumper wing. Republican gerrymanders pushed the envelope in 2011 redistricting. If the new QAnon Republican Party alienates suburban voters, particularly women, Democrats who deliver the goods to the working middle class might turn “red” districts competitive. — JMC
From The Progressive Populist, March 1, 2021
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