Pictured is U.S. President Joe Biden
By Kathy Wray Coleman, associate publisher, editor-in-Chief
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, WASHINGTON, D.C.- After a debate that went on throughout the day and night, a divided U.S. Senate on Saturday narrowly approved President Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package, a sprawling economic relief plan that comes as the coronavirus pandemic has claimed the lives of more than a half million Americans since it hit the U.S. with a vengeance last March.
The measure passed the Senate 50-49, a party line vote with not one Republican voting in favor of the legislative initiative.
It now heads back to a Democratically controlled House for approval of amendments to the bill made in the Senate and is expected to be signed into law by President Biden as early as Tuesday.
The Democrats control the House by 10 votes, and they control the Senate that consists of 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans with Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat, the tie breaking vote.
"Help is on the way," Biden said after the Senate approved the measure Saturday night.
It is the first major win of his presidency.
President since January after ousting former president Donald Trump in last year's presidential election and a former U.S. senator and vice president under former president Barack Obama, the nation's first Black president, Biden thanked members of the Senate who backed the controversial relief bill.
"I want to thank all the senators who worked so hard to reach a compromise to do the right thing for the American people during this crisis and voted to pass the American rescue plan," the president said.
The controversial measure that polls show most Americans favor passed without the $15 federal minimum wage provision in the bill pushed by Congressional liberals like Sen Bernie Sanders of Vermont that was a sticking point for Republicans and some Democrats in both the House and Senate, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a San Francisco Democrat, saying a heightened minimum wage remains “a financial necessity for our families, a great stimulus for our economy and a moral imperative for our country.”
The passage of the bill last night in Senate chambers comes as the country is more divided than ever along partisan lines.
An elated Biden said that the leadership of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer was crucial in getting the bill passed in the Senate.
"When the country needed you most you led Chuck, and you delivered," said Biden of Schumer.
In large part, the bill provides for $1,400 for payments to individuals, extends emergency unemployment through the summer, and increases federal health insurance subsidies.
Not much will change for Black folks with or without the relief plan, critics say.
Blacks are disproportionately the victims of the fallout from COVID-19, Black leaders say, the NAACP still putting pressure on the president to do more for the Black community regarding relief relative to the pandemic, a president they respect, and like.
Senate Republicans who voted against the legislation complain that Congress has already handed out $ 4 trillion in relief measures and that Biden's $1.9 trillion relief plan is too costly.
Democrats argue that it is a necessary rescue package designed to strengthen a struggling economy and to give some financial and other relief to those impacted by the deadly virus for which there is finally a vaccine.
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