The Grind:
The House of Representatives passed President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion dollar stimulus package in a near party-line vote on Friday night. Two Democrats deflected, declining to vote for the bill.
The bill includes a provision to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. This provision is likely to be removed in the Senate, with the Senate parliamentarian ruling that a spending and appropriations package can’t include a minimum wage increase.
The Details:
Republican critics of the bill have alleged that the legislation is weighted towards ‘pork’ spending, with hundreds of billions delegated in the spending package that have little to do with the coronavirus. Senators such as Mitt Romney have pointed out that the bill provides billions in funding to state governments such as California, which incurred a budgetary surplus in 2020. Critics have alleged that a third stimulus package should be more directly targeted, with the federal government incurring the largest budget deficit in the history of the United States in 2020. Read more…