The COVID-19 Relief Bill Passed. What's Biden's Next Big Move?
March 13, 20217:00 AM ET
President Biden, with Vice President
Harris behind him, speaks about the American Rescue Plan in the Rose Garden of
the White House on Friday.
Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images
Now that Democrats have passed President
Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill, all eyes turn to what's next.
But what that is isn't exactly clear.
"I
would expect the president's agenda, moving forward, will reflect the Build
Back Better agenda that he talked about on the campaign trail," White
House press secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday. "But the order, the size, the
timeline has not yet been determined."
In other words, no one quite knows yet.
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Harris Promise 'Help Is On The Way' With COVID Relief Package
There are indications that
infrastructure could be the next big push, but there's also voting rights, the
minimum wage (which was nixed from the COVID-19 relief bill and is important to
progressives) and immigration.
And
none of it will be easy to pass — and may not pass at
all.
Getting the COVID-19 bill passed had to
be done through a maneuver that only required a majority vote because the
legislation got zero Republican support.
Most
legislation requires 60 votes to advance to a floor vote because of the
increased use of the filibuster over the past two decades. Republicans under
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky have used it at a high rate, and they show no signs of
letting up on its use during the Biden presidency.
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Biden is still holding out hope that he
can get Republicans on board for other legislation, but the track record for
bipartisan compromise on big-ticket items isn't very good in Congress.
Americans
ostensibly value compromise — this week's NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll found, for example,
that two-thirds said it is more important for Biden to compromise with Congress
to find solutions than to stick to his position on issues even if doing so
means gridlock.
Majority
Approves Of Biden's Handling Of Pandemic, NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll Finds
Little
Difference In Vaccine Hesitancy Among White And Black Americans, Poll Finds
Of
course, people say they want compromise, but they often mean they want others to come around to their position.
Biden began his presidency with a flurry
of executive actions on a range of issues, from racial justice to climate
change to immigration. But there's only so far those executive actions can go.
For more meaningful change, any
president needs Congress. But if Republicans voted en masse against the
COVID-19 relief bill, which was broadly popular with the American public, it's
hard to see them coming around on much else.
And if Republicans — who only have a 28%
approval rating on how they're handling their job in Congress in the NPR poll —
refuse to compromise on any of Biden's other priorities, almost nothing else
will get done.
After all, Democrats will only get so
many chances to use budget reconciliation, the process they used to do an end
run around the filibuster for the COVID-19 relief bill. That manuever can only
be used on bills tied to the budget.
Here's where the politics meets the
policy for some of the possible next areas of focus for Biden and Congress:
Infrastructure
Construction crews work on a section of
Highway 1, which collapsed into the Pacific Ocean near Big Sur, Calif., in late
January.
Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images
Infrastructure should be the one of the
most ideologically possible places that both parties agree.
Democrats
are preparing multi-trillion-dollar legislation that would
pay for bridges, roads, public transit and water projects. It will also be
climate-oriented.
"I have called upon the Chairs of
the Committees of Jurisdiction to work with their Republican counterparts to
craft a big, bold and transformational infrastructure package," House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement Friday. "Building our
transportation system has long been bipartisan. It is our hope that spirit will
prevail as we address other critical needs in energy and broadband, education
and housing, water systems and other priorities. As we engage in these
job-creating initiatives, we must discuss their impact on the federal budget,
on creating economic growth and on preserving our planet."
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But how many Republicans will really be
on board? That's unclear. While both sides agree U.S. infrastructure is a
problem, the question, for years, has been how to pay for it. President Barack
Obama and then-House Speaker John Boehner came close to some agreement but
could never overcome that obstacle.
During the Trump years, it became
something of a joke inside Washington every time the Trump administration would
declare one week or another "Infrastructure Week" because real
movement on infrastructure issues never came to pass.
Voting
rights
The 2020 presidential election prompted
a Count Every Vote Rally in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia and
across the country.
Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for MoveOn
A major Democratic priority is new
voting rights legislation.
Voting rights bills were passed
overwhelmingly in 1965, 1993 and 2002, but since a Supreme Court ruling vacated
key parts of the Voting Rights Act, Republicans have mostly abandoned wanting to
be part of any new legislation.
Earlier this month, the House passed a
large bill narrowly, 220-210. It is designed to protect marginalized groups'
ability and access to vote, and it limits gerrymandering.
But it is already coming under fire from
Republicans in the Senate.
Ted
Cruz of Texas called it a "universal fraud law" and continued to spread
conspiracies about the 2020 election and false allegations of widespread fraud.
Mike
Lee of Utah went so far as to say, "This is a bill as if written in hell by the
devil himself."
So it doesn't appear Republicans are
open to this piece of legislation.
Minimum
wage
A minimum wage increase, which is a
progressive priority, was stripped out of the COVID-19 relief bill because the
Senate parliamentarian ruled it could not be included in a budget
reconciliation bill.
Democrats
want it gradually raised to $15 an hour, something Biden (as well as Vermont
Sen. Bernie Sanders) campaigned on. Republican Sens. Mitt Romney of Utah and
Tom Cotton of Arkansas have proposed legislation that would gradually
raise the wage to $10 an hour over the next four years and, importantly, index
it to inflation.
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., would require
businesses with $1 billion in annual revenue to pay employees $15 an hour.
But it's unclear what, if any of these,
McConnell would support — or whether Democrats are open to lowering their
thresholds.
Immigration
A mother holds her daughter while
awaiting COVID-19 test results last month after being released by U.S.
immigration authorities in Brownsville, Texas.
John Moore/Getty Images
Immigration is another thorny area.
Despite bipartisan recognition of the continued problem of more than 11 million
immigrants in the U.S. illegally and an increase in unaccompanied minors coming
to the Southern U.S. border in the last two months, there appears to be little
desire, particularly among Republicans, to find a middle ground.
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Biden has already introduced a comprehensive
immigration reform bill, but Democrats acknowledge it doesn't have the support
even within the party to move ahead. Instead, House Democrats have decided to
move piecemeal immigration bills starting next week, which are not expected to
get any traction in the Senate.
It's an animating issue for the GOP
base, and there is tremendous incentive for Republicans to stick to a hard
line, especially after the Trump years. President Donald Trump used immigration
to stir up the culture war and intense emotions. It was quite the switch from
just after the 2012 election when Romney lost badly with Latinos, and the GOP
was doing soul-searching on how to appeal to the largest-growing demographic
group in the country.
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A lot of members of Congress, especially
senators, are wary of committing to anything comprehensive, especially after
the 2013 legislation, which garnered 68 votes in the Senate, fell apart in the
House.
Fourteen
GOP senators crossed the aisle back then, just four of them remain. McConnell was not one of them and
spoke out against the legislation back then.
And after Trump, immigration very well
may be the third rail of American politics.
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