Welcome to the slog.
Major League Baseball teams on the east coast are struggling. They have a big west coast road trip that stretches over a few weeks. Play in Arizona. San Diego. Los Angeles. San Francisco. Oakland.
Students encounter floundering. That final crunch of classwork, two weeks through the end of the semester – followed by finals.
And Congress is no stranger to dabbling. Especially when a big, expensive bill is raging over the parliamentary pike.
That will be the case in the coming weeks as Congress seeks to finalize the Democrats’ $ 1.9 trillion coronavirus bill.
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Completing the fifth round of COVID assistance was a chore. Discussions started over the summer. Congress finally passed the bill just before Christmas. It then faced a veto threat from former President Trump. But the president signed the measure just before the new year.
That was a slog. A drawn-out, slow-motion slog.
The attempt to make it to the sixth major coronavirus package is sprinting. It will consume two weeks (or more) of convention stage traffic. But it will be a slog. Maybe even devour the coming weekends.
Or three.
The House Budget Committee formally launched the “slog” process Monday afternoon. The panel this week drafted a special coordination measure to deal with the $ 1.9 trillion bill for coronavirus.
“We are in a race against time,” said House Budget Committee Chairman John Yarmuth, D-Ky. “Bold action is needed before our nation becomes deeper and lasting scarred by the human and economic costs of inactivity.”
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Think of this first measure as the “scale” to handle the actual bill. A vehicle. The ultimate coronavirus bill will “ride” in the COVID package.
The measure then goes to the House Rules Committee. House Democrats insist that they give members three full days to consider the package. That’s why we’re looking at a Friday or Saturday vote on this iteration of the legislation.
It’s a huge 600 page bill.
Republicans grasped that a significant portion of the plan has little to do with actually tackling the pandemic – be it from a health or economic perspective. Some of that is debatable. But Republicans cited $ 35 billion in grants to help with premiums for affordable care, $ 1 billion for disadvantaged farmers. $ 30 billion for local transit systems. And, something Republicans generally opposed last year, a whopping $ 350 billion for local and state governments.
“Now we know it’s the wrong plan, at the wrong time, for the wrong reasons,” protested Rep. Jason Smith (R-MO), top Republican on the Committee on Budgets. Smith argued that the government still needs to spend more than $ 1 trillion on previous COVID packages.
The most controversial provision in the bill is an increase in the hourly minimum wage to $ 15. Republicans – and even some Democrats – are more than willing to fight it.
“What’s that got to do with COVID relief?” asked House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La. “Those small businesses will have an even harder time getting back if you go to a $ 15 minimum wage. These things have nothing to do with COVID.”
Democrats will likely have to do it alone in both the House and Senate to pass this measure. But it’s not out of the question that Democrats could pick one or two GOPers in both bodies to vote yes.
The Senate will address the first draft of the reconciliation plan at the earliest next week. The House is ready to get the bill back from the Senate next week. Next Thursday, a change deadline for the final House Plan has been set. The House would then presumably consider the final draft of the bill next week or whenever the Senate sends it back on the Rotunda.
Despite the (mostly) GOP protests about the increase in the minimum wage, Senate MP Elizabeth MacDonough says the $ 15 is not in order.
Here’s why this is a problem:
Chamber and Senate use special budget reconciliation rules to advance coronavirus law as it can bypass a filibuster. There is no way Democrats can call 60 votes to overcome a conventional filibuster. But by using the special budget reconciliation process for this COVID law, Democrats can short the bill. If Senate Democrats stick together and get all 50 Senate Democrats to vote yes, they can pass the move that will see Vice President Harris cut the tie.
But the catch is that the harmonization law cannot contain policy provisions or increase the deficit over a longer period.
Provisions such as the minimum wage could conflict with both of the above requirements. So the House Liberals are likely to vote for the minimum wage in the first package. But then there must be a judgment if it is removed from the Senate package. Democrats also have the option to say they voted for it – but blame that “pesky old Senate and its bizarre fiscal rules” for scrapping the minimum wage hike.
But will House Democrats stick together?
Keep in mind that there are plenty of issues that senators could rule out for failing to comply with budget rules.
You see, Parliament does not have to comply with the restrictions of “budget reconciliation”. The Senate does that. So you may have many of these amenities just for show.
$ 100 million for the Bay Area Rapid Transit expansion caught the attention of some GOPers.
“That’s one of the dangers of such a high bill,” complained Representative Michael Burgess, R-Texas. “Let’s not build an underground railroad through Silicon Valley.”
House Democrats can only lose five votes and pass a bill of their own without needing Republican help. And the House Democratic leaders fully admit that they expect the COVID bill they are sending to the Senate to be a different animal when it returns. The House would have to accept the Senate version to have both bodies on the same page.
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Senate Democrats may not have the votes to pass the measure on their own, even if MacDonough rules that the minimum wage is in order. Sens. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., And Joe Manchin, DW.Va., are against raising the minimum wage in this bill.
This is why it could be a slog. You never know exactly how long it will take to massage all the amenities and make sure the voices get to the right place.
The goal is for both authorities to approve the bill in early March. That’s when a series of benefits approved in the previous COVID bill expire. That race against time is why the next few weeks will be a slog.
Till the The next COVID account.