The prospects of the Biden administration ushering forward a new era of unity died Friday, the moment Vice President Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking vote to move President Biden’s COVID-19 aid bill without Republican support.
Democrats used the divisive budget procedure called “reconciliation” to pass the measure in the Senate with a simple majority. Now, the package goes back to the House of Representatives and congressional committees will hammer out the final $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan.
Our country is divided as are our elected representatives. There are 221 Democrats and 211 Republicans in the House. That is a tiny majority which was tightened in November’s elections in which voters reject both Trump and radical progressivism.
The Senate is split evenly at 50-50, but with Vice President Kamala Harris as a tiebreaker, is effectively under Democratic control.
Not only would debate and compromise have strengthened the bill but the interests of a larger portion of the country would have been attended to. Instead, Democrats and Biden took the cynical route and stiff-armed their political opposition and thus the wants and needs of about half the country.
This, along with Biden’s rushed signing of at least 43 executive orders, many of them to result in sweeping changes to industries and our economy, has made the message clear. This administration would do the bidding of far left progressives regardless of the fact that their agenda was rejected on election day.
Biden justified taking this extreme action on the bill due to the urgency of the legislation. “I’m going to act, and I’m going to act fast,” the president said Friday. “I’ve told both Republicans and Democrats, that’s my preference to work together. But if I have to choose between getting help right now to Americans, who are hurting so badly, and getting bogged down in a lengthy negotiation,or compromising on a bill that’s up to the crisis, that’s an easy choice. I’m going to help the American people who are hurting now.”
But sadly, it’s likely that Covid relief legislation, along with the executive orders, will only go to further our cultural and political divides. The message of urgency simply doesn’t hold up to the facts of the actual priorities of the bill. It’s likely that there was room for compromise on a relief package that didn’t include extraneous progressive wishlist items and simply focused on aid to the American people.
Though for the moment Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) has managed to stymie on particularly toxic feature, the addition of a $15 national minimum wage, one of the destructive aspects of the reconciliation procedure is the way in which the bill can change again after the vote has already taken place. Speaker Nancy Pelosi has already vowed to make sure that the minimum wage will return in the final version of the bill.
Even attempting to force a $15 dollar federal minimum wage at a time when our economy is under terrific strain and businesses are struggling to stay alive is a destructive measure. It is sure to be the death knell of countless small businesses who cannot bear the costs and hurt marginalized communities around the country as job opportunities are sucked away.
It is also nonsensical that such a measure be included in this particular bill as the implementation of the new minimum wage would likely take years. It is a cynical legislative strategy to tether it to a much-needed relief bill, but in Washington, not even a pandemic and stop the cynicism in our politics.
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February 07, 2021 at 01:15PM
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