Democrats’ unemployment insurance plan passes on party line vote – Everett Post

By ALLISON PECORIN AND TRISH TURNER, ABC News

(WASHINGTON) – After a nearly 12 hour stalemate, the Democratic Unemployment Insurance Treaty passed a party line vote of 50-49.

The amendment, which the Democrats passed early Saturday morning, replaced an earlier Republican victory in unemployment insurance.

Democrats agreed on unemployment benefits after hitting $ 1.9 trillion in coronavirus aid legislation at the start of the marathon voting round. Democrat Joe Manchin had threatened to untangle an agreement on how to deal with unemployment benefits in the package, but after eight hours of discussion, he agreed to a new proposal.

The Democrats unveiled an unemployment insurance agreement Friday morning, sponsored by Senator Tom Carper, D-Del., That would cut weekly unemployment benefits from the $ 400 allotment in the house bill to $ 300 while allowing the benefit to Drive continued through September rather than August. The agreement also included the first $ 10,200 paid through the untaxed unemployment program.

But Manchin, who urged his colleagues and the White House to straighten the bill, was not sold on Carper’s suggestion.

Manchin eventually agreed to a Democratic change to extend the expanded UI program by $ 300 per week through September 6. The bill passed by the House was through August 29th.

“The president supports the compromise agreement and is grateful to all of the senators who have worked so hard to achieve this result,” said Jen Psaki, White House press secretary, in a statement of support for President Joe Biden. “It extends the additional unemployment benefit into September and helps the vast majority of unemployment insurance recipients avoid unexpected tax burdens. Most importantly, this agreement allows us to move ahead with the much-needed American rescue plan, with the help of $ 1,400, the funds we need to complete the vaccine rollout, open our schools to those affected by the pandemic help and much more. “

John Thune, RS.D., told reporters ahead of the deal that he believed the Democrats were working behind the scenes to unite their members on some of the amendments.

“I just think that the Democrats are in a dilemma right now,” said Thune. “They essentially stopped action on the ground so they could try to convince all of their members to stick together on some of these votes. And I think they’re afraid they might lose to Portman. “

The Senate is currently split evenly between Democrats and Republicans. Democrats cannot afford to lose Manchin or any other member of their caucus in the overall vote to pass Biden’s signature law. And if Manchin votes with Republicans to reduce unemployment benefits, there is a risk that the progressives will support the overall bill.

The balancing act has already asked the administration to make other concessions.

The Biden and Senate Democrats signed a deal on Wednesday to lower the income threshold for those who receive partial direct payments. Individuals earning less than $ 75,000 and couples earning less than $ 150,000 will still receive a full direct payment, but partial payments will be capped at $ 80,000 and $ 160,000, respectively.

This deal appealed to Manchin and other moderate Democrats who hoped the direct payments would only be made to the hardest-hit families and individuals.

Ultimately, if the Democrats can stick together, there is little Republicans can do to prevent the bill from being passed. However, that doesn’t prevent them from offering a laundry list of amendments to the bill in hopes of delaying a final vote.

The process can easily extend into the morning hours of Saturday and beyond, depending on how motivated the members are.

Minority leader Mitch McConnell, who has repeatedly coined the relief bill as a “liberal wish list”, said Friday morning that its members “have many ideas to improve the law”.

“We’re going to vote on all kinds of amendments in the hope that some of those ideas will make it into the end product,” McConnell said.

The process has already been suspended for several hours because Senator Ron Johnson, R-Wis., Requested that the entire 600-page bill be read on the floor. It took over 10 hours to complete.

Before the change process began on Friday morning, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer set the stage for a long night but said the Senate would stick with it “no matter how long it takes”.

The first change considered this afternoon came from Senator Bernie Sanders, whose proposal would have raised the minimum wage to $ 15 an hour.

The version of the bill passed by the House of Representatives contained the same proposal but was removed from the Senate bill after the Senate MP declared it inadmissible.

“So that we can understand each other. This is the richest country in the history of the world,” said Sanders. “We can no longer tolerate the fact that millions of our workers cannot feed their families because they work for starvation wages.”

The Sanders amendment failed when eight Democrats joined forces with their Republican counterparts to end the effort. Sanders said he would keep fighting for a pay rise.

Many more changes will be offered before the process is complete.

Molly Nagle of ABC News contributed to this report.