Last updated on February 1st, 2021 at 11:07 am
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced that the Senate would begin work on passing President Biden‘s COVID rescue package next week.
Video:
Majority Leader Schumer said on the Senate floor:
We are in the midst of a once-in-a-century crisis. It requires a once-in-a-century effort to overcome it.
The dangers of undershooting our response are far greater than overshooting it. We should have learned the lesson, from 2008 and 2009, when Congress was too timid and constrained in its response to the global financial crisis, and it took years—years—for the economy to get out of recession. We must not repeat that same mistake today.
So the Senate, as early as next week, will begin the process of considering [a budget resolution, a potential first step to pursuing] a very strong COVID-relief bill.
Our preference is to make this important work bipartisan—to include input, ideas, and revisions from our Republican colleagues, or bipartisan efforts to do the same. But if our Republican colleagues decide to oppose this urgent and necessary legislation, we will have to move forward without them.
We have a responsibility to help the American people, fast, particularly given these new economic numbers. The Senate will begin that work next week.
The White House has said that they don’t expect the bill that comes out of Congress to look exactly like the legislation that the President proposed, but one suspects that outside of a little tinkering around the edges, it should be close.
Democrats want unity, but they aren’t going to delay vital COVID relief while Senate Republicans attempt to obstruct legislation by dragging their feet.
A substantial COVID rescue package is coming, and Republicans can either get on board or get out of the way.
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