WASHINGTON, D.C. (NBC) – The House of Representatives will vote Wednesday on the $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill and a top Democrat says he’s “110 percent confident” it will pass.
If successful, the vote would be the final legislative step before moving on to President Biden for his signature.
The house has a slim Democratic majority and the first version of the bill passed with a 7-vote margin.
Just like the Senate vote last week, gaining any Republican support will be difficult. But Chair of the House Democratic Caucus Hakeem Jeffries predicts passage will lead to “mission accomplished” on a number of fronts.
“We promised to put vaccination shots in arms of every single American,” Jeffries said. “Mission accomplished. We promised to put money in the pockets of everyday Americans who had been struggling through the economic trauma of the pandemic; mission accomplished. We promised to make sure that children can go back to school safely; mission accomplished. We promised to send people back to work by helping to revive and supercharge the economy; mission accomplished. We promised to help small businesses; mission accomplished.”
Chair of the House Republican Caucus Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY) said, “It’s a real tragedy when you look at that package, we know that the result of that package is going to be middle-class tax increases. We know for sure that it includes provisions that are not targeted, that are not temporary, they’re not related to COVID and it didn’t have to be this way. We could have had a bill that was a fraction of the cost of this one that could have gotten bipartisan approval and support.”
House Republicans appear uniformly opposed to a bill they say is loaded with progressive spending unrelated to COVID.
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