Party politics regains upper hand in US

The pretense of bipartisanship in Washington gave way to party politics during the passage of the latest coronavirus relief funding package.

No Republicans have voted for the new bill in either the House of Representatives or the US Senate. The legislation brings total virus relief spending in the United States to more than $5 trillion.

"After stimulus victory in Senate, reality sinks in: bipartisanship is dead," exclaimed a headline in The New York Times after the vote.

The $1.9 trillion "American Rescue Plan" passed the Senate on Saturday and now goes back to the House after Senate amendments. The House is expected to vote again on the measure this week before sending it to President Joe Biden for his signature.

Most Democrats praised the bill, while Republicans said it contained too much pork, or special interest funding.

"The American Rescue Plan will go down as one of the most sweeping federal recovery efforts in history," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, said before the vote.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called the bill "a parade of left-wing pet projects that they are ramming through during a pandemic".

John Thune, the No 2 Republican in the Senate, said: "It is really unfortunate that at a time when a president who came into office suggesting that he wanted to work with Republicans and create solutions in a bipartisan way and try to bring the country together and unify, the first thing out of the gate is a piece of legislation that simply is done with one-party rule."

Democratic Representative John Sarbanes said: "Looking at the behavior of the Republican Party here in Washington, it's fair to conclude that it is going to be very difficult, particularly the way leadership has positioned itself, to get meaningful cooperation from that side of the aisle."

The bill's highlights include $1,400 stimulus checks for individuals making $75,000 a year or less. There will be a reduced, scaled payment for those with adjusted gross income up to a maximum of $80,000. For heads of households, the income level is $112,500 or below, and for married couples filing jointly, $150,000 or below.

In order to win support from moderate Democrats in a Senate that is split 50-50, Democrats removed a provision that would have mandated a national $15 minimum hourly wage and agreed to reduce monthly enhanced unemployment benefits from $400 to $300, through Sept 6. The $300 would be on top of what filers receive through their state unemployment insurance programs.

Minimum-wage measure

The changes angered the Democrats' progressive faction, particularly on the minimum-wage measure, so it will be up to both House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the president to help usher through the bill before March 14.

"Any person who thinks that a $15 minimum wage is a crazy... agenda is living in a dystopian capitalist nightmare," Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said on Sunday.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki praised the bill on Monday at her daily press briefing.

"Senator (Joe) Manchin and Senator (Bernie) Sanders and a range of Democrats in between just voted to support a $1.9 trillion package that is the most progressive piece of legislation in history," Psaki said.

The legislation would provide $350 billion to state and local governments and nearly $130 billion for schools, among other earmarks.

Some of the money allocated to the state and local governments has been criticized by Republicans as "blue state (Democratic-controlled) bailouts".

McConnell argued that only 9 percent of the latest spending measure is dedicated to coronavirus treatment and 1 percent to vaccines.

Agencies via Xinhua contributed to this story.