Tag: American Rescue Plan

Founding Fathers Rejected the Filibuster

By Chase Wheaton

The legislative filibuster in the Senate is probably one of the least understood aspects of our government, especially in a historical context, but is simultaneously the most significant obstacle to tangible governance and progress that currently exists in our legislative branch. And now that Senate Democrats are being forced to pass President Biden’s American Rescue Plan through budget reconciliation so that Republicans don’t use the filibuster to stonewall COVID relief for millions of Americans during a national crisis, it’s time we have a better understanding of the thing that’s been responsible for so much gridlock in Washington over the last 50 years.

In the original iteration of the Senate, there was no such thing as a legislative filibuster, and for good reason. On its surface, the legislative filibuster might sound like a tool to allow for sufficient debate before legislation is voted on, or even as a tool to prevent a majority party from simply ramming their agenda through Congress. Upon closer inspection, however, you’d see that the legislative filibuster creates a Congress that our founders explicitly wanted to avoid when they formed our government. The existence of this filibuster essentially means that, while passing most legislation only requires a simple majority of 51 votes, ending the debate on legislation to actually vote on it requires a super-majority of 60 votes. The way our Senate currently operates, you need more votes to end debate about a piece of legislation than you do to actually pass it. The result? A seemingly endless stalemate that hurts the working-class American voter more than anyone else. 

This form of legislation is precisely what James Madison, one of the principle authors of the Constitution, warned against in The Federalist Papers, when he said that if super-majority voting requirements became routine in our legislative body, “the fundamental principle of free government would be reversed. It would be no longer the majority that would rule: the power would be transferred to the minority.” Sadly, this is exactly how the filibuster has been used more and more frequently since its inception in the early 1800s. It has allowed legislators representing a minority percentage of the country to halt legislation from being passed by the majority party, and for no other reason than because they care more about power and their own party than they do about progress and our democratic institution. And while this procedural component of the Senate may feel like an unavoidable truth of legislating to some, the wonderful truth of the matter is that it doesn’t have to be.

One of the fundamental rules of both legislative bodies of Congress is that each gets to determine its own rules and operating procedures at the start of each term. This means that, if Senate Democrats so chose, they could end the legislative filibuster and open the doors to sweeping change and progress for our country, arguably at a time in our history where it’s needed now more than ever. Now is the time for bold and progressive legislation and governance, and to fulfill the campaign promises that Biden and the rest of the Democratic party made to the American people last year, and there’s no way to do that with the filibuster in place. Even if Republicans were to retake control of the Senate in two years and use the absence of the filibuster to their own legislative advantage, at least we’d know that Senate Democrats did absolutely everything in their power to help and serve the American people during this time of widespread tragedy and devastation, rather than simply roll over and accept an otherwise avoidable fate.

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Biden to the Rescue?

By Todd Lassa

President-elect Biden is ready to test the mettle of his party’s wafer-thin majorities in the House and Senate with his $1.9-trillion coronavirus American Rescue Plan. Key feature of the plan is $1,400 in stimulus payments to complement the $600 mailed out late last year, thus matching the $2,000 President Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sought. 

In campaigning for Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossof in their successful January 6 Georgia runoff races for U.S. Senate, Biden suggested that it would take their victories, which give the party a 50-50 count plus Vice President-elect Harris’ tiebreaker, to pass the additional $1,400 stimulus checks. The Trump administration 2017 tax cuts and last March’s $2.2-trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, the largest stimulus package in U.S. history, pushed the federal deficit to record levels. Now Republicans on Capitol Hill are starting to move back to their more traditional model fiscal responsibility and opposing such large deficits. 

After details of The American Rescue Plan (or TARP, which recalls the Targeted Asset Relief Program of the Bush 43 and Obama administrations in response to the 2008 credit crisis) were released, The Wall Street Journal suggested in a Friday morning story that Biden’s proposal, along with a 0.7% drop in December retail sales, were to blame for a decrease in stock market averages. But the story quoted one analyst as suggesting that the market was expecting a larger dollar amount that would better stimulate the economy as vaccinations continued across the country and the economy started opening up. 

Conversely, critics of the CARES Act and the short-term extension passed by Congress just before the New Year say the stimulus funds, when distributed to Americans who need it most, were being saved rather than spent (the objective of the payments is to help generate commerce) as they feared for their future employment. 

In addition to direct payments for individuals, Biden’s TARP proposes an additional $400 per week in unemployment insurance supplement through September, expanded paid leave and increases in the child tax credit. About half the package would be claimed by household costs. 

There is $20-billion for national vaccination centers across the U.S., open to anyone living here regardless of immigration status, with the goal of reopening public shools by May 1, within Biden’s first 100 days. Most of the rest of the remaining $950-billion or so would pay for relief to state and local governments, which have suffered severe tax revenue declines due to small business failures and higher unemployment, and to vaccine distribution, including the national centers. 

“If we invest now boldly, smartly and with unwavering focus on American workers and families, we will strengthen our economy, reduce inequity and put our nation’s long-term finances on the most sustainable course,” Biden said Thursday evening (AP). 

Deaths globally from the coronavirus pandemic topped 2 million on Friday, according to Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. death toll accounts for nearly one-fifth of that, now close to 400,000.

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