On Thursday, February 25, Democrats faced a serious obstacle in their aspiration to promote to implementation the stimulus package offered by the US President Joe Biden.
Top Senate Official rejected the provision of increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour as a consistuent part of Joe Biden’s stimulus package estimated at $1.9 trillion. He substantiated that this is beyond the strictly limited budget of conditions that the package can include.
The decision seeks to thwart the key point of Mr. Biden’s plan widely supported by liberals, and reveals the dangers of Democrats’ strategy to a quick acception of the large-scale COVID pandemic aid legislation, as a part of a capmaign to outflank Republicans’ hindrance.
It confirmed that even having gained control of the White House and both chambers of Congress, it is still greatly challenging for President Biden and Democrats to fulfill their most ambitious promises taking into account their insignificant majorities and strong opposition from Republicans.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said the House would keep the provision in its version of the stimulus plan, which is set to be voted on on Friday. But the ruling from Elizabeth MacDonough, the Senate parliamentarian, all but sealed the fate of Democrats’ push to gradually raise the wage to $15 by 2025, which faces enough opposition from Republicans that it is all but certain to die on its own.
The decision also revived the discussion among Democrats concerning the ways to use their Senate majority to achieve Mr. Biden’s agenda. Progressives who supported the elimination of the filibuster — which effectively requires 60 votes to pass any major legislation — pointed to the ruling as evidence that Democrats had no choice but to change the rules of the Senate to enable them to promote important policy changes that have been stagnated time and again amid Republican opposition.