WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday the $1.9 trillion economic relief legislation headed for President Joe Biden’s desk will be a “turning point” that transforms U.S. politics by restoring the country’s faith in government.
In an interview as the House voted on final passage, the New York Democrat said the bill was “certainly way up there” among his proudest achievements, after he held all 50 senators in his ideologically diverse caucus to pass it.
“It does so much good for so many people. And one of our missions is to show people that government can actually make their lives better. That’s very, very important because if they are not able to see that, they turned to demagogues, they turned to autocrats, they turned to bigotry — Donald Trump,” he said. “This legislation has some things that are immediately going to show people that government made a difference — by having a Democratic president, a Democratic Senate and a Democratic House.”
Schumer said the Democrats — who rejected a Republican push to shrink the bill and passed it on a party-line basis — had learned their lesson after failing to deliver adequate relief in the 2009 financial crisis. He said it returns the party to the economic-populist roots it had under President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
“The Republicans are making a huge mistake by opposing this,” he said.
Schumer’s remarks indicate that Democrats are eager to capitalize on the popularity of the legislation and use it to rally voters to their side to protect their slim majorities in Congress. The unanimous GOP opposition sharpens the political contrast between the two parties, as the bill includes provisions such as $1,400 stimulus payments and $300-a-week jobless benefits.
The response from voters will test the new Democratic approach to going big against the Republican vision, honed in the 1980s under President Ronald Reagan, that government is typically a source of the country’s problems and not a solution to them.
“This is a classic example of big-government Democratic overreach in the name of Covid relief,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Wednesday, mocking the $350 billion in state and local relief as aimed at fixing budget problems of New York and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s district of San Francisco.
“This is actually one of the worst pieces of legislation I’ve seen pass here in the time I’ve been in the Senate,” he said, promising that Republicans will work to persuade Americans of that.
A Pew Research Center poll taken this month shows that 70 percent of U.S. adults favor the Biden-backed $1.9 trillion bill, while 28 percent oppose it. The proponents include 94 percent of self-identified Democrats and 41 percent of self-identified Republicans.
The package immediately raises the stakes in the 2022 election, when Republicans hope to capture control of the House and the Senate. History favors them, as the party in power usually loses seats during a new president’s first midterm races.
But some Democrats see the Covid-19 relief bill as key to holding on. Their decision to pass the bill on a partisan basis represents a gamble that public opinion will remain in its favor over the coming months.
Schumer said Democrats will campaign on extending some of the expiring provisions, such as a per-child allowance of $3,000 to $3,600 for parents, and billions of dollars in “Obamacare” subsidies aimed at reducing premiums.
“Look what happened in Georgia: 40,000 to 50,000 people who didn’t vote in the presidential voted in the runoff, because we said we were going to deliver things and the voting made a difference,” he said. “And they saw it. That’s going to happen repeatedly.”
The Georgia runoff elections enabled Democrats to capture Senate control by a paper-thin margin of 51-50 after Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock defeated Republican incumbents. The two campaigned on raising the $600 direct payments to $2,000 and touted the need for Democratic control to deliver.
Their victories dislodged McConnell as majority leader and, with the tiebreaking vote of Vice President Kamala Harris, allowed Schumer to decide what bills come up for a vote.
Schumer is among the one-third of senators up for re-election next year in New York. Democrats face little danger of losing the seat in the safe blue state, but progressive activists are keeping a close eye on him to make sure he delivers. The relief bill is likely to help him fend off any potential challenges.
“Wherever I go, people say, ‘When am I getting my check?'” Schumer said.
His response?
“Soon. By the end of March.”
Opinion: Brad West been one of the sharpest critics of decriminalization
Published Apr 22, 2024 • Last updated 2 hours ago • 4 minute read
VICTORIA — Port Coquitlam Mayor Brad West fired off a letter to Premier David Eby last week about Allan Schoenborn, the child killer who changed his name in a bid for anonymity.
“It is completely beyond the pale that individuals like Schoenborn have the ability to legally change their name in an attempt to disassociate themselves from their horrific crimes and to evade the public,” wrote West.
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The Alberta government has legislated against dangerous, long-term and high risk offenders who seek to change their names to escape public scrutiny.
“I urge your government to pass similar legislation as a high priority to ensure the safety of British Columbians,” West wrote the premier.
The B.C. Review Board has granted Schoenborn overnight, unescorted leave for up to 28 days, and he spent some of that time in Port Coquitlam, according to West.
This despite the board being notified that “in the last two years there have been 15 reported incidents where Schoenborn demonstrated aggressive behaviour.”
“It is absolutely unacceptable that an individual who has committed such heinous crimes, and continues to demonstrate this type of behaviour, is able to roam the community unescorted.”
Understandably, those details alarmed PoCo residents.
But the letter is also an example of the outspoken mayor’s penchant for to-the-point pronouncements on provincewide concerns.
He’s been one of the sharpest critics of decriminalization.
His most recent blast followed the news that the New Democrats were appointing a task force to advise on ways to curb the use of illicit drugs and the spread of weapons in provincial hospitals.
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“Where the hell is the common sense here?” West told Mike Smyth on CKNW recently. “This has just gone way too far. And to have a task force to figure out what to do — it’s obvious what we need to do.
“In a hospital, there’s no weapons and you can’t smoke crack or fentanyl or any other drugs. There you go. Just saved God knows how much money and probably at least six months of dithering.”
He had a pithy comment on the government’s excessive reliance on outside consultants like MNP to process grants for clean energy and other programs.
“If ever there was a place to find savings that could be redirected to actually delivering core public services, it is government contracts to consultants like MNP,” wrote West.
He’s also broken with the Eby government on the carbon tax.
“The NDP once opposed the carbon tax because, by its very design, it is punishing to working people,” wrote West in a social media posting.
“The whole point of the tax is to make gas MORE expensive so people don’t use it. But instead of being honest about that, advocates rely on flimsy rebate BS. It is hard to find someone who thinks they are getting more dollars back in rebates than they are paying in carbon tax on gas, home heat, etc.”
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West has a history with the NDP. He was a political staffer and campaign worker with Mike Farnworth, the longtime NDP MLA for Port Coquitlam and now minister of public safety.
When West showed up at the legislature recently, Farnworth introduced him to the house as “the best mayor in Canada” and endorsed him as his successor: “I hope at some time he follows in my footsteps and takes over when I decide to retire — which is not just yet,” added Farnworth who is running this year for what would be his eighth term.
Other political players have their eye on West as a future prospect as well.
Several parties have invited him to run in the next federal election. He turned them all down.
Lately there has also been an effort to recruit him to lead a unified Opposition party against Premier David Eby in this year’s provincial election.
I gather the advocates have some opinion polling to back them up and a scenario that would see B.C. United and the Conservatives make way (!) for a party to be named later.
Such flights of fancy are commonplace in B.C. when the NDP is poised to win against a divided Opposition.
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By going after West, the advocates pay a compliment to his record as mayor (low property taxes and a fix-every-pothole work ethic) and his populist stands on public safety, carbon taxation and other provincial issues.
The outreach to a small city mayor who has never run provincially also says something about the perceived weaknesses of the alternatives to Eby.
“It is humbling,” West said Monday when I asked his reaction to the overtures.
But he is a young father with two boys, aged three and seven. The mayor was 10 when he lost his own dad and he believes that if he sought provincial political leadership now, “I would not be the type of dad I want to be.”
When West ran for re-election — unopposed — in 2022, he promised to serve out the full four years as mayor.
He is poised to keep his word, confident that if the overtures to run provincially are serious, they will still be there when his term is up.
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LIVE Q&A WITH B.C. PREMIER DAVID EBY: Join us April 23 at 3:30 p.m. when we will sit down with B.C. Premier David Eby for a special edition of Conversations Live. The premier will answer our questions — and yours — about a range of topics, including housing, drug decriminalization, transportation, the economy, crime and carbon taxes. Click HERE to get a link to the livestream emailed to your inbox.
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