$1.9 trillion covid relief is Obamacare II

Chairman Xiden told investigative reporter Stephen Colbert in December, "I can work with Republican leadership in the House and the Senate. I think we can get things done."

At 5 AM today, he got permission from the Senate to spend $1.9 trillion without the support of a single Republican.

CBS reported, "The Senate passed a budget resolution — a key step for the Democratic-controlled Congress to pass the president's $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief proposal known as the American Rescue Plan without any Republican votes."

Bipartisan Biden said of Republicans, "They are not willing to go as far as we need to go. What Republicans have proposed is either to do nothing or not enough."

The CBS report contained no comments direct or indirect from Republicans.

Not that it matters. If Republicans won both seats in Georgia last month, Romney and Collins would have crossed party lines.

This refusal to vote for the package was mere face-saving for Republican  senators who pretty much wasted the past 4 years of a Republican presidency on thwarting Donald Trump's re-election.

This vote reminds me of the vote on Obamacare in 2010 when a small Republican minority in both houses of Congress was unanimous in its opposition.

But 7 years later, in 2017, when they finally had the chance to repeal and replace Obamacare, congressional Republicans refused because keeping promises is unpopular in Washington.

However, this is another we have-to-pass-the-bill-in-order-to-see-what's-in-it situation.

Politico reported, "Once the House approves the Senate’s tweaks, a total of 25 committees across both chambers will get to work writing the legislative flesh to enact Biden’s plan to send out a new round of $1,400 stimulus checks to Americans, boost the weekly federal unemployment benefit to $400 through September and more than double the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, on top of hundreds of billions of dollars in aid to states, communities and schools."

So having passed the bill, Congress will now write it.

This is Obamacare II only it is more expensive and even less constitutional.