Blunt Rochester Votes To Send American Rescue Plan to President Biden's Desk, Provide Americans With Immediate Relief

Press Release

Today, Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.) voted to pass H.R. 1319 as amended by the Senate, the American Rescue Plan. The bill will now go to President Biden's desk, where it is expected to be signed shortly, providing immediate and needed relief to the American people. The American Rescue Plan is landmark, life-saving legislation that will provide resources to defeat the virus, get vaccines in people's arms, put money into families' pockets, return children safely to the classroom, and put people back to work.

"As our country has battled the greatest public health & economic crisis of our lifetimes, it has become abundantly clear that we need a comprehensive legislative package that matches the scope and urgency of our challenge. Today, I was proud to vote to send the American Rescue Plan to President Biden's desk - a package that recognizes the enormity of this crisis and meets the moment," said Rep. Blunt Rochester. "Economists from across the political spectrum - including Jerome Powell and Janet Yellen - have told us that our risk is not in doing too much - it's doing too little. Today, we passed a package that will provide economic relief to families through direct payments to 158.5 million households, which I was proud to champion. It will also dramatically expand the Child Tax Credit, putting money back in the pockets of families, secure critical resources to help us reopen schools and businesses, and bolster our efforts to efficiently distribute vaccines as the Biden-Harris Administration continues their historic work to increase our supply."

The Biden-Harris American Rescue Plan will save lives and livelihoods:

Put Vaccines in Arms: The plan will mount a national vaccination program that includes setting up community vaccination sites nationwide. It will also take complementary measures to combat the virus, including scaling up testing and tracing, addressing shortages of personal protective equipment and other critical supplies, investing in high-quality treatments and addressing health care disparities.

Put Children Safely Back in School: The plan will make a nearly $130 billion investment in school re-opening. These funds can be used for such things as reducing class sizes, modifying spaces so that students and teachers can socially distance, improving ventilation, implementing additional mitigation measures, providing personal protective equipment, and providing summer school or other support for students that help make up lost learning time this year. The plan also provides resources for higher education, Head Start and child care facilities.

Put Money in People's Pockets: The plan finishes the job on the President's promise to provide $2,000 in direct assistance to households across America with checks of $1,400 per person, following the $600 down payment enacted in December. The legislation also enacts a historic expansion of the Child Tax Credit, which will support 27 million children by putting money back in the pockets of families. The plan will also provide direct housing assistance, nutrition assistance for 40 million Americans, expand access to safe and reliable child care and affordable health care, extend and expand Unemployment Insurance so that 19 million American workers can pay their bills and 15 million low-wage workers through the Earned Income Tax Credit.

Put People Back In Jobs: The plan will provide crucial support for the hardest-hit small businesses, including those owned by entrepreneurs from racial and ethnic backgrounds that have experienced systemic discrimination, with EIDL grants, expanded PPP eligibility and more. The plan also provides crucial resources to protect the jobs of first responders, frontline public health workers, teachers, transit workers and other essential workers that all Americans depend on. The plan also provides relief for America's farmers by providing $4 billion to the food supply chain by purchasing and distributing food, supplying PPE to farmers and other frontline workers, and providing financial support to farmers and other essential food workers to create more resilient and competitive food supply chains.
The American Rescue Plan is strongly supported by a large majority of the American people -- including 60 percent of Republicans -- bipartisan state and local leaders, national education groups, trade unions and advocacy organizations, and hundreds of businesses and chambers of commerce. Economists agree that the American Rescue Plan's targeted, evidence-based action is needed -- both for struggling families and for the American economy. The legislation's provisions will generate $1.25 for every $1 of spending, will cut child poverty in half and will lift nearly 12 million people out of poverty. As Mark Zandi, Chief Economist of Moody's Analytics, has said, "It's better to err on the side of too much rather than too little. Interest rates are at zero, inflation is low, unemployment is high. You don't need a textbook to know this is when you push on the fiscal accelerator."

"The American Rescue Plan is truly groundbreaking legislation that will allow our country to move from recovery to rebuilding," continued Blunt Rochester. "The American people need relief now. Today, working with the Biden-Harris Administration, we provided that relief."

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