US House Democrats approve the $3 Trillion Covid19 relief bill to alleviate health and economic downturn

In the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, the pandemic responsible for killing more than 5000 people in the country till now, the US house lawmakers have decided to grant a sum of 3 trillion dollars to upgrade their health services and overturn the economic slowdown caused by the pandemic.

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The US House in session

The COVID-19 has wreaked havoc on the USA, with the country consistently finding itself amongst the top 3 countries in the world in terms of the number of causalities caused due to the coronavirus. The country is going through a tough time right now, trying hard but in futile to contain the number of deaths caused by this deadly virus.

Representational photo for CoVid-19 virus

Therefore, an announcement from the House stating relief package to pull the country out of this situation was inevitable. And that’s exactly what happened on May 15, with the Democrats presenting the bill proposing the economic booster package for the country.

The voting on the bill stood at 208-199, the distribution in votes in sync with the number of members present in the parliament belonging to both the parties. The bill, running into 1,800 pages, has both democrats and republicans locking horns with each other, with the latter accusing the Democrats’ move to be ‘politically motivated’.

It is worth noticing that the US has its elections in November, and passing a bill of this magnitude, both in its numbers and the stakes involved, at this crucial time will indeed give the Democrats a huge upper hand over the opposition in the elections.

The objections of the Republicans don’t end here. They are advising the members to put this bill on hold and instead concentrate their focus on the bills that have been previously passed in the parliament and are in action right now.

This, they believe, will not only help the government to introspect on their planning and improve it but will also help them identify the root cause of the inefficiency of the previously passed bills which has forced them to come up with this new bill and rectifying those bills instead, thus saving the country from going into a highly possible ‘fiscal deficit’ state. “Instead of going big, it seems you went crazy”, said Kevin McCarthy, the House Minority Leader.

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While the House Democrats are keen to pass the bill, it and the Democrats have received extreme criticism from the Republicans. They argued that any new funding which is being issued by the state needs to be directed to the country’s fight towards the Corona pandemic and not to be used to alleviate the budget numbers that saw a dip due to the ongoing pandemic.

The Democrats have demanded an up gradation in the country’s IRS payment program which grants every family in the US a sum of $6,000 to manage their expenses. Apart from this, the bill also plans to put aside $3.6 billion for the protection of the federal elections, $25 billion to support the US Postal service, $100 billion for low-income rent support and $75 billion for the homeowner assistance fund. All these numbers are what irking the Republicans and thus their protest against this bill.

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The voting was conducted in the parliament while exercising all the necessary precautions to safeguard the health of the members of the Parliament. The members were noticed practising social distancing and were wearing protective masks across their faces. The members were asked to swiftly cast their vote and vacate the floor to preserve their health.

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