Seventy-two percent of voters support the $1.9 trillion relief bill signed into law last week by President Joe Biden, according to a new Politico/Morning Consult Poll.
Just 21% oppose the legislation, which includes $1,400 in stimulus checks for Americans, an extension of unemployment benefits, $350 billion in aid to states, local governments, territories and tribes, $20 billion in housing aid, tax credits for families and workers, $125 billion to public K-12 schools, $15 billion for small businesses, $14 billion for COVID-19 vaccines and testing, and $8.5 billion for rural hospital assistance, among other items.
The Politico survey found that a majority of voters expressed support for two of the law’s biggest provisions: the stimulus checks and the extension of unemployment benefits.
The poll also found that 62% of voters approve of the job Biden is doing, compared to 34% who disapprove.
“The broad-based, bipartisan support for stimulus checks is evidence of the broad awareness that many Americans need a lifeline right now,” said John Leer, economist for Morning Consult. “It’s no surprise the extension of unemployment benefits is also extremely popular: Americans acknowledge unemployed workers deserve additional financial support until job growth resumes.”
No congressional Republican voted in favor of the Biden rescue plan.
Democrats were able to pass the bill through a process known as reconciliation, which allows them to pass legislation tied to the budget with a simple majority, rather than the 60 votes most bills require.
Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., a member of House Republican leadership, last week said the bill “does far more harm than good, and the damage it does will only make our recovery efforts more difficult.”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy called the bill a “laundry list of left-wing priorities that predate the pandemic.”
“This bill will deliver more help to more people than anything the federal government has done in decades,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Saturday.
“It is broader, deeper, and more comprehensive in helping working families and lifting people out of poverty than anything Congress has seen or accomplished in a very long time.”
More than 536,000 people in the U.S. have died from COVID-19 and 29.6 million have been infected. The number of new COVID-19 cases nationally has declined the past few weeks as Americans get vaccinated, though two new strains detected in California have become “variants of concern,” according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The poll, conducted after Biden signed the legislation, surveyed 1,993 registered voters and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.
Source: Newmax
