2022

By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The top Democrat and Republican in the U.S. Senate joined forces in a rare moment of unity on Thursday in an attempt to pass $40 billion in aid for Ukraine, only to be stymied by a single Republican lawmaker: Senator Rand Paul.

Faced with the prospect of an extended delay for the package that passed the House of Representatives on Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and his Republican counterpart, Mitch McConnell, sought to move forward on the aid package only to be blocked by Paul, a longtime fiscal hawk who objects to the amount of spending proposed.

The stalemate delayed passage of the measure into next week.

The Senate has scheduled an initial procedural vote on the bill for late Monday afternoon. It was unclear whether that vote would then speed passage of the Ukraine aid. Alternatively, passage could come around the middle of next week if any senator wants to force a series of legislative steps before a final vote.

As the Ukraine aid bill became caught in the Senate’s procedural gears, Schumer pleaded for fast action: “The package is ready to go, the vast majority of senators on both sides of the aisle want it.”

“If Senator Paul persists in his reckless demands … all he will accomplish is to single-handedly delay desperately-needed Ukraine aid.”

But Paul was not moved.

The delay into next week could cause problems for Western nations trying to bolster Ukraine in its fight against Russia. The Biden administration has said that by May 19 it expects to run out available funds to draw on under an authority that allows the president to authorize the transfer of weapons without congressional approval in response to an emergency.

Paul is demanding that the legislation be altered to require an inspector general to oversee spending on Ukraine. Without his agreement, the Senate must follow a lengthy process stipulated by the chamber’s arcane rules.

In an usual display of legislative theater, Schumer was joined by his political rival, McConnell, who also addressed the urgency of the situation.

“Ukraine is not asking us to fight this war. They’re only asking for the resources they need to defend themselves against this deranged invasion. And they need this help right now,” said McConnell, who is Paul’s fellow senator from Kentucky.

The House passed the Ukraine spending bill by 368 to 57, with only Republicans voting against it.

President Joe Biden had asked Congress to approve an additional $33 billion in aid for Ukraine. But lawmakers decided to increase the military and humanitarian funding.

On Thursday, Schumer and McConnell offered Paul an amendment vote on his proposal that would have required support from 60 of the 100 senators to pass.

But Paul refused the offer and demanded the Senate adopt his amendment before voting on the aid package.

“This is the second spending bill for Ukraine in two months. And this bill is three times larger than the first,” Paul said before formally blocking the aid package. “Congress just wants to keep on spending, and spending.”

(Reporting by David Morgan, additional reporting by Richard Cowan, Moira Warburton and Eric Beech; Editing by Scott Malone and Grant McCool)

source

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Joe Biden on Thursday commemorated the COVID-19 deaths of 1 million people in the United States, marking what he called “a tragic milestone” and urging Americans to “remain vigilant” during the ongoing pandemic.

In a statement, Biden acknowledged the impact of the deaths on families left behind and urged the country not to “grow numb to such sorrow.”

The United States on Wednesday reached more than 1 million COVID-19 deaths, according to a Reuters tally, crossing a once-unthinkable milestone about two years after the first cases upended everyday life. The loss represents about one death for every 327 Americans, or more than the entire population of San Francisco or Seattle.

Most of those deaths, some 600,000, happened after Biden took office in January 2021 at the peak of a major wave of the disease.

Biden marked the sad occasion by ordering flags to be flown at half-staff. The administration on Thursday also hosted a global COVID Summit with other countries to spur international efforts to fight the pandemic.

Biden’s more muted response to the 1 million deaths contrasts with his commemoration of 500,000 deaths last year, roughly a month after he took over from former President Donald Trump, who many voters criticized for downplaying COVID’s impacts and bungling the government response.

In February 2021, 500 lit candles lined steps at the White House and a military band played “Amazing Grace” as Biden, his wife Jill, Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, bowed their heads in respect for the dead.

Politically, Biden now owns the pandemic. He ran against Trump on a promise to take it more seriously, and he came into office with a plan to get Americans vaccinated and an attempt to show leadership on mask-wearing and mitigation efforts.

But he faced an unexpectedly strong opposition to vaccine and mask mandates, led by Republicans, that turned public safety measures endorsed by disease experts into a political and legal battle in the United States.

A conservative-dominated Supreme Court struck down his federal vaccine-or-test mandate for companies, and a Trump-appointed judge struck down his public transportation mask mandate.

READY TO MOVE ON

The administration’s focus on vaccines as the way out of the pandemic also left it scrambling when new virus variants emerged that were resistant to them, health experts said, while some critics also faulted Biden’s team for not doing enough early on to increase coronavirus testing nationwide.

Just 67% of Americans are fully vaccinated – one of the lowest rates among wealthy countries – and hundreds are still dying from the disease every day.

Now, even with cases once again rising, mask-wearing is less common, mandates are increasingly taboo, and some Democrats, including in the administration, seem ready simply to move on.

Polls seen by the White House have shown that some key voters view the party’s response to COVID, which Biden aides have long viewed as one of the president’s strengths, as too heavy-handed.

While many Americans are eager to maintain the use of masks and other safety measures, many are also fatigued by the two-year-old pandemic and more focused on fears about the direction of the economy, one White House official said, citing public and Democratic polls.

That has been reflected in Biden’s response.

In his recent public remarks, the president mentions COVID-19 more often as a cause of inflation than as a sickness that Americans should work to avoid. The administration has emphasized the fact that COVID deaths are relatively low compared with earlier in the health crisis.

Biden has urged Congress to fund billions more in COVID aid to continue fighting the virus as new variants of concern emerge.

“We must remain vigilant against this pandemic and do everything we can to save as many lives as possible, as we have with more testing, vaccines, and treatments than ever before,” Biden said on Thursday. “It’s critical that Congress sustain these resources in the coming months.”

U.S. lawmakers had reached a $10 billion deal but the additional tranche of funding has been delayed over various concerns.

Researchers are working on yet another booster shot as the virus continues to mutate, and health experts have said greater pandemic investment is needed now to thwart future outbreaks that could cause further havoc.

The precise toll of the pandemic may never be truly known. Some people who died while infected were never tested and are not represented in the data. Others, while having COVID-19, may have died for another reason such as a cancer, but were still counted.

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Jeff Mason, additional reporting by by Alexandra Alper and Susan Heavey; Editing by Heather Timmons, Bernadette Baum and Bill Berkrot)

source