IT'S NOT A pROGRESSIVE PARTY:

The new version of the bill also has stricter income eligibility requirements for the $1,400 direct payments than the original bill passed by the House earlier this month. 

"Ultimately, given the makeup of the Senate, the House is always going to be more progressive than the Senate. That is actually our job, to make everything as progressive as possible in the House and then when it goes to the Senate to know that there are going to be some changes," Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told reporters in the Capitol on Monday.  [...]

Liberals also saw another brutal defeat after the Senate parliamentarian ruled that a $15 federal minimum wage could not be featured as part of the reconciliation process, a legislative shortcut that Democrats are using to push through the federal relief without the need of a single Republican vote. 

"If anybody thinks that we're giving up on this issue, they are sorely mistaken," Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) told reporters after the wage hike looked like it would hit a brick wall. "If we have to vote on it time and time again, we will, and we're going to succeed." 

"Conservative Dems have fought so the Biden admin sends fewer & less generous relief checks than the Trump admin did,"  noted Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in a tweet on Wednesday afternoon. "It's a move that makes little-to-no political or economic sense, and targets an element of relief that is most tangibly felt by everyday people. An own-goal."

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