Wednesday afternoon, House Democrats, including North Carolina’s five Democratic House members passed the American Rescue Plan, voting to send $1400 direct checks to North Carolinians struggling through the pandemic, money to help schools reopen, funding to support Governor Cooper’s vaccine distribution, additional relief for parents through an expanded Child Tax Credit, aid to small businesses, and the biggest expansion of federal help for health insurance since the Affordable Care Act. 

Despite the bill’s popularity and urgent need, all eight North Carolina House Republicans voted against it. In response, North Carolina Democratic Party Chair Bobbie Richardson released the following statement.

“Today, North Carolina House Democrats fulfilled their promise to North Carolinians to deliver monumental relief for North Carolina families, whose struggles have been exacerbated during COVID-19,” said NCDP Chair Bobbie Richardson. “But when our state needed it the most, all North Carolina Republicans voted against $1400 checks and urgent relief. In 2022, North Carolina voters will remember that they put themselves before the needs of the people they serve.” 

The legislation is not only one of the most ambitious and transformative in a generation, it is widely popular among Americans.

• According to a Morning Consult poll, 76 percent of Americans say they support President Biden’s stimulus package. That same poll shows that more than half of Republican voters support the plan. By a two-to-one margin, Republicans support the plan 60 percent to 30 percent.
• A new CNN poll found that support for individual policies in the plan is even greater across all party affiliations: “A broad majority of Americans (85%) say they support policies in the bill that would provide larger tax credits for families and make them easier for low-income households to claim, including majorities across party lines (95% of Democrats and 73% of Republicans support it).”

###