On The Money: Senators push for changes as chamber nears vote on $1.9T relief bill | Warren offers bill to create wealth tax

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THE BIG DEAL—Senate to vote on $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill this week: The Senate will vote this week on a sweeping $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill as Democrats try to get the legislation signed into law before federal unemployment benefits expire.

“The Senate will take up the American Rescue Plan this week. I expect a hardy debate and some late nights, but the American people sent us here with a job to do, to help the country through this moment of extraordinary challenge,” Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said from the Senate floor.

The state of play: 

• The House passed the bill early Saturday morning, sending it to the Senate.
• The Senate is expected to make changes to the bill, including stripping out language increasing the minimum wage to $15 per hour after the Senate parliamentarian’s ruling.
• The Senate will also have to go through a marathon voting session known as vote-a-rama, where any senator who wants to force an amendment vote will be able to do so.

The Hill’s Jordain Carney brings us up to speed here.

Democrats are trying to pass the bill before expanded unemployment benefits expire on March 14, though a lapse in benefits will still probably happen if they wait that long. But the Senate is mulling changes, which could make that process longer.

What’s on the table: 

• Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said she was talking with Democrats about potential amendments like raising the income threshold for households to receive stimulus payments, with those making upward of $200,000 receiving a partial check.
• Schumer has been urging members of the Senate Democratic caucus to suggest any potential changes to the bill so they can be incorporated into the legislation before it passes the House.
• Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is also vowing to force the Senate to vote this week on an amendment to set the federal minimum wage at $15 an hour.

Read more: Biden calls for ‘quick action’ in Senate on coronavirus relief package

LEADING THE DAY

Warren bill would impose wealth tax on $50M households: Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Monday unveiled legislation to create a wealth tax for high-net-worth households, a proposal central to her 2020 presidential campaign.

• The bill, called the Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act, would create an annual tax of 2 percent on the net worth of households and trusts between $50 million and $1 billion and a tax of 3 percent on net worth above $1 billion. 
• The rate for net worth above $1 billion would increase to 6 percent if a “Medicare for All” health care plan is enacted.

“A two-cent wealth tax would just help level the playing field a little bit, and create the kind of revenue that would let us build back better, as Joe Biden says,” Warren said during a Monday press conference.

The Hill’s Naomi Jagoda breaks it down here.

The prognosis: While popular among progressives, this bill probably isn’t hitting Biden’s desk, even in a filibuster-less Senate. Biden hasn’t called for a wealth tax, and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said last week that such a tax would have “very difficult implementation problems.”

But the release of legislative text to create a wealth tax is expected to further the debate among Democrats about how to best tax the rich and raise revenue to offset the cost of spending priorities.

Read more: The new wealth tax would result in the 100 richest Americans paying over $78 billion in taxes annually, according to an analysis by Bloomberg News.

More than 11 million households face homelessness without COVID-19 protections: More than 11 million families are at risk of losing housing when federal coronavirus eviction and foreclosure protections expire later this year, according to a report released Monday by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

Analyzing private sector and federal data, the CFPB found that 2.1 million homeowners are at least 90 days behind on mortgage payments and 8.8 million households are behind on rent. 

The background: 

• Some homeowners and renters who’ve been unable to cover housing payments due to coronavirus-related expenses have been able to avoid homelessness thanks to a patchwork of federal and state bans on evictions and foreclosures. 
• Millions of homeowners have also opted into forbearance to delay mortgage payments for several months.

The CFPB warned that those families, while safe for now, will face housing insecurity when protections expire and the bill for missed rent or mortgage payments comes due. The report also found that housing insecurity — like countless other dangers of the pandemic — afflicted Black, Hispanic and low-income households at far greater rates.

“Put simply: we have very little time to prevent millions of families from losing their homes,” Acting CFPB Director Eric Uejio wrote in a blog post about the report.

I have more here.

ON TAP TOMORROW:

• The Senate Banking Committee holds a confirmation hearing on the nominations of Gary Gensler to be chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Rohit Chopra to be director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) at 10 a.m.
• The Senate Budget Committee holds a confirmation hearing on the nomination of Shalanda Young to be deputy director of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) at 11 a.m.

GOOD TO KNOW

• The Dow Jones Industrial Average shot up 603 points Monday, nearly 2 percent, as markets had their best daily rally since June. 

• Citigroup announced Monday that it will seek to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions from its own operations and the activities of its clients by 2050.

• Financial regulators are also putting their environmental agenda into action as the Biden administration expands the ways the federal government will fight climate change. 

• President Biden offered his support on Sunday to union organizing efforts as Amazon workers at an Alabama warehouse vote on whether to unionize. 

ODDS AND ENDS

• The U.S. Chamber of Commerce requested President Biden immediately reinstate Peter Robb, the former National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) general counsel, who he fired on Inauguration Day.