WASHINGTON — The House approved a $1.9 trillion pandemic relief bill that was championed by President Joe Biden, the first step in providing another dose of aid to a weary nation as the measure now moves to a tense Senate.

“We have no time to waste,” Biden said at the White House after the House passage early Saturday. “We act now — decisively, quickly and boldly — we can finally get ahead of this virus. We can finally get our economy moving again. People in this country have suffered far too much for too long.”

The new president’s vision for infusing cash across a struggling economy to individuals, businesses, schools, states and cities battered by COVID-19 passed on a near party-line 219-212 vote. That ships the bill to the Senate, where Democrats seem bent on resuscitating their minimum wage push and fights could erupt over state aid and other issues.

U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Howland, voted for the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 pandemic plan while U.S. Reps. Bill Johnson, R-Marietta, and Dave Joyce, R-Bainbridge, opposed it.

The bill passed along party lines with all but two Democrats backing it and every Republican voting against it.

“The financial assistance the public health investments secured in this bill will help our families, our schools, and our state and local governments get back to normal,” said Ryan.

He added: “As President Biden has said, this legislation will ‘meet the moment’ by tackling urgent public health and economic crises the nation faces as a result of COVID-19. With this legislation, we can defeat the COVID-19 virus, make the necessary investments to move our country forward and begin the healing process needed to bring the country together.”

Johnson called it a “reckless bill” that “has little to do with combating the coronavirus. In fact, less than nine percent of the bill goes directly toward addressing COVID-19 public health concerns.”

Johnson said: “This expensive grab-bag of Democrat liberal wish list items masquerading as COVID relief failed to measure up to that standard.”

Joyce also criticized Democrats for the bill that he says will destroy 1.4 million jobs by raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour and for not focusing on real COVID-19 relief.

“Before we ask more of American taxpayers and approve additional spending, we should effectively and efficiently use the $1 trillion in relief from previous COVID bills that remains unspent,” he said. “Any additional relief cannot be used to satisfy a political agenda.”

Democrats said that mass unemployment and the half-million American lives lost are causes to act despite nearly $4 trillion in aid already spent fighting the fallout from the disease. GOP lawmakers, they said, were out of step with a public that polling finds largely views the bill favorably.

“I am a happy camper tonight,” Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., said Friday. “This is what America needs. Republicans, you ought to be a part of this. But if you’re not, we’re going without you.”

The overall relief bill would provide $1,400 payments to individuals, extend emergency unemployment benefits through August and increase tax credits for children and federal subsidies for health insurance.

It also provides billions for schools and colleges, state and local governments, COVID-19 vaccines and testing, renters, food producers and struggling industries like airlines, restaurants, bars and concert venues.

Moderate Democratic Reps. Jared Golden of Maine and Kurt Schrader of Oregon were the only two lawmakers to cross party lines. That sharp partisan divide is making the fight a showdown over whom voters will reward for heaping more federal spending to combat the coronavirus and revive the economy atop the $4 trillion approved last year.

The battle is also emerging as an early test of Biden’s ability to hold together his party’s fragile congressional majorities — just 10 votes in the House and an evenly divided 50-50 Senate.

At the same time, Democrats were trying to figure out how to assuage liberals who lost their top priority in a jarring Senate setback Thursday.

That chamber’s nonpartisan parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, said Senate rules require that a federal minimum wage increase would have to be dropped from the COVID-19 bill, leaving the proposal on life support. The measure would gradually lift that minimum to $15 hourly by 2025, doubling the current $7.25 floor in effect since 2009.

Republicans oppose the $15 minimum wage target as an expense that would hurt businesses and cost jobs.

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