Democrats have touted the $1.9-trillion COVID-19 relief bill that U.S. President Joe Biden just signed into law as one of the most popular bills in decades, calling it a bold measure for people across the country that would significantly cut poverty and boost recovery.

However, Republicans have argued that it is too costly, accusing Democrats of abandoning bipartisanship to jam through liberal policies unrelated to the pandemic, as Congress passed five pandemic rescue packages totaling $4 trillion in a bipartisan way last year.

For Qu Qiang, an assistant director and fellow of International Monetary Institute at Renmin University, the problem is how much debt the federal government has taken on with this bill. 

"This bill was actually proposed by the Democrats to solve the issues of the pandemic and to relieve the economy, but the Trump administration fought it off because they thought it was too much debt to be taken by the federal government, because you need to pay back the debt, that's a simple equation," Qu told CGTN.

As Qu pointed out, to finance its relief package, the U.S. government will basically issue an IOU to the market and the rest of the world to borrow money.

It will then pay this back with income from taxes and other sources over the next several years. "So that's going to be a very very huge debt," Qu said.

Beyond U.S. shores, "this stimulus package will have a double effect on the world economy and similarly on the U.S. economy and Chinese economy," Qu also said. 

Wall Street and public-sector economists have revised upwards forecasts for U.S. economic growth due to the massive relief package and the vaccine roll-out.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on Tuesday predicted that the U.S. economy would expand 6.5 percent in 2021, up from 3.2 percent estimated three months ago.

The U.S. economy contracted by 3.5 percent in 2020 as the pandemic depressed consumer spending and business investment, the largest annual decline of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) since 1946.

(With input from Xinhua)