President Biden will insist on a coronavirus stimulus package with a higher price tag than one pitched by a group of 10 Republican senators when the two sides meet Monday at the White House.
Biden will meet with the group, led by Maine Sen. Susan Collins, after they laid out a $600 billion counteroffer on Sunday to his $1.9 trillion “American Rescue Plan.” Biden will stress to the GOP senators his stance that the biggest risk the country could take is to pass and sign into law a measure that “is too small,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said hours before the closed-door session.
Psaki said Biden’s view going into the talks is that any bipartisan deal should be “commensurate” with the public health and economic “crises.”
“There’s obviously a big gap between $600 billion and $1.9 trillion,” Psaki told reporters during her daily briefing. “So, clearly, he thinks the package size needs to be closer to what he proposed.”
Despite that chasm, Psaki said Biden extended the invitation, the first to lawmakers since he moved into the White House, because he saw their proposal “as a good faith proposal” and he “wants to have the conversation.”
“What this meeting is not is a forum for the president to make or accept an offer,” she said.
Senate Republicans have grumbled about the White House’s approach to bipartisan negotiations while Senate Democrats take steps to pass the “American Rescue Plan” through a budgetary procedure that requires a simple majority. Democrats could muster 51 votes in the Senate with all 48 Democrats in the chamber, the two independents who caucus with them, and Vice President Kamala Harris.
On Monday, Psaki declined to place a timeline on the bipartisan discussions before forging ahead with the reconciliation process. She only repeated that there was an “urgent” need for virus-related resources and economic relief.
Psaki, though, was adamant that using reconciliation was “hardly an abandonment of bipartisanship.”
“We’ll see what comes out of this meeting,” she said. “If there are good ideas to put forward, we’ll put forward them. There’s still time to do exactly that.”
