President-elect Joe Biden’s coronavirus relief proposal will be his first test of managing wide ideological divisions within his own party in Congress while also trying to pass his policy priorities.
Groups on the hard Left are organizing to make sure that their preferred policies, rather than compromise for the sake of attempting to show unity, win the first battle.
The Justice Democrats, pro-“Green New Deal” Sunrise Movement, and New Deal strategists are circulating a memo warning Democrats to not “water down” the package and to encourage filibuster reform. The groups say that while they approve of Biden’s plan, they are “not holding [their] breath” when it comes to Senate Republicans supporting it.
“Watering down the proposals in a hunt for Republican support is a bad idea on both substance and politics,” the Monday memo said.
The president-elect last week revealed a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan, a follow-up to the $2.2 trillion and $900 billion coronavirus response packages passed last year. The plan includes $1,400 stimulus checks, additional unemployment benefits of $400 per week, $350 billion in funding for state and local governments experiencing a drop in tax revenue, and increasing the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour.
While House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gave a thumbs-up to the plan last week, indicating that it will pass the Democratic-controlled House, the reality is that some measures in the Biden proposal, such as raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour, are deal breakers for Republicans. That would mean the measure can’t get past the Senate and on Biden’s desk if Democrats opt to keep the Senate filibuster, the legislative tool that effectively prohibits legislation from passing without the support of 60 senators, in the 50-50 divided Senate.
Centrist West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin has said that he does not want to get rid of the filibuster, but the pressure is on to reverse that thinking. The three groups who authored the memo are calling for an end to the filibuster.
“Just do it,” the memo said. “A quick strike against the filibuster in January will set Biden up to shepherd his entire agenda through regular order, with full committee involvement and proper levels of oversight and transparency.”
Leftist activist group MoveOn is also advocating for an end to the filibuster. “There’s no time to waste as people across the country continue to suffer. The Democratic majorities in the House and Senate should use every available tool, including filibuster reform, to make sure relief legislation is passed immediately,” the group said in a tweet on Friday.
Georgia Sen.-elect Rev. Raphael Warnock and Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar are set to join MoveOn for a discussion Monday night that will address, in part, “pushing forward a bold, progressive agenda to strengthen our democracy and address the multiple crises that we face.”
Those on the Left also groan about past attempts from Democrats to work across the aisle with Republicans in an attempt to get their signoff on their major policy preferences.
Former President Barack Obama, for example, “wasted precious time negotiating with moderate Republicans like Chuck Grassley and Olympia Snowe in order to provide the Affordable Care Act bipartisan cover,” the memo said.
To some of those on the Left, Biden’s plan is not bold enough. They are trying to push the package further.
Most at issue is Biden’s proposed stimulus checks. The president-elect promised in a rally for the Georgia runoff elections that if Jon Ossoff and Warnock were elected senators, “those $2,000 checks will go out the door.”
The $1,400 proposed checks combined with the $600 stimulus checks passed in December make $2,000. But some lawmakers are calling for the amount in Biden’s proposal to be $2,000 on top of the $600 payments.
“$2,000 means $2,000. $2,000 does not mean $1,400,″ New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told the Washington Post.
A staff director for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders on the budget committee, Warren Gunnels, echoed that sentiment.
“Boosting checks to $2K is NOT enough. We must cancel student debt, combat climate change, guarantee healthcare, end homelessness & much more. We must be engaged in lots of battles to enact a bold agenda. But the 1st ask was to get to $2K. Let’s get it done & fight for more,” he said in a tweet.
