The Senate’s No. 2 Democrat joined lawmakers in both parties in calling on the leadership of the House and Senate to put a compromise coronavirus aid package on the floor for a vote before the end of the year.
“There is no excuse for the speaker or the leader, you’ve got to give us a vote,” Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, said in an extraordinary push from one Democratic leader to another across the Capitol.
Durbin called on Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, to drop her monthslong objections to taking up a narrow coronavirus aid package.
Democratic leaders had been holding out for a much larger package in the range of $2.2 trillion to $3.7 trillion, with nearly half a trillion for state, local ,and tribal governments. But a rise in coronavirus cases, hospitalizations, deaths, and new lockdowns has ramped up pressure for Congress to act now, and the bipartisan group has constructed a narrow package that leaves out what the two parties cannot agree upon.
“It would be Scrooge-like if we went away and [left] folks to lose their unemployment the day after Christmas,” Sen. Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, said, referencing expiring benefits the compromise bill would extend. “We implore our leaders on both sides, take this work product, build it into whatever package that gets voted on this week. Let’s make sure we bring it across the finish line.”
The lawmakers unveiled two bills in the Capitol on Monday. Only the narrower one has the backing of all of the group.
That measure, worth $748 billion, provides money for small-business loans, extended federal unemployment benefits, and money for heathcare, schools, food stamps, rental assistance, farmers, and the Postal Service.
The broader measure, at a cost of $908 billion, would add in $160 billion in state, local, and tribal aid, as well as one-year lawsuit liability protection for healthcare facilities, businesses, and schools.
The bipartisan group of lawmakers said they all back the narrower measure and urged the leadership to bring it up this week.
“This is our consensus bill,” Durbin said. “We all agree on it. It’s ready to go,” Durbin said.
Sen. Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat, issued a statement following the press conference to announce his support for the narrow package as “a strong compromise,” deserving of bipartisan support.
Durbin, however, is the only top Democrat to back the measure. Pelosi and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, would not comment on it Monday.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, has not specifically agreed to the narrow bill but on Monday, called on lawmakers to strike a deal on a “targeted” package. Last week, McConnell said lawmakers should drop the state and local funding as well as the lawsuit liability protections because the two provisions were holding up a deal.
A Republican aid told the Washington Examiner the narrow package could win votes from “well more than half” the Republican conference in the Senate, which would be enough to pass it if most Democrats support it.
The narrow bill unveiled by the bipartisan group on Monday would extend supplemental unemployment insurance by $300 per week until the end of April and would provide $300 billion to the Small Business Administration to administer loans to small businesses. It adds $35 billion for healthcare providers and $13 billion to test and treat the coronavirus as well as distribute the vaccine, which was administered in the United States for the first time on Monday.
The bill includes $82 billion for schools and universities and extends the moratorium on repaying student loans.
It would also provide $25 billion in rental assistance and a 15% increase in food stamp provisions for four months. It adds $13 billion for farmers impacted by the coronavirus and $10 billion for the financially troubled Postal Service.
Congress is hoping to complete work this week in order to avoid lawmakers returning at Christmas.
Democrats and Republicans urged fast action, before the end of the year, to help a rapidly worsening impact of the coronavirus.
“This is for the small businesses that right now are struggling,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican and member of the bipartisan group, said Monday. “As we have all come indoors for the winter. There is no dining outside in Alaska, or in Maine, or in New Hampshire, or in Utah. This is hope. This is hope for those who have been asking their Congress to be responsive to what they’ve seen in the face of this pandemic.”
