President Biden and 10 Senate Republicans will begin efforts to find a “sweet spot” on a coronavirus relief package, talks that will pit his claimed electoral mandate to work across the aisle against his instinct to enact a massive recovery plan.
Led by Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the group of 10 has proposed a streamlined coronavirus relief deal that comes in at $618 billion, or about one-third of the cost of the package Biden and Democrats want. But there are points of agreement and areas where Democrats have given ground before.
The Republican framework overlaps with Biden’s $1.9 trillion “American Rescue Plan” on coronavirus vaccine development and pandemic containment, including $160 billion for vaccination efforts. But the GOP alternative omits many of the Democrats’ most contentious asks, including a minimum wage increase to $15 an hour and funding for state and local governments.
“There is definitely a bipartisan sweet spot to be found here,” the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget’s Maya MacGuineas told the Washington Examiner on Monday. Biden “is right to want to move quickly, the Republicans are right to want something smaller and more targeted, and there is the opportunity to return to the critical component of governing, compromise, to quickly move this across the finish line.”
The other Republican senators in the group are Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, Rob Portman of Ohio, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Todd Young of Indiana, Jerry Moran of Kansas, Mike Rounds of South Dakota, and Thom Tillis of North Carolina.
The group of 10 calls for reduced spending on several measures in Biden’s plan, starting with $1,000 direct relief payments per adult and $500 per child, targeted by income level, instead of the $1,400 per person checks sought by Democrats for people making less than $75,000 per year. Republicans also propose shrinking the size of the payment for people making $40,000 a year or more and phasing them out when income reaches $50,000.
Republicans allocate $20 billion in aid for child care, half of Biden’s proposed amount.
The Paycheck Protection Program would receive $40 billion, where Biden’s plan proposes $440 billion.
In the GOP counterproposal, the $7.25 an hour federal minimum wage remains the same, as do the earned-income tax credit and the child tax credit. Biden’s plan increases the federal minimum wage to $15 and expands both tax credits.
Republican plans put forth $20 billion for school reopenings, a significant reduction in the $170 billion allotted by Democrats, and provide no aid for state and local governments, while Biden’s plan allots $350 billion.
The GOP plan also reduces the extension of unemployment insurance, offering $300 a week through June, instead of $400 a week through September.
Biden has vowed to be “a president for all Americans,” with bipartisan outreach central to this promise, and said that he is open to negotiating the package, including the structure of new stimulus checks, stating that questions over whether the bill had “lines drawn the exact right way” were “justified.”
But he has also promised to take swift action on the coronavirus, and aides argue that his plan is calibrated to meet the needs of the country and its pandemic-battered economy and workforce.
On Monday, press secretary Jen Psaki repeatedly told reporters that Biden believes that “the risk is not that it is too big. The risk is that it is too small.”
“Clearly, he thinks the package needs to be closer to what he proposed,” Psaki said.
Biden has signaled openness to use a procedural budget tool to pass a bill with only a simple majority in the Senate, known as reconciliation, with Vice President Kamala Harris as the tiebreaking vote.
He told reporters on Friday that he supports a bipartisan bill “if we can get it,” but added that “the COVID relief has to pass — no ifs, ands or buts.”
On Sunday, a top White House economic adviser said a smaller package risks stunting job and economic growth and that by acting quickly, the White House plan is calibrated to prevent these shortfalls.
“If we don’t get this package as designed out the door quickly, we risk having 4 million fewer jobs at the end of this year,” Jared Bernstein told Fox News, citing Moody’s economic data.
Group of 10 member Cassidy said the White House has failed to reach across the aisle.
Cassidy told Fox News on Sunday that the talk of using the budget reconciliation process to push through a larger bill “chock-full of handouts and payoffs to democratic constituencies” belies what he contended is the White House’s true intentions.
“You don’t want bipartisanship,” Cassidy said. “You want the patina of bipartisanship, but you want to stick it and ram it through. So that’s not unity.”
He faulted Biden’s team for failing to reach out to either centrist Democrat or Republican lawmakers in devising the package.
In their letter, the Republican group reminded Biden that he has said the challenges facing the country require “the most elusive of things in a democracy: Unity.”
On Monday, Republican Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania said that he hadn’t seen details of the GOP counteroffer but thought the $4 trillion already authorized by Congress should suffice.
“It looks to me like a whole lot more of what we just did,” Toomey told CNBC, pointing to the $900 billion package Congress passed in December. “Most of this money, by the way, hasn’t even really been spent yet,” he added. “I just don’t think there’s a good case for redoing this.”
