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President Joe Biden made his first attempt at bipartisan negotiations on Monday and met with a group of 10 Senate Republicans on Monday evening to see if there was a compromise to be made on the President’s Covid-19 relief plan, $ 9 trillion.
Biden’s White House has repeatedly said that reaching a bipartisan deal is a top priority. But prolonged negotiations with Republicans and trying to come to an acceptable middle ground could complicate both the speed and the daring of Biden’s first major legislative proposal.
There is a lot of light between Biden’s plan and the Senate Republicans’ $ 618 billion proposal, led by Senator Susan Collins (R-ME). The GOP proposal is less than half the price Biden offered and cuts or does not include many Democratic priorities.
“Hopefully we can adopt a sixth bipartisan Covid relief plan again,” Collins told reporters after a two-hour White House meeting on Monday evening. Collins added that while “I wouldn’t say we got together on a package tonight,” the Republicans were planning on continuing to speak with Biden’s team in the future in hopes of reaching a deal.
The fact that there are 10 Republicans behind the plan is significant; With Democrats controlling a 50-50 split Senate, those 10 Republican votes could push the proposal past the 60-vote threshold needed to bypass Senate obstruction in the unlikely situation the entire Democratic caucus is also supporting.
There are two big questions here. The first is whether this group of Republican senators see their figure of $ 618 billion as the starting point for negotiations with Biden and are ready to go higher, or if that is where they plan to draw a line. red. The other question is whether Biden will bite into what they come up with. So far, the White House indicates that the president is not very interested.
“There is obviously a big gap between $ 600 billion and $ 1.9 trillion,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Monday. “Obviously, he thinks the size of the package should be closer to what he proposed than smaller.”
Biden and the Democrats actually don’t need any Republican backing to pass his package. They can technically get it through the Senate alone through a process called budget reconciliation. As Biden prepared to meet with Republicans, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced on Monday that they had tabled a joint budget resolution – essentially the first step in the process. reconciliation.
Biden made bipartisanship a hallmark of his campaign and emphasized it again in his inauguration speech. Republicans argue that working with them on a stimulus package would be a good way to prove that Biden’s emphasis on bipartisanship was more than rhetoric.
“If they want to get things done quickly, work with us on a bipartisan solution,” Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), one of 10 Republicans, told Vox in a recent interview. “And then use your political muscle for reconciliation later, but at least show yourself the value of working together.”
The White House, however, had repeatedly stressed that their proposal enjoyed broad public support and called for the swift passage of a bold relief bill – which could be delayed by lengthy negotiations.
Congressional Democrats believe Republicans vastly underestimate the amount of money needed to ensure a strong economic recovery – and they point out that the GOP used the reconciliation process before quickly pushing forward its priorities, including trying to unravel the Affordable Care Act.
Who are the Republicans negotiating with Biden?
The group of 10 Republicans who proposed the $ 618 billion Covid-19 proposal are led by a few moderates who have appeared keen to negotiate with Biden. But the entire group of senators covers the ideological range from moderate to conservative, and includes:
- Susan Collins (R-ME)
- Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)
- Bill Cassidy (R-LA)
- Mitt Romney (R-UT)
- Rob Portman (R-OH)
- Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV)
- Todd Young (R-IN)
- Jerry Moran (R-KS)
- Mike Rounds (R-SD)
- Thom Tillis (R-NC)
It’s important to distinguish this group of Republicans from the bipartisan group of Republicans and Senate Democrats who worked together to come up with the framework for a $ 900 billion Covid-19 relief bill passed in December. There is even a new version of this bipartisan group, comprising 16 senators, who have come together to talk about more relief for Covid-19. It is this bipartisan group of 16 senators who have had numerous phone calls with senior White House officials, but not face-to-face meetings with Biden himself.
Now, some of the Republican members of that group – namely, Collins, Murkowski, Romney, and Cassidy – are making their own way. And while this new $ 618 billion Republican counteroffer doesn’t necessarily mean the end of the bipartisan Senate task force, it was entirely a GOP-led effort, a Democratic Senate aide told Vox.
Psaki told reporters Biden was happy that a Republican group was eager to meet with him, but reiterated that Biden would not make any final decisions on their proposal on Monday.
“It’s an exchange of ideas,” Psaki said. “This group sent out a letter with some outline and guidelines with their concerns and priorities. It is not a forum for the president to make or accept an offer. “
What Kind of Coronavirus Stimulus Do the 10 GOP Senators Want?
The GOP proposal Focuses heavily on accelerating vaccine delivery, allocating $ 160 billion to this effort. This largely mirrors Biden’s plan, although the president’s overall immunization plan is closer to $ 400 billion, including significantly more money for reopening schools and building a health workforce.
Things diverge even more from there.
The Republican plan would fund additional weekly unemployment insurance of $ 300 through June (Biden’s plan includes weekly unemployment payments of $ 400 through September). The Republican plan calls for stimulus checks of $ 1,000, but only for people who earn a maximum of $ 50,000 a year as a single person and $ 100,000 a year as a couple. (Biden’s plan would send $ 1,400 in stimulus checks to anyone making less than $ 75,000 individually and $ 150,000 as a couple – Democrats, who campaigned on that amount, insisted that it be included in any final bill).
Many Democrats wonder if those Republicans see their figure of $ 618 billion as the bottom or top of talks with Biden. Vox reached out to five Republican offices to ask if Senators saw the number as a starting point in negotiations or if they would stand firm on the number. At the time of going to press, no office had responded; in a Friday interview with Vox, however, Murkowski appeared to suggest an opening to go higher.
“I want to find a way to be useful there,” Murkowski told Vox on Friday. “A lot of people say it’s $ 1.9 trillion or nothing. Can we agree that 80% is better than 100%? For some it isn’t, and I think that’s part of what we’re seeing right now.
It is not yet clear to what extent the Democrats are ready to take 80% in the name of bipartisanship when they could have 100% if they push alone. But Democratic leaders will still have a chance to weigh in on the issue, the White House said.
Biden meets with this group of Republican senators in the White House before having a face-to-face meeting with top Democratic leaders in the Congressional leadership like Pelosi and Schumer, although Psaki noted that Biden was in regular communication with these two. -the.
“They have been in very close contact with the president directly and members of the senior team,” Psaki told reporters. “There will definitely be Democrats who will be part of the conversations here in the White House.”
GOP tests whether Biden wants bipartisanship more than a bold bill
President Biden can either pass his $ 1.9 trillion relief bill through a party vote or be bipartisan. He probably can’t have both.
Biden’s White House has repeatedly said it is open to a “conversation” about his proposal and is ready to hear “adjustments” and recommendations to improve the bill. What is less clear is whether the president is prepared to reduce the scope and ambition of his proposal – especially the $ 1.9 trillion price tag.
“I’m sure they would be very happy to work with us if we were to go along with everything they came up with,” Senator Mitt Romney told Vox last week. “How willing they are to work with us if we have some ideas on rollback and maybe two pieces of legislation, or maybe adjusting some things, that’s something they should respond to.”
Already, Biden’s White House has made it clear that it is not breaking Biden’s package into several pieces. And while Biden is open to reducing the total number of his plan, Psaki has poured cold water on the idea that he will cut it down to $ 600 billion – repeatedly claiming the president believes that there is more danger in Congress of doing too little than too much.
There may be room for Biden to meet the Republicans in the middle, but it remains to be seen whether the two sides are digging their heels or are ready to give and take. Republicans warned that if there was no room for a compromise on Biden’s first-ever legislative priority, it could wreak havoc on negotiations over the president’s next stimulus package – which will likely contain an infrastructure component .
“If we move towards reconciliation next week, I wonder what signal this sends to those of us who want to try and come up with solutions that may not be 100% solutions but 80% solutions. “Murkowski told Vox.
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