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Senate Republicans most likely to work with President Joe Biden on a new coronavirus stimulus bill said on Sunday they would back a bill with less than a third of the $ 1.9 trillion it had on Sunday. he proposed for new direct payments of $ 1,400, assistance to state and local governments, and vaccine production and distribution.
The GOP proposal, which will be released on Monday, will cost around $ 600 billion, US Senator Bill Cassidy, R-La., Told “Fox News Sunday.”
While welcoming the GOP’s willingness to negotiate, National Economic Council Director Brian Deese said on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday that the $ 1.9 trillion was “calibrated against of the economic crisis we are facing ”.
“What we really need to focus on now is: what do we need to get this economy back on track and what resources are needed to get there?” he said.
The Republican proposal came out just days before scheduled Democratic votes to stop a GOP filibuster and allow Congress to pass the Biden plan by majority vote.
“The issue is not bipartisanship,” new Senate Budget Committee chairman Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Told ABC’s “This Week”.
“The question is to address the unprecedented crisis we are currently facing. If Republicans want to work with us they have better ideas on how to deal with these crises, that’s great. But, to be honest with you, I haven’t heard that yet, ”Sanders said.
The proposed Republican compromise backed Biden’s proposals for more money for vaccine distribution and aid to small businesses, while apparently excluding the $ 350 billion in state and local aid, a top Democratic priority.
Senate Republicans signing a letter to Biden and requesting to meet with him included Cassidy, Susan Collins of Maine, Mitt Romney of Utah, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who have all worked with Congressional Democrats , including NJ Representative Josh Gottheimer. , D-5th Dist., On a compromise bill on coronavirus spending last December that included direct payments of $ 600.
Their efforts reignited negotiations that led to Congress approval of a $ 900 billion stimulus package in the dying days of the 116th Congress.
“The president’s team did not contact anyone in our group, Democrats or Republican, when they came up with their proposal,” Cassidy said on Fox. “So if you want unity, if you want bipartisanship, you should start with a group that has shown that they are ready to work together for a common solution. They do not have.”
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One area of compromise could be the next round of stimulus checks. Cassidy said Republicans were proposing payments of $ 1,000 to low-income households rather than the $ 1,400 under the current formula that would send checks to some families earning more than $ 400,000.
“Direct checks are designed to put money in the pockets of families who really need it,” Deese told NBC’s “Meet the Press”. “We are certainly prepared to make the elements of this package more effective in achieving this goal.”
Another senator who signed the letter, Rob Portman of Ohio, opposed efforts this week by Democrats in both houses of Congress to pass a budget resolution that would allow them to avoid a systematic obstruction of the Senate. and adopt the COVID-19 package by majority vote according to a known process. as reconciliation.
“What Democrats are talking about doing is using it from the start, without trying to find a bipartisan compromise,” he told CNN.
But Portman voted for two budget resolutions in 2017 that prevented Senate Democrats from filibustering their efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act (which failed by a vote), and which allowed them to ” pass their tax law that capped the federal deduction for state and local taxes. .
Democrats also learned a lesson from President Barack Obama’s administration, when Biden was vice president. An undersized stimulus package, limited in cost to attract Republican support, has been blamed for a lukewarm recovery from the Great Recession.
Then Democrats spent months in a futile attempt to win GOP support for Obama’s health care law, even passing several amendments proposed by Republicans in Congress.
Jonathan D. Salant can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on twitter @JDSalant.
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