President Joe Biden and Democratic congressional leaders must decide whether to break the administration’s $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief proposal into pieces after a scaled-down Republican plan emerged.
The $600 billion GOP proposal offered to the president by 10 Republican senators on Sunday provides the potential to move a bipartisan bill that includes components from the Biden proposal, including funding for coronavirus vaccines and testing, and unemployment assistance.
Democrats could still aim to enact the president’s other items, such as state and local government aid and a minimum-wage increase, separately—although they could lose the leverage that attachment to more direct Covid-19 aid funding would provide.
Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are scheduled to meet with the Republican senators at the White House Monday at 5 p.m. to discuss their alternative proposal, which they outlined in a letter Sunday. The president extended the invitation on Sunday during a conversation with Maine Senator Susan Collins, one of the letter’s authors, and asked the group “for a full exchange of views,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement.
The president has hoped for a bipartisan stimulus deal since before taking office. At the same time, the GOP plan is far short of what Biden wants, and Democrats could pursue the rest of the Biden proposal using a partisan budget tool. Democratic leaders have prepared the ground for legislative action this week that uses that special procedure, called reconciliation.
‘Unity’ Spirit
“In the spirit of bipartisanship and unity, we have developed a Covid-19 relief framework that builds on prior Covid assistance laws, all of which passed with bipartisan support,” the Republican senators wrote in the letter dated Sunday.
The senators said they plan to unveil their plan on Monday, but offered some details, including a proposal for direct stimulus checks of up to $1,000, on Sunday talk shows. The group includes senators considered centrist, like Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, but more conservative Republicans as well.
Having 10 Republicans on board is significant because that’s the number to reach 60 votes in the Senate to pass bills under normal procedures, assuming the chamber’s 50 Democrats would be on board.
Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, one of the 10 senators, said on “Fox News Sunday” that the proposal comes to “about $600 billion” and is “very targeted.”
The group said in their letter that they’re in favor of $160 billion for virus control measure and for some form of more targeted direct stimulus checks.