Biden sees US Covid relief negotiations lasting two more weeks

WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden said Monday that negotiations with Republicans in Congress over his US$1.9 trillion Covid economic relief plan could take another two weeks, rejecting calls to scale down the proposal.

“I don’t expect we’ll know whether we have an agreement and to what extent the entire package will be able to pass or not pass until we get right down to the very end,” Biden told reporters at the White House.

This “will probably be in a couple of weeks,” he said.

“This is just the process beginning.”

Republicans in Congress are signalling strong reluctance to go along with the Democratic bill, which seeks to boost funding for vaccinations, add US$400 to weekly unemployment benefits, and issue Americans US$1,400 in cash payments.

The bill would come on the heels of a US$900 billion package passed just last month. The Biden administration argues that vastly more funds are still needed to prevent a fragile economy from tipping into a downward spiral.

Referring to suggestions that he could offer the bill piecemeal, allowing Republicans to approve certain parts, Biden said he was “reluctant to cherry pick and take out one or two items here and then have to go through it again.”

“Time is of the essence,” he said.

Democrats control the House of Representatives but have only a one vote majority in the 100seat Senate, forcing Biden to get a chunk of Republican support to get to the required 60 vote majority.

Democrats do have the option of using a procedure called budget reconciliation which would allow them to pass the measure with just a simple majority. But Biden, who campaigned on a promise of unity, has made clear he would prefer to work for cross-party support.

“The decision to use reconciliation will depend upon how these negotiations go,” he said.