GOP shrinks virus relief
$700B aid package comes amid impasse
WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans on Tuesday proposed a substantially scaled-back stimulus plan to provide federal aid to unemployed workers, schools, farmers, the Postal Service and small businesses, announcing a vote this week whose primary purpose was to try to foist blame on Democrats for a continuing stalemate.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky presented the measure as senators returned to Washington after a summer break that saw no progress in talks between top Democrats and White House officials on a recovery package to address the pandemic and the recession.
The measure presented Tuesday, crafted after weeks of daily conference calls with senators and top administration officials, would provide up to $700 billion, Republican aides said. But about half of that money would come from repurposing funding already approved by Congress in the stimulus law enacted in March.
The legislation — immediately rejected by Democrats as an inadequate response to the crisis — slashes by hundreds of billions of dollars the $1 trillion proposal Republicans initially had offered in negotiations, and is a fraction of the $2.2 trillion Democrats have said is necessary.
But McConnell, who has struggled to navigate divisions within his party over the scope of any additional federal aid, made clear he would force action on the doomed package, if only to escalate political pressure on Democrats to accept a much smaller plan than they have been willing to agree to.
“I will make sure every Senate Democrat who has said they’d like to reach an agreement gets the opportunity to walk the walk,” he said Tuesday.
The bill is likely to fail on a test
vote planned for Thursday — it would need 60 votes to advance — with Democrats opposed and the potential for some Republican defections.
Even before Republicans released the text of the bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York declared that it was “laden with poison pills Republicans know Democrats would never support.”
The impasse amounts to a fraught political situation for both parties less than two months before the November election, with millions still unemployed and the pandemic continuing to spread with no promise of relief from Congress.
Since lawmakers left Washington in early August, millions of Americans have filed new unemployment claims, wildfires and devastating storms have ravaged the country, schools have struggled to safely reopen, and states have begun carrying out a series of budget cuts to remain solvent.
And Congress soon must confront the annual lapse in government funding at the end of the month, although both lawmakers and administration officials have voiced support for a stopgap bill that would keep the government functioning through the November election.
“I’m optimistic in the next two weeks that the pressure and the voice of the American people will start to have an impact on members of Congress,” Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, said Tuesday on Fox Business Network.
Moderate lawmakers in both chambers, particularly those facing difficult re-election challenges, are growing increasingly anxious over the gridlock and are eager to persuade voters that Congress is addressing the toll of the pandemic, a dynamic that Republicans hope will help pressure Democrats to lower their spending demands.
While House Democrats approved a $3.4 trillion measure in May, Pelosi in recent days has told Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin that Democrats would be willing to accept a package of $2.2 trillion.
Mnuchin, for his part, has signaled that the administration might be willing to accept up to a $1.5 trillion package.
It’s unclear if Republicans will unite behind the measure.
Fiscal hawks are reluctant to embrace more spending after an infusion of nearly $3 trillion this spring, and the Congressional Budget Office said government debt had ballooned in fiscal 2020 and nearly outpaced the size of the economy.
“Senators will not be voting on whether this targeted package satisfies every one of their legislative hopes and dreams,” McConnell said. “That’s not what we do in this chamber. We vote on whether to make laws.”
But Democrats on Tuesday dismissed McConnell’s challenge, with top leaders calling the measure “emaciated” and doing little to address the longterm effect of the pandemic on the nation’s economy.
“What they have is so meager that it insults the intelligence of the American people,” Pelosi told Bloomberg TV. “We know we have to negotiate in order to reach an agreement. We all want an agreement, make no mistake about that. But get serious.”