Toomey opposes new aid proposal, citing $900B stimulus passed in Dec.
WASHINGTON — Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., said he opposed the $618 billion COVID-19 relief counteroffer unveiled by a group of 10 of his Republican colleagues in the U.S. Senate as those lawmakers held an Oval Office meeting Monday with President Joe Biden on the proposal.
“It looks to me like a whole lot more of what we just did,” Mr. Toomey said in an interview with CNBC on Monday morning. “We passed a trillion-dollar spending bill . ... So why do we need, literally weeks later, to come back and do it all over again? I don’t get that. Most of this money hasn’t even really been spent yet. I just don’t think there’s a good case for redoing this.”
The GOP proposal was framed as a bipartisan compromise deal with Democrats and Mr. Biden, who have demanded a $1.9 trillion package.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Monday the president intended to stick to his original proposal but wanted to foster discussion.
“There is obviously a big gap between $600 billion and $1.9 trillion,” Ms. Psaki said. “I don’t believe any of us are mathematicians, but clearly the amount needs to be closer to what he proposed than smaller.”
Ms. Psaki pointed to comments on Monday from West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, a Republican, who urged Congress to extend COVID-19 relief.
In a CNN interview, Mr. Justice said he knows “a lot of people in West Virginia that are still struggling with paying their power bill because they got laid off because this pandemic just swept their job away from them.”
Mr. Justice added: “What we need to do is we need to understand that trying to be, per se, fiscally responsible at this point in time, with what we’ve got going on in this country — if we actually throw away some money right now, so what?”
Mr. Toomey, who has generally opposed sweeping spending packages, made it clear he does not support his colleagues’ plan. He argued the U.S. economy was on an upward trajectory and that the specific sectors that are ailing had already been helped by previous relief bills.
“The economy is in a totally different place than it was in nine months ago, when we were in a free fall,” Mr. Toomey said.
“Now we’re in a really strong growth mode where we have isolated sectors that are really hurting — transportation and hospitality and the restaurant sector, those folks,” Mr. Toomey said. “The new round of [forgivable smallbusiness] loans is designed to be very conducive to those sectors. I don’t think President Biden has made the case” for further aid.
Mr. Toomey also expressed skepticism that the hiccups in the COVID-19 vaccine rollout were due to a lack of money.
“If it turns out that right now, an obstacle is money, then I’m open to that, absolutely,” Mr. Toomey said. “We’ve put a tremendous amount of money behind this, and it’s not clear to me that that’s the limiting factor right now.”
Mr. Toomey has been in the thick of COVID-19 relief talks before.
In December, he successfully pressed for the closure of four temporary Federal Reserve lending programs that lawmakers had stood up to assist markets during the pandemic.
Mr. Toomey’s demands — and Democrats’ objections to them — threatened to derail Congress’ race to pass the $900 billion relief aid that extended unemployment benefits, eviction protections and other programs that were due to expire at the end of 2020.
If every Democratic senator joins with each of the 10 GOP lawmakers backing the proposal, the legislation can clear the Senate with the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster. Some Democrats have suggested bypassing the filibuster and passing the bill with the party’s slim majority.