SENATORS INTRODUCE STIMULUS PLAN
Bipartisan group hopes aid package breaks stalemate
A bipartisan group of senators introduced a coronavirus aid proposal worth about $908 billion on Tuesday, aiming to break a months-long impasse over providing emergency federal relief to the economy and the ongoing pandemic response.
The new plan came amid a f lurry of congressional jostling about the shape of economic relief, with House Democrats assembling a new proposal, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., creating a new plan, and President-elect Joe Biden calling for a massive government response.
Congress has faced increasing pressure to approve additional economic aid since talks between the White House and House Democrats collapsed, first over the summer and then again in the fall ahead of the Nov. 3 election.
While the negotiations among leadership and the administration were stuck, senators in both parties worked together for weeks on a proposal that could break the log jam.
Several centrist senators — including Joe Manchin, DW.Va., Mark Warner, D-Va., Bill Cassidy, R-La., Mitt Romney, R-Utah, and Susan Collins, R-Maine — held a news conference Tuesday morning to push their proposal as a template for legislation that could pass Con
gress as the economy faces increasing strain from a winter surge in coronavirus cases.
“Our action to provide emergency relief is needed now more than ever before. The people need to know we are not going to leave until we get something accomplished,” Manchin said, f lanked by about a half-dozen lawmakers at the Capitol. “I’m committed to seeing this through.”
McConnell disclosed Tuesday that senior Republicans received a new co
ronavirus relief offer from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., on Monday night. Democratic aides declined to disclose details of their offer, and Schumer called it a “private proposal to help us move the ball forward.”
Senate Republican leaders, though, circulated a slimmer plan Tuesday that would be opposed by Democrats. The measure includes a liability shield for businesses and more small-busi
ness assistance. It would provide short-term, limited jobless aid but no additional funding for state and local governments or help for cash-strapped transit agencies.
The plan represented a conservative turn from the Senate Republican leader after the electoral defeat of President Donald Trump, who had pushed the GOP to support more spending before the election.
In September, McConnell pushed a federal supplement of unemploy
ment benefits of $300 per week.
The latest proposal from his office would for about one month extend base unemployment benefits and a program for gig workers and independent contractors, but would otherwise not provide supplemental federal unemployment benefits. A spokesman for McConnell did not immediately respond to a question about the change.
The McConnell bill also reintroduces a Republican plan to allow diners to claim a tax deduction on their meal expenditures, a provision pushed by the business lobby but viewed skeptically by economists and some Republicans.
“We just don’t have time to waste time. We have a couple of weeks left here,” McConnell said. “Obviously, it does require bipartisan support to get out of Congress, but it requires a presidential signature.”
By contrast, the plan circulated by the bipartisan group of senators is light on details but seeks to reach a middle ground.
It would provide $300 a week in federal unemployment benefits for about four months — a lower amount than the $600 per week Democrats sought, while still offering substantial relief to tens of millions of jobless Americans.
The agreement includes $160 billion in funding for state and local governments, a key Democratic priority opposed by most Republicans, as well as a temporary moratorium on some coronavirus-related lawsuits against firms and other entities — a key Republican priority that most Democrats oppose.
The measure also includes funding for small businesses, schools, health care, transit authorities and student loans, among other measures.
Aides close to the effort described details as f luid and subject to change. Few outside the group of Senate negotiators endorsed their proposal on Tuesday, with some Republican senators complaining that the $908 billion cost was too steep.