Bipartisan deal near on COVID-19 aid package
Price tag whittled from $15.6B billion to $10B
WASHINGTON – Lawmakers moved to the brink Thursday of shaking hands on a bipartisan compromise to provide a fresh $10 billion to combat COVID-19, a deal that could set up final congressional approval next week.
The price tag was a reduction from an earlier $15.6 billion agreement between the two parties that fell apart weeks ago after House Democrats rejected cuts in pandemic aid to states to help pay for it. Leaders are hoping to move the package through Congress quickly.
The effort, which would finance steps like vaccines, treatments and tests, comes as President Joe Biden and other Democrats have warned the government is running out of money to counter the pandemic.
“We’ve reached an agreement in principle on all the spending and all of the offsets,” Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, the lead Republican bargainer, told reporters, using Washington-speak for savings. “It’s entirely balanced by offsets.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., was more circumspect.
“We are getting close to a final agreement that would garner bipartisan support,” he said on the Senate floor. He said lawmakers were still finalizing the bill’s components and language, and awaiting a cost estimate from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-wash., chair of the Senate health committee and another bargainer, said, “I’m hoping,” when asked about Romney’s assessment.
Many Republicans have been willing to go along with the new expenditures but have insisted on paying for it with unspent funds from previous bills Congress has enacted to address the pandemic. In early March, Biden had requested $22.5 billion in new COVID-19 spending, an amount lawmakers gradually whittled down as they negotiated over how to finance it.
Leaders hope Congress can approve the legislation before lawmakers leave for a spring recess after next week.
Republicans have leverage in the Democratic-controlled, 50-50 Senate because 60 votes are needed to pass most major bills. Romney and Sen. Roy Blunt, R-MO., both said they believed a finalized package they described would likely attract significantly more than the 10 GOP votes needed.
Earlier Thursday, Senate Republican Leader Mitch Mcconnell said the measure’s price tag seemed to have fallen to $10 billion and Schumer suggested its cost would fall.
“It’s still kind of a work in progress, but as of late last night, it appeared as if that would be skinnying down from 15 to 10,” Mcconnell, R-KY., said in an interview with Punchbowl News.
Minutes later, Schumer took to the Senate floor and suggested a similar outlook, though he mentioned no figures.
“I’m pleading with my Republican colleagues, join us,” Schumer said. “We want more than you do, but we have to get something done.”
Asked if he thought an agreement could be reached before lawmakers’ recess, Mcconnell said, “We’ll see. Hope so.”