The US House on Wednesday passed a budget resolution that would pave the way for President Joe Biden’s $ 1.9 trillion coronavirus stimulus bill to be approved by a majority vote.
Although the budget resolution triggered a procedure known as reconciliation and allowed Congressional Democrats to approve the stimulus without Republican votes, Biden and the Democrats who met the president on Wednesday said they still wanted to win the Republican Party’s membership.
“While he supports bipartisanship, he also understands that there is a great urgency to do so,” US Senator Robert Menendez told NJ Advance Media after a 90-minute meeting with Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Democratic committee chairs. Senate like him. “Yes, we would love to have Republicans, but not at the cost of doing something big and bold.”
One area of commitment could be to reduce stimulus payments by $ 1,400. Under the current proposal, some families earning more than $ 400,000 could receive a check.
“Another segmentation does not mean the size of the check, but the level of income of the people receiving the check, and that is something that has been discussed,” said White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki. “There was no conclusion, but he is certainly open to have this discussion.”
US Senator Chris Coons said the matter was raised during an hour-long meeting with Delaware Democratic senators Tom Carper and Biden, who used to represent the state in the Senate.
“We had a conversation about direct payments and how they can be modified to ensure they are targeted, but President Biden was clear to us and our caucuses that he will not forget the middle class,” said Coons.
“He is not going to give up on a real commitment he made, not only in Georgia, but nationally, to provide targeted help to the neediest Americans.”
Psaki said he expected changes to the bill before Biden converted it into law.
“The president, having served in the Senate for 36 years, fully recognizes that the bill he proposed, that he gave a prime-time speech two weeks ago, may not look exactly like the bill that comes out,” she said in Wednesday. daily press briefing.
One possible deal would be to provide a total of $ 1,400 only to individuals who earn no more than $ 50,000 and couples who earn no more than $ 100,000, the Washington Post reported. The current proposal sets the limits at $ 75,000 for individuals and $ 150,000 for couples.
A Quinnipiac University survey released on Wednesday revealed that 78% of Americans supported $ 1,400 stimulus payments, with only 18% in opposition. Republicans supported direct payments, 64% to 32%.
“Struggling to pay the bills, American families need a cash injection and they need it now,” said Quinnipiac research analyst Tim Malloy. “So give it to them, it’s the public’s resounding judgment.”
The survey of 1,075 American adults was conducted from January 28 to February 28. 1 and had a margin of error of +/- 3 percentage points.
Biden has already rejected a proposal by 10 Senate Republicans to cut the package by more than two-thirds to $ 618 billion.
Democrats still carry the scars of 2009, when their stimulus bill in response to the Great Recession was cut to attract Republican support. Biden was vice president at the time, and limited spending resulted in a warmer recovery.
“History teaches us that failing to do more created more economic suffering,” said Menendez.
The Republican Party package also eliminated Biden’s $ 350 billion federal aid proposal to help state and local governments pay the salaries of health workers, teachers and other public officials. Menendez called the money an “absolute necessity” and Coons considered any effort to pass a bill without state and local aid an “impossibility to start”.
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The House’s vote, largely along the lines of the party, was 218-212. The Senate plans to debate the bill starting on Thursday.
Congressional Republicans complained that the stimulus would increase the deficit, although they used the same process in 2017 to pass a tax law that the Congressional Budget Office said would increase the deficit by the same $ 1.9 trillion as Biden’s proposal.
Representative Jason Smith of Missouri, the top Republican on the House Budget Committee, used the debate to attack Governor Phil Murphy and New Jersey in response to Representative Frank Pallone Jr., D-6th Dist., Who said the plan Biden “Provides bold relief to the American people” and “deserves strong bipartisan support here in the Chamber”.
Smith said New Jersey received $ 9.5 billion in “taxpayer bailouts” and would receive another $ 9.5 billion from the stimulus plan.
“That same government has enacted blocking policies that have led directly to the closure of more than 3,000 small businesses and this state, unfortunately, has the highest per capita mortality rate of all states,” he said.
As New Jersey was one of the hardest hit at the start of the pandemic, it is true that its coronavirus mortality rate remains the highest in the country. And it is true that about a third of the state’s small businesses have been closed.
“New Jersey is the densest state in the country and was one of the first states to be affected by the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Murphy’s spokeswoman, Alyana Alfaro. “Since the beginning of the pandemic, Governor Murphy has taken decisive steps to protect the lives of as many New Jerseyers as possible, while responsibly reducing restrictions and ensuring our state’s economic health.”
In addition, New Jersey received only $ 2.4 billion under the CARES Act and would have received $ 8 billion under the proposed stimulus bill in December until state and local assistance was withdrawn from the final bill.
Smith did not respond to a request for comment on how he got to the numbers.
In 2019, his state of Missouri received $ 23.6 billion more from Washington than it paid in federal taxes, the 14th largest of the 50 states, while New Jersey received $ 10.3 billion less, ranking 49th, according to the Rockefeller Institute of Government at New York State University.
Jonathan D. Salant can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @JDSalant.
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