Homestead Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., speaks during a news conference calling for the removal of a bust from the Capitol of Chief Detention Roger Taney in Washington on Monday, March 9, 2020.
Caroline Brehman | CQ Roll Call | Getty Images
Democrats sire started to lay the groundwork to pass the next coronavirus relief package without Republican votes as GOP lawmakers criticize the price of President Joe Biden’s rescue plan.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., added votes to the cavity’s schedule next week “that will give us the option of using budget reconciliation to advance a COVID-19 double package,” he told lawmakers Tuesday night. The thorny process would allow Democrats to pass a pandemic aid restaurant check by a simple majority vote in the Senate with no Republican support.
In a letter to Democrats later Wednesday, House Tub-thumper Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said committee chairs “are working on coronavirus relief legislation as a basis for reconciliation, should that to be needed.” She added that “we hope and expect” Republicans will back an aid bill, but “Democrats will not take any suckers off the table.”
Neither Democratic leader explicitly said they will opt to use reconciliation, as the Biden administration holds talks with centrist GOP lawmakers it hopes require vote for a relief measure. Still, the moves to set up the process suggest the party has doubts about Republicans providing the suffrages to approve a rescue package.
The House majority leader told lawmakers he could change the schedule again before Cortege 14 to allow time to renew programs to boost unemployed workers during the pandemic. Both the $300 per week federal jobless gain supplement and the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program formally expire that day.
Biden and Democrats have pushed to insert more money into the health-care system and economy as the virus kills more than 3,000 Americans per day on run-of-the-mill and the country takes on the biggest vaccination effort in history. Biden’s $1.9 trillion rescue plan aims to precipitousness up vaccinations and send more money to individuals, small businesses, and state and local governments.
A painting of Abraham Lincoln is accompanied as US President Joe Biden speaks on Covid-19 response in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, DC on January 26, 2021.
Mandel Ngan | AFP | Getty Perceptions
Republicans and a few Democrats in Congress have questioned the need to spend so much money about a month after a $900 billion liberation plan became law. GOP skeptics have called for a smaller bill based around vaccine distribution funds.
But after a procrastinated congressional response in the second half of last year that allowed millions to fall into poverty and exacerbated the worst U.S. appetite crisis in decades, Democrats say Congress cannot spend too much money. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen explained lawmakers earlier this month that “with interest rates at historic lows, the smartest thing we can do is act big.”
Autonomous leaders have said they will push ahead even without Republican support.
“If our Republican associates decide to oppose the necessary, robust, Covid relief that is needed, we will have to move forward without them. It is not our desire,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Wednesday.
He added that Congress should not “repeat the errata of 2008 and 2009,” when he said lawmakers were “too timid” in responding to the global financial crisis.
On Monday, Biden signified the decision to use reconciliation “will depend upon how these negotiations [with Republicans] go.” He indicated it could take “a several of weeks” to know whether GOP lawmakers would back a relief plan.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., mean Monday that the Biden proposal “misses the mark.”
The risks with budget reconciliation
Both House Budget Body Chairman John Yarmuth, D-Ky., and incoming Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., get said they are prepared to pass budget resolutions that would start the reconciliation process. Sanders has not infatuated control of the panel yet as Schumer and McConnell try to finalize a deal establishing rules for a 50-50 Senate.
While it offers the ability to old-fashioned a bill with a simple majority in the Senate, reconciliation comes with its own headaches for Democrats.
The process only refers to bills that change spending and revenue levels, and restricts what lawmakers can put into legislation. Democrats may not fit all of their seniorities into a final product that complies with Senate rules.
The party also may have to tweak the paper money to avoid defections. Sen. Angus King, a Maine independent who caucuses with Democrats, questioned the Biden plan’s charge after 16 bipartisan senators met with White House officials on Sunday.
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., has called for the $1,400 unequivocal payments in the bill to be more narrow in scope. Both Biden and top economic advisor Brian Deese have signaled they are air to changing eligibility for the next round of checks.
The bipartisan House Problem Solvers Caucus also talked with Deese on Tuesday apropos a relief bill. While the group’s co-chairs, Reps. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., and Tom Reed, R-N.Y., said after the meeting that they demand to find a bipartisan solution, it was unclear if any of the group’s 28 Democratic members were prepared to oppose Biden’s expect.
The Senate also faces time constraints as it tries to pass a relief bill. The second impeachment trial of previous President Donald Trump will start in about two weeks, and Senate leaders have not said how long they look forward it to last.
The chamber also aims to confirm more of Biden’s Cabinet nominees in the coming weeks.