The week
Biden’s team is reportedly surprised that Republicans can not see the political disadvantages of a major COVID-19 bill
The policy of COVID-19 spending legislation is complicated. President Biden and former President Donald Trump, who do not agree on much, have both insisted on getting $ 2,000 direct payments to most Americans this winter, and the Republican governor of West Virginia supports Biden’s $ 1.9 billion COVID assistance package. 19 while his Democratic state senator, Joe Manchin, prefers a smaller package. The White House is meeting privately with a group of Senate Republicans who have proposed an alternative $ 618 billion package, reports The Associated Press, even as Biden and Finance Minister Janet Yellen reject the amount as insufficient and urge Democrats to go big and go fast. Biden and his advisers ‘reveal the virtues of dual cooperation’, but ‘they are not political about it’, reports Sam Stein at Politico. “They know there is no recent history to suggest such a collaboration is coming.” “But” within the White House, there’s another surprise that Republicans are no longer interested in working with them on COVID. Not because they believe Republicans support the bill philosophically, but because there are clear political incentives for them to do so. ”Biden and his assistants repeatedly noted that, just because the budget reconciliation process would enable Democrats to to pass much of the $ 1.9 billion package without Republican support, Republicans can still vote for the package.If Democrats follow the budget reconciliation route, the ten Senate Republicans can either oppose the measure without stopping it , or to work on it, promises to vote for it and get credit for the goodies in it, ‘Stein reports.’ Put another way: Republicans can vote for a bill that billions of dollars’ their p for states include, massive amounts of cash for the distribution of vaccines and a $ 1400 stimulus test for most Americans. Either they can resist it on the grounds that the price is not too steep, or the minimum wage increase is too high, or the process is too fast. “And if they do, a senior administration official told Stein, ‘they get no credit’ for the $ 1400 checks. Democrats only have the party line option because they unexpectedly won both Senate seats in a run-off election in Georgia, Stein says, and one political “lesson from the episode is: it’s better to be on the side of giving people money. ” Trump understood that. Time will tell what the Republicans of the Senate will decide. More stories from theweek.com5 scary cartoons about GOP’s problem with Marjorie Taylor Greene Prosecutors do not know where Kenosha shooter Kyle Rittenhouse is, want to arrest him again Marjorie Taylor Greene gets exactly what she wants