- Biden said he would support the provision of a stimulus test for individuals earning up to $ 75,000 a year.
- This comes as more Democrats have criticized efforts to curb revenue barriers, including first-year Democratic senators from Georgia.
- Biden suggested he was still in touch with Republicans from the Senate as committees began writing legislation this week.
- Visit the Insider Business Department for more stories.
President Joe Biden on Tuesday cast his support behind the initial legislation by House Democrats that would maintain the $ 75,000-a-year revenue threshold for stimulus tests after proposals to lower it sparked opposition from many Democrats.
Biden met with several business leaders in the Oval Office to discuss and continue to raise support for its $ 1.9 billion emergency spending package. Early polls suggest it is popular with a strong majority of the American public.
The event included top executives such as Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase; Doug McMillion, CEO of Walmart; Sonia Syngal, CEO of GAP; and Tom Donahue of the Chamber of Commerce. Vice President Kamala Harris and Janet Yellen, Treasury Secretary, also attended.
The president kicked off the meeting by indicating that the White House is exchanging papers with the Republicans of the Senate and trying to determine the community areas between them. He then asked questions about the indictment hearing of former President Donald Trump and the suitability for stimulus, as talks began in earnest.
He replied with a simple ‘yes’ when asked by reporters about maintaining the thresholds for stimulus testing at existing levels. White House press secretary Jen Psaki also indicated Tuesday that the White House supports the move.
The comment comes when House Democrats rejected efforts to tighten the revenue thresholds for new wave stimulus controls. Some centrist Democrats pushed for a plan to tighten the barriers, but it led to an outcry from lawmakers like Senator Bernie Sanders, as well as Georgia’s first Democratic senators campaigning for $ 2,000 checks.
House Democrats on Monday night unveiled the initial legislation that would earn $ 1,400 checks to individuals of up to $ 75,000 and couples up to $ 150,000. These are the same parameters that the president set out in his rescue package last month.
However, the payments will be limited to a lower threshold for higher earners to limit who can get a direct payment. The House Democratic plan will phase it out for singles earning more than $ 100,000 and couples earning more than $ 200,000.
Biden’s plan includes $ 1,400 stimulus checks, $ 400 federal unemployment benefits through September, a larger child tax credit and aid to state and local governments, among others. The House Democratic version of the plan would reduce a month of improved unemployment insurance.
Committees will spend the next two weeks drafting the legislation so that additional changes are still possible before the final bill reaches the House floor. Democrats use the conciliation process, a maneuver that allows legislation to remove the Senate by a simple majority of 51 votes, instead of the 60 normally required to ward off a filibuster.
A group of ten Senate Republicans led by Senator Susan Collins of Maine proposed a $ 618 billion benchmark earlier this month. Democrats panned it because they argued it would provide scant federal aid. However, the group sent a letter to the White House on Thursday stating that they were ‘committed to working in two ways’.
Asked about the state of the two-day emergency relief talks Tuesday, Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, one of the Republicans in the group, told Insider “we are exchanging letters.” He did not specify further and his office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Republicans are strongly opposed to the aid package, arguing that it is a large amount of unorthodox spending. Rep. Kevin Brady, the best Republican on the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, criticized Democratic efforts to circumvent Republicans over pandemic relief.
“We need to focus on destroying the virus and rebuilding our economy,” Brady said in a statement. “Unfortunately, the bill we tabled at this late hour does not fit that attempt, and Democrats are pushing for a nearly $ 2 trillion bill without a two-way compromise.
Republicans also used the process to bypass Democrats. In 2017, Brady chaired the committee that helped implement GOP tax legislation without any Democratic support.