WASHINGTON – Republicans are struggling to persuade voters to oppose President Biden’s $ 1.9 trillion economic rescue plan, which enjoys strong, dual support nationwide, even as it moves through Congress with only democratic support.
Democrats in charge of the House are preparing to approve the package by the end of next week, with the Senate wanting to follow up with its own party vote soon before the unemployment benefits expire in mid-March. The House Budget Committee on Friday unveiled the nearly 600-page text for the proposal, which includes billions of dollars for unemployment benefits, small businesses and stimulus checks.
Republican leaders, who were looking for a way to derail the proposal, led to a final attempt on Friday to defame the package, calling it a ‘payout to progressives’. The bill, according to them, spends too much and contains a liberal wish list of programs such as aid to state and local governments – which they call a ‘blue state rescue’, although many states faced with deficits are controlled by Republicans – and increased benefits for the unemployed, which according to them would discourage people from looking for work.
These attacks followed weeks of various Republican objections to the package, including warnings that it would do little to help the economy recover and grow, that it would contribute to the federal budget deficit and possibly trigger faster inflation, and that Democrats . Biden calls for ‘unity’ by continuing without dual consensus.
The arguments could not be linked so far, in part because many of the key provisions are strong – even with Republicans.
More than 7 out of ten Americans now support Biden’s aid package, according to a new survey by online research firm SurveyMonkey for The New York Times. This includes support from three-quarters independent voters, 2 out of every 5 Republicans and nearly all Democrats. The overall support for the bill is even greater than the vast majority of voters who said in January that they would propose a bill at the end of the year for economic support by President Donald J. Trump.
While Mr. While urging Republican lawmakers to come up with his package, Democrats are pushing their bill through Congress using a parliamentary process that allows them to pass it with only Democratic votes.
“Critics think my plan is too big to cost $ 1.9 billion; it is too much, ”said Mr. Biden said on Friday at an event. “Let me ask them, what would make them cut?”
The Republican leaders of the House urged their members to vote against the plan, citing it as California’s Nancy Pelosi’s Payoff to Progressives Act. They outlined more than a dozen objections to the bill, including “a third round of stimulus checks costing more than $ 422 billion, which includes households that experienced little or no financial loss during the pandemic.” Me. Pelosi’s office issued its own rebuttal shortly afterwards, saying “Americans need help. House republics do not care. ”
Republicans also fought against the process Democrats used to advance the bill, citing dozens of bills the Republicans proposed in various committees, which the Democrats rejected. Last week, top Republican senators in a letter to the Democratic committee leadership complained about plans to circumvent Senate hearings on the House Bill, describing it as ‘outsourcing their own committee hammer to the House’.
The Republican setback is compounded by the continuing economic pain of the pandemic, with millions of Americans still out of work and delaying recovery. It is also hampered by the fact that many of the legislators who object to the proposals of Mr. Biden, supported similar provisions, including direct control to individuals, when Mr. Trump was president.
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“What they’re trying to do is pick individual pieces of it apart,” Massachusetts Democrat Rep. Richard E. Neal and chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee said in an interview. “But I think in general you have to contrast that with how well it is received across the country.”
Some Republican lawmakers and tributaries acknowledge the challenge they face in trying to explain to voters why they objected to the package, especially after agreeing with Democrats earlier in the crisis. Many of the negotiations were controversial and lasted for months; Mr. Biden said he would not wait for Republicans to join, citing the urgency of the economy’s needs.
“We have shown more than five different bills that we can do this together,” said Senator Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican from West Virginia and one of the lawmakers who spoke privately with Mr. Biden met to discuss both economic aid and infrastructure plans. “I think we will have to draw a contrast between what is in it and what does not make sense.”
While it would be a challenge to declare their opposition to voters, for most Republicans it is not an option to support the bill.
“The price is ultimately just as excessively high and contains too many strange things to really get support in the Republican Party.”
The critical criticism is a contrast to the last time a president used the parliamentary move, called budget reconciliation, to make a big proposal: the $ 1.5 billion tax cut package that Mr. Trump and the Republican Republicans accepted in 2017 without any Democratic votes. Shortly before the House’s first hearing on the tax cuts, the Democrats on the Manners and Manners Committee made a plan to label the bill a ‘tax scam’ favoring the rich and powerful, before Republicans called it a could sell blessing to the middle class. .
Mr. Trump’s tax cuts hit the public ballot box, and did little boost to Republican candidates in the next midterm elections in 2018. Republicans have had similar success in recent years through the popularity of signing legislation among Democratic presidents, especially the president of Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act in 2010.
Representative Donald S. Beyer Jr., a Democrat from Virginia, recalls the warning he heard in 2017 from leaders in his party: “Republicans speak well in the headlines, and we’re great to speak in fine print.” Democrats’ ability to pick a sticky message and stick to it in the tax debate was, he said, “one of the few times we were opposed to type”.
Many Republicans remain confident that their attacks will begin to resonate in this debate. A senior Republican aide, speaking on condition of anonymity, said members, with the focus this week on legislation, will continue to highlight provisions that have been seen as a long-standing liberal priority, as well. than the money left over from previous aid packages. Republicans also plan to question whether the new funds will deliver promises to improve the economy and reopen schools.
“I think we do have an obligation to ask questions,” said Representative Tom Reed of New York, one of the moderate Republicans who initially spoke to White House officials to reach a compromise. He predicted that once voters focused on individual terms demonstrating the grandeur and issuance of the package, they would sour over the overall proposal.
“It’s human nature, and I understand it, but can we try to move forward in a much more productive way?” Mr. Reed added, in line with the process in which complaints are already circulating among Republicans in both chambers.
Polls suggest it could be a tough battle for Republicans, as many provisions of the bill are very popular. In the SurveyMonkey poll, 4 out of 5 respondents said it was important for legal aid to include $ 1,400 direct checks, including nearly 7 out of ten Republicans. An equally large group of respondents said it was important to include aid to state and local governments and money for the deployment of vaccines.
They are evenly divided over whether they are more concerned that the plan is too big, which further increases the federal budget deficit or is too small and therefore cannot spur economic growth quickly.
The broken debate over the plan inside and outside Washington was also largely overshadowed by the uproar within the Republican Party itself, where the ghost of Mr. Trump and his accusation of the January 6 Capitol attack grow and threaten to continue the constructive efforts. to concentrate on conservative efforts to make the legislation as overarching and ineffective. (Mr. Trump recently hammered the Republicans this week for not being willing to accept direct payments.)
Given their slim majority in the House and the strict parameters that enable them to avoid the filibuster in the Senate, Democrats can afford little, if any, surplus to bring the legislation to the table of Mr. Send prayers before unemployment benefits begin to expire in March. .
Nicholas Fandos reported.