The Week
Biden’s team is reportedly surprised Republicans don’t see the political upsides of backing a big COVID-19 bill
The politics of COVID-19 spending laws is difficult. President Biden and former President Donald Trump, who do not agree on a lot, each pushed to get $2,000 direct funds to most People this winter, and the Republican governor of West Virginia is backing Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 aid bundle whereas his state’s Democratic senator, Joe Manchin, favors a smaller bundle. The White Home is privately assembly with a bunch of Senate Republicans who proposed a $618 billion various bundle, The Related Press studies, whilst Biden and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen reject that quantity as inadequate and urge Democrats to go massive and go rapidly. Biden and his advisers “publicly tout the virtues of bipartisan collaboration,” however “they are not pollyannaish about it,” Sam Stein studies at Politico. “They know there isn’t a current historical past to recommend any such collaboration is coming.,” however “contained in the White Home there’s nonetheless some shock that Republicans at present aren’t extra enthusiastic about working with them on COVID aid. Not as a result of they imagine Republicans philosophically help the invoice, however as a result of there are clear political incentives for them to take action.” Biden and his aides have famous repeatedly that simply because the price range reconciliation course of would permit Democrats to go a lot of the $1.9 trillion bundle with out Republican help, Republicans can nonetheless vote for the bundle. If Democrats go the price range reconciliation route, the ten Senate Republicans can both “oppose the measure with out with the ability to cease it or work to form it, pledge to vote for it, and get credit score for the goodies inside it,” Stein studies. “Put one other means: Republicans might vote for a invoice that features billions of {dollars} of assist for states, large quantities of money for vaccine distribution, and $1,400 stimulus verify for many People. Or they might oppose it on grounds that the worth tag is simply too steep, or the minimal wage hike is simply too excessive, or the method too rushed.” And in the event that they do this, a senior administration official instructed Stein, “they will get no credit score” for these $1,400 checks. Democrats solely have the party-line possibility as a result of they unexpectedly gained each Senate seats in a Georgia runoff election, Stein notes, and one political “lesson from that episode is, fairly bluntly: It is higher to be on the facet of giving individuals cash.” Trump understood that. Time will inform what Senate Republicans will resolve. Extra tales from theweek.comStephen Bannon, pardoned by Trump, could now be charged over the identical scheme in New YorkDemocrats could solely have one likelihood to cease America from changing into a one-party stateMarjorie Taylor Greene is getting precisely what she desires