Stimulus update – McConnell blasts Democrats for forcing through $1.9T Covid relief bill without GOP support
SENATE Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has slammed the Democrats for forcing through their $1.9 trillion Covid relief bill without Republican support.
Biden turned down a stimulus deal with Republicans that would see $1000 checks paid out, asserting that he would “not settle for a package that fails to meet the moment”.
McConnell said the Democrats’ move to push his package through without GOP support was a “totally partisan path”, adding “that’s unfortunate”.
In order to push through the relief package without GOP support, Biden had used a tactic called budget reconciliation, the Associated Press reported.
In the currently 50-50 divided senate, newly elected Vice President Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking 51st vote to give the Dems the majority.
Ordinarily, a supermajority of 60 was needed to break a filibuster.
Budget reconciliation was a way of bringing legislation to the Senate floor that would lower the voting bar and avoid the prospect of the opposing party killing it via the filibuster.
McConnell’s criticism targeted the same mechanism that he used to pass the 2017 tax cuts. The sweeping cuts in 2017 formed a centrepiece of President Trump’s term.
McConnell’s jab came across as an attempt to cast doubt on the calls for unity and bipartisanship that frequently came up in Biden’s inauguration speech, Business Insider reported.
The incoming president had already issued a flurry of executive orders – a unilateral move which cut out dealmaking with the opposing party.
Democrats voted to push through $1,400 stimulus checks in the $1.9trillion Covid relief bill without support from Republicans.
They had pitched a slimmed down $618 billion proposal that’s a fraction of the $1.9 trillion he is seeking.
During talks with the House caucus on Wednesday, President Biden reportedly spoke for about eight minutes.
In regards to stimulus checks, Biden insisted he would not break a promise to Americans and revealed he is not “married to a specific number.”
He reportedly told caucus: “We can make compromises on several of the programs” and stressed the importance of Covid aid being decided on quickly.
On Wednesday morning, the president wrote to Twitter: “No one should lose their home in the middle of this pandemic.
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“My American Rescue Plan will extend the moratorium on evictions and foreclosures and provide emergency relief to those who need it.”
Biden’s comments come one day after he made a virtual appearance at the Senate Democrats’ weekly luncheon ahead of the vote, in which he revealed the details of his two-hour meeting with GOP senators.
“He said that he told Senate Republicans that the $600billion dollars that they proposed was way too small,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said after the lunch.