Pine State News

Republicans have expressed willingness in supporting a stimulus package that will cost more than the $618 billion package they proposed on Feb. 1 but the White House is not willing to come down from $1.9 trillion, GOP senators said.

“We are looking at amendments but they pretty much stalled. The administration has not indicated a willingness to come down from its $1.9 trillion figure and that’s a major obstacle,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) told reporters at the U.S. Capitol in Washington as reported by The Epoch Times.

“We have indicated a willingness to come up from our $618 billion, but unfortunately the White House seems wedded to a figure that really can’t be justified given the hundreds of billions of dollars that are still in the pipeline from the December bill.”

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) also told reporters that “there’s been very little effort on the part of the White House to meet with us and to see if we can find a middle ground, a common ground of some kind.”

Republicans want to cut out the $15 minimum wage hike, a less expensive round of direct payments, and they want an unemployment supplement that would last until June, as opposed to September, thereby cutting costs. Ten Republicans, including Collins and Romney have come up with a counterproposal that cuts the Democrats' package by almost two thirds.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Democrats keep moving with a partisan approach.

“You know the history, but it’s worth recounting that every COVID package we passed last year, there was almost no opposition to those bills,” McConnell said, The Epoch Times reported. “And I was hoping the new administration, particularly given the president, particularly with the president discussing so frequently being a moderate, would choose to take a different path. Particularly when you look at the numbers, a 50/50 Senate, a narrow majority in the House, I would think looking at that, your conclusion would be maybe we ought to start on a bipartisan basis. But alas that is not the case.”

Some Democrats are also against Biden's proposed bill. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) for example wants a minimum wage hike to $11 not $15. Democrats control both chambers of Congress and to pass an amendment in the Senate, Republicans would need at least one Democrat to take their side.