Ten Republican senators announced on Sunday January 31 that they had offered Joe Biden an alternative economic aid plan of $ 600 billion. “An alternative bill to the emergency rescue project, capable of garnering bipartisan support”, explains on Twitter Susan Collins, Senator from Maine who represents the centrist wing of the Republican Party. Details of the alternative plan will be released on Monday, the signatories added.
The new Democratic administration wants to vote very soon for its $ 1.9 billion rescue plan to get the country out of the economic slump caused by the pandemic due to Covid-19. But the Republicans are fiercely opposed to this gigantic amount which will further increase the debt and the budget deficit of the United States.
A counter-proposal to nearly 600 billion dollars
In the letter sent Sunday, signed in particular by Mitt Romney, ex-candidate for the White House, and the senator of Ohio Rob Portman, the elected Republicans do not mention the amount of their plan but they argue that “Billions of dollars from previous aid plans against Covid have not been used”.
One of the signatories, Bill Casidy, told Fox News Sunday that the counter-proposal would amount to around $ 600 billion. He estimated that the money spent on reopening schools could be reduced. According to him, opening public schools is not linked to a problem of money, but to teachers who do not “Don’t want to come back to work”.
In addition to the amount being too high, Republicans want a separate vote on doubling the amount of the federal minimum wage, currently at $ 7.25 an hour, a provision which is included in Joe Biden’s plan.
While Democrats have been hammering for months that it is necessary to think big, this proposal seems to have little chance of being accepted.
Joe Biden open for discussion
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki responded that Joe Biden invited signatories to the letter to meet with him on Monday to discuss their plan. But “With the virus posing a serious threat to the country and grim economic conditions for so many people, the need for action is urgent, and the scale of what needs to be done is considerable”, she said in a statement.
White House economic adviser Brian Deese, for his part, insisted that the new White House host was “Open to ideas” and discussion, on CNN television. But he hammered on various media that the priority was to pass the plan now, because the poorest and most fragile Americans could not wait.
Sunday, the signatory Republicans, including the centrist Lisa Murkowski, said they wanted “Work in good faith (…) to meet the health, economic and societal challenges of the crisis”.
By revealing the details of his plan on January 14, Joe Biden had made it clear that he intended to obtain the approval of Congress by the beginning of February. Faced with reluctance from Republicans, the Biden administration hinted this week that it could use a legislative device that would allow the text to be approved by a simple majority. Democrats have a majority in both houses but a very short head in the Senate.
