Biden and Republicans agree to further Covid
relief talks but deep divisions remain
Ten Republicans met with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris
Monday
President has urged quick action on $1.9tn package
Ed
Pilkington in New York
@edpilkington
Tue 2 Feb
2021 01.41 GMT
Ten
Republican senators have agreed to continue talks with the White House in an
attempt to negotiate a bipartisan coronavirus relief package, after a two-hour
meeting with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on Monday night ended short of a
breakthrough.
The meeting
lasted much longer than expected, providing a visible example of the
president’s stated ambition to reach across the aisle. But the group of
senators who emerged from the Oval Office shortly after 7pm did so
empty-handed.
The leader
of the Republican pack, Susan Collins of Maine, described the meeting with the
president and the vice-president as “excellent”, and “frank and very useful”.
But she was clear about the huge gulf that still exists between Biden’s
proposed $1.9tn package and the alternative posed by the 10 senators, which is
less than a third of that size.
“It was a
very good exchange of views,” Collins told reporters as the meeting came to a
close. “I wouldn’t say that we came together on a package tonight – no one
expected that in a two-hour meeting.”
She added
that they did agree to “follow up and talk further on how we can continue to
work together on this very important issue”.
After the
meeting, the White House put out a statement that bluntly underlined Biden’s
unwillingness to allow his relief efforts to be delayed. “While there were
areas of agreement, the president reiterated his view that Congress must
respond boldly and urgently, and noted many areas which the Republican
senators’ proposal does not address.”
The lack of
any major advance between the two sides means that Democrats are likely to
continue to press ahead quickly with plans to push through Biden’s much larger
package without Republican support. Hours earlier, the Senate majority leader,
Chuck Schumer, and the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, filed a joint budget
resolution, a step towards passing a relief package without Republican backing.
That 10
Republican senators were prepared to enter into such a high-profile interaction
with Biden and Harris in the first formal meeting held in the Oval Office under
the new administration was significant in itself. That is the number who would
be needed to vote in favor of any package to reach the 60-vote threshold in the
Senate able to resist a filibuster.
The gap
between the Democrats’ proposed package and what the Republican senators
envision remains enormous – not only is the Republican alternative small by
comparison at $618bn, but it contains no funding for state and local
governments and differs in other key regards.
The
Republican package would offer direct stimulus checks of $1,000 per individual,
phasing out for anyone earning above $40,000 a year. By contrast, the Biden
plan would offer $1,400 and begin phasing out above $75,000 a year.
Biden’s
package is also more generous in extending enhanced unemployment insurance.
Reporters
were allowed to witness the start of the Oval Office gathering. Biden and
Harris sat on either side of a fire, with Collins on a sofa to Biden’s left and
Mitt Romney of Utah to Harris’s right.
The White
House made efforts through the day to lower expectations about the discussions.
Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, indicated in the daily press
briefing that there was no intention to “make or accept an offer”.
She
emphasized that Biden was determined to move swiftly to address the multiple
crises posed by the pandemic and its economic consequences. She added: “The
president believes that the risk is not going too small, but going not big
enough.”
Nine of the
senators were physically present at the Oval Office. In addition to Collins and
Romney, they included: Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Todd Young of Indiana, Jerry
Moran of Kansas, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Rob Portman of Ohio, Bill
Cassidy of Louisiana and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia.
Mike Rounds
of South Dakota attended by phone.
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