President-elect Joe Biden will seek a deal with Republicans on another round of COVID-19 relief, rather than attempting to ram a package through without their support, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The approach could mean a smaller initial package that features some priorities favored by Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell. The idea is to forgo using a special budget process that would remove the need to get the support of at least 10 Republicans in the Senate, which will be split 50-50 and under Democratic control only thanks to the vice president’s vote.
Isabella Aldrete is a summer reporter at Employee Benefit News. She is currently a senior at Barnard College and a former deputy editor at the Columbia Daily Spectator.
Jonathan Schiff, Ph.D, is a professor of accounting at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck, N.J. He is the author of over 70 articles and research studies on accounting, controls, performance management, CFO practice development, and financial and cost management. He also served as visiting professor of accounting at Columbia University's School of Business and taught in their MBA and executive MBA programs, and was the founder, in 1995, of the Finance Development & Training Institute (www.fdti.org) a 10-member company alliance, chaired by Dell Technologies. He also established several other best practices sharing alliances including the Activity-Based Costing Implementation Group, the Europe-Finance Leadership Institute, the Transit-Finance Learning Exchange and the China Finance Institute. He has served as chairman of a Nasdaq-listed company audit committee and is frequently quoted in the national business media, including Business Week, The Washington Post, USA Today and The New York Times. Schiff received his Ph.D. from New York University. Before completing his master's degree in accounting at NYU, he worked as a staff auditor with Price Waterhouse.
Lars Boeing is a Vice President in Capgemini Invent's Insurance Practice and leads Capgemini's global Future of Claims offering. He has been working for 20+ years in consulting and industry roles, primarily focused on strategy development, customer experience design, efficiency improvement, and business model (re)design.
Biden transition staff briefed aides to congressional Democrats on Tuesday about the plans to work with the GOP and not use so-called budget reconciliation in an initial stimulus package.
The briefing came a day after former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle urged his party to give McConnell “reasons to be cooperative,” which would unlock greater legislative achievements.
Biden last week talked of a multitrillion-dollar economic package, but this could now come in stages.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, who’s been speaking with the Biden transition team, said in an interview Tuesday that he would like to see infrastructure spending included in the stimulus package, and that he would be on board with a $2 trillion package.
“It strikes me as it won’t be that difficult to get there,” Neal said.
Neal also said he wants to explore ways to fix state unemployment-insurance distribution systems and to funnel more money to workers in states with low state-level benefits.
Earlier Tuesday, incoming Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told his Democratic colleagues that his top priority after his caucus takes control will be COVID-19 emergency-relief legislation. He highlighted boosting direct payments to most Americans to $2,000 from the $600 enacted in December, additional support for vaccine distribution, and help for small businesses, families, schools and state and local governments.
Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York said she thinks the House-passed Heroes Act, a $2.2 trillion measure from October — some of which became part of the $900 billion bipartisan compromise enacted in December — would be the framework for an “updated” bill that could pass in a few weeks. She added that paid leave could be part of the bill.
Also on the table: expanded unemployment aid, which runs out in mid-March under the December relief bill, a date that serves as an effective deadline for Congress for the next round.
The money for testing, vaccines, childcare, schools and state and local governments sought by Democrats is generally thought by aides to be excluded from being allowed under the special budget reconciliation process under Senate rules.
The budget tool can be used for fiscal provisions such as raising or cutting taxes, extending unemployment aid, changing Medicare or Medicaid or stimulus payments. It would require Congress to adopt a concurrent budget resolution with specific instructions and then later pass a reconciliation bill with just a simple majority in the Senate.
— With assistance from Jennifer Epstein