WASHINGTON -- President Joe Biden has agreed to narrow eligibility for a new round of $1,400 stimulus payments in his $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill, a concession to moderate Senate Democrats as party leaders moved Wednesday to lock down support and finalize the sweeping legislation.
Under the new structure, the checks would phase out faster for those at higher income levels, compared with the way the direct payments were structured in Biden's initial proposal and the version of the bill passed by the House on Saturday.
The change was made as the Senate prepared to take an initial procedural vote to move forward on the bill as early as today. Biden and Senate Democratic leaders were scrambling to keep their caucus united since they cannot lose a single Democrat in the 50-50 Senate if Republicans unite against the legislation.
In addition to the stimulus checks, the sweeping economic package would extend unemployment benefits through August, as well as set aside $350 billion for state and local aid; $130 billion for schools; $160 billion for vaccinations, testing and other health care system support; increase the child tax credit; and spend billions more on other provisions including rental aid and food assistance.
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Biden made a closing pitch for the package to House Democrats on Wednesday evening, citing public polling in favor of the measure and telling them: "I know parts of this and everything else we seek to do are not easy, but people are going to remember how we showed up in this moment, how we listened to them ... and how we took action."
Senate Republicans have dubbed the Democrats' $1.9 trillion package a "blue state bailout," arguing it would disproportionately help large predominantly Democratic states such as California and New York, while harming predominantly red states, including Arkansas.
Appearing at a news conference Wednesday afternoon with several other Republican senators, Sen. John Boozman of Arkansas said it's a "misnomer" to call the Democrats' $1.9 trillion package a "covid relief bill."
"There's very little in the bill that has anything to do with the economic damage from covid or the health effects of covid," he said.
Arkansans don't want to bail out poorly run states, he said, referring to constituents in Yellville, Springdale and Van Buren who had expressed their opposition.
"They understand. This isn't about covid spending. This is about opportunistic spending," he said.
But at least one Senate Republican, Lisa Murkowksi of Alaska, appeared open to considering a vote in favor of the legislation, telling reporters, "My state needs relief." Elsewhere, though, GOP opposition was hardening, as Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., announced plans to force Senate officials to read the entire 600-page-plus bill aloud before debate could even begin -- a process he predicted would take around 10 hours.
"I don't want to sound like a leftist, but I'm gonna resist," Johnson told a talk radio host in Wisconsin.
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The action in the Senate was unfolding against a backdrop of tightened security around the Capitol complex, as the sergeant-at-arms and the Capitol Police warned of potential violent unrest over the coming days. The House moved up votes to allow members to avoid the Capitol today, the day some conspiracy theorists have identified as when former President Donald Trump should rightfully be inaugurated. The Senate is scheduled to remain at work.
Under the plan for stimulus checks passed by the House, individuals earning up to $75,000 per year and couples making up to $150,000 per year would qualify for the full $1,400 payment. The size of the payments would then begin to scale down before zeroing out for individuals making $100,000 per year and couples making $200,000.
Under the changes agreed to by Biden and Senate Democratic leadership, individuals earning $75,000 per year and couples earning $150,000 would still receive the full $1,400-per-person benefit. However, the benefit would disappear for individuals earning more than $80,000 annually and couples earning more than $160,000.
That means singles making between $80,000 and $100,000 and couples earning between $160,000 and $200,000 would be newly excluded from seeing any benefit under the revised structure to which Biden agreed.
The changes were confirmed by a Democratic aide who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden has always been open to a faster phase-out for higher-earning individuals and "he is comfortable with where the negotiations stand."
WISH LIST
Narrowing eligibility for the stimulus checks was just one change moderate Democrats like Sens. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Joe Manchin of West Virginia had been seeking. Several also were looking at better targeting money for state and local governments, and changing the structure of weekly federal unemployment benefits in the bill, to keep them at the current level of $300 rather than raise them to $400 as proposed by Biden and passed by the House.
Senate Democrats do not intend to adopt the suggested change to unemployment benefits, and they will stay at $400 per week, the aide said. The unemployment benefits currently are set to expire March 14; the Biden bill would extend them through August. Democrats are aiming for final passage of the bill ahead of the March 14 deadline.
About 12 million fewer adults and 5 million fewer children would get the stimulus payments under the new Biden-Senate compromise, according to preliminary estimates from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning think tank. About 280 million Americans in total -- 200 million adults and 80 million children -- would be eligible for the checks under the new structure.
Centrist Senate Democrats initially had pushed for even more aggressive restrictions on the stimulus payments. Senior Democratic officials had at one point considered dropping the full benefit for those making more than $50,000 per year, a change they ultimately abandoned after a backlash led by Senate Finance Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Senate Budget Chairman Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.
Still, liberal lawmakers bristled at the new changes. House liberals have suggested it could be difficult for them to approve the package if it's watered down significantly in the Senate. Presuming the Senate passes the package this week, it would still have to go back to the House for final approval.
"I don't understand the political or economic wisdom in allowing Trump to give more people relief checks than a Democratic administration," Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said in a statement. "People went far too long without relief last year -- if anything we should be more generous, not more stingy. It's also an insensitive compromise for the roughly 80% of Americans that live in urban areas, which are known for higher costs of living."
Biden acknowledged in his comments to House Democrats that "I know we're all making some small compromises," but he said staying united to pass the relief bill, his first major piece of legislation, would help restore the public's faith in government and open the door to further successes.
"It's a show of strength," Biden said. "We know how much we have to do, but it all starts here, it starts by bringing this home."
PROJECTS DROPPED
Meanwhile, specific projects tied to Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., have been dropped from the bill.
Drew Hammill, a spokesman for Pelosi, said the Senate parliamentarian has ruled that a subway extension through downtown San Jose did not meet requirements for inclusion in the bill because it is part of a pilot project. The project was set to receive about $141 million under the bill that passed in the House. The parliamentarian's rulings are generally respected by the Senate.
Also, the $1.5 million in funding to maintain and operate a bridge connecting Canada and the United States in upstate New York, Schumer's home state, has been removed by Senate drafters of the bill.
The projects represent a tiny fraction of the overall bill's cost, but they became popular talking points for Republicans lining up in opposition to the measure, which they say is bloated and unfocused.
"Now that the two projects that Republicans misled the public about in the House bill have been removed, it is unclear how Republicans will justify their opposition to the American Rescue Plan, which has strong bipartisan support among the public," Hammill said.
Democrats are using special rules that will let them avoid GOP filibusters that would require them to garner an impossible 60 votes to approve the legislation.
Shortly before Pelosi's office confirmed that funding for the rail project had been removed, Bernice Alaniz of the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority in California explained that the $141 million for the project would help ensure it keeps moving at the planned schedule.
Construction is set to begin in 2022. Local and state sources are putting up three-quarters of the funding for the extension, among the highest match rates for similar projects across the country.
"It really is an essential transit alternative for a highly congested commute corridor and it serves two large universities -- San Jose State and Santa Clara University," Alaniz said. "So I know some of the criticisms are like, 'oh, it's for the high-tech oligarchs.' But we serve transit dependent workers and we serve a large percentage of students going to these colleges."
The Trump administration boasted of its efforts to fund the rail project when it approved $125 million in federal matching dollars back in 2019.
"This Administration is focused on expediting infrastructure projects," said then-Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao. She added that the federal investment would help area residents "benefit from these improvements as quickly as possible."
Last week, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, described funding to operate and maintain the Seaway International Bridge over the St. Lawrence River in upstate New York as part of an "unrelated liberal wish list." But Schumer said on the Senate floor that the request for funding for the bridge did not come from him and in fact had come from the Trump administration five months ago. He said revenue needed to maintain the bridge had collapsed with no one using the bridge as a result of the pandemic.
"I learned about it being in the bill when I read about in the newspaper," Schumer said.
Information for this article was contributed by Erica Werner and Jeff Stein of The Washington Post; by Kevin Freking of The Associated Press; and by Frank E. Lockwood of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.