Republicans want to negotiate on Covid relief. Biden shouldn’t let them

GOP members like Susan Collins and Mitt Romney want to be seen as sensible conservatives now, but the truth is very different

President Joe Biden, middle, meets with Vice President Kamala Harris, left, and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen about how to move forward amid the coronavirus pandemic. (Getty Images)

Later today, a group of 10 Republicans will meet with President Biden at the White House to discuss their counter-offer to his Covid relief bill, the American Rescue Plan. The proposed bill, which would cost $1.9 trillion, includes substantial direct payments for Americans, an increase of the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour, $170 billion in funding for schools, $20 billion in funding for a national vaccine initiative, and an increase in unemployment benefits for nearly a year. Republicans (including the ever-disappointed Senator Susan Collins, who drafted a letter to the president) want to reduce the cost of this relief package to $600 billion, far less than half of what Biden has proposed. 

It is, of course, no surprise that the Republicans have mounted a quiet attack on what promises to be Biden’s first legislative victory since taking office on January 20. From the very beginning, it was clear that former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell intended on retaining whatever vestiges of power he could (he attempted to force Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to agree to preserve the arcane filibuster rule, for instance, which gives Republicans a last-gasp at road-blocking legislation in the Senate).

Notably, Senator McConnell is not one of the 10 Republicans who signed the letter requesting a revised Covid relief bill, though his strategy of keeping the Democratic Party’s power in chains lives on through his caucus.

The 10 Senators who signed Senator Collins’ letter include “martyrs” like Senator Mitt Romney, who has done his part in holding former President Trump’s feet to the fire but who remains a die-hard conservative, focusing on fiscal leanness over the needs of the nation. This has always been who Romney is, to be clear, but conservatives, as a whole, abandoned conservatism during the Trump years, allowing for reckless spending and a mounting rise in the national debt (an issue they have always purported to feel passionately about).

Many of these same conservatives have allowed the financial future of the United States to become a secondary concern, reviving their interest in conservative spending only when a new man took office. Now, when it comes to a bill that will offer Americans security — and that will help the country return to economic solvency — they are suddenly obsessed with how many dollars are leaving the federal government. 

They should be more concerned, from an economic standpoint, with the deterioration of the restaurant industry, which has seen no federal bailout to date and which employs some 15 million Americans, according to the National Restaurant Association. They should be more concerned, too, with the childcare crisis, which, according to the National Women’s Law Center, saw 2.2 million American women leave the workforce between February and October 2020. And they should be more concerned with how Covid-19 is impacting Americans of color — and essential workers — since that impact will necessarily impact the current economic blight.

These issues, though, do not appear in the Republican argument to slash funding for Covid relief. Instead, the message from the GOP is the same as it was during the last Democratic administration: cut funding for everything but the military, and leave the damage at the feet of the American people.

The difference is that, in 2021, Democrats no longer need to kowtow to the fragile Republican belief system. Although Congress has no Democratic mandate, the president certainly does. He was elected to save a sinking ship, and one part of righting this country is to relieve suffering through immediate economic action. How Republicans feel about this relief — and their acrobatics to prevent its full realization — is completely irrelevant.

Biden should listen to Republicans, of course, because we should always listen to competing ideas. But after he is finished hearing about their bid to give Americans less than they deserve, our new president should opt to pass the American Rescue Act through reconciliation, even if Republicans continue to refuse to come to the table. As a nation, we don’t negotiate with terrorists, and refusing to help Americans when they need it most is, indeed, an act of terrorism.