In a symbolic measure designed to give the troops something to vote for, the Republican proposal is not intended to go anywhere after the Senate vote.
The dirty little secret of the gridlocked coronavirus stimulus negotiations is that Senate Republicans are deeply divided between those who desperately want to vote “yes” for some kind of relief (particularly vulnerable senators up for reelection this year) and those who think holding the line on deficits and debt is more important than any more of this liberal pandering to people who are sick or have lost their jobs, much less to state and local governments on the brink of big program cuts and layoffs. That’s one reason Democrats, who have been impressively united behind the House-passed HEROES Act, have so much leverage: the White House and Senate Republican leaders know they’ll need their votes to get anything out of the Senate.
So as a purely symbolic means of giving their more vulnerable senators a vote while keeping the fiscal hawks onboard, Mitch McConnell and his troops are backtracking from their own HEALS Act — the trillion-dollar proposal they unveiled but did not vote on in late July — and the White House’s indication that Trump would accept a package with $1.3 trillion in aid. Instead, when the Senate formally returns from recess next week, McConnell hopes to vote on a “skinny stimulus” measure that is purely and simply an effort to thread the needle within the Republican conference, as the Hill reports.
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It will not include a second round of $1,200 stimulus checks, the provision in the HEALS Act that seems to have spurred the revolt from the right. Republicans are claiming Senate passage of the “skinny stimulus” will put pressure on vulnerable House Democrats to beg Nancy Pelosi to offer more concessions in future negotiations. But it’s much easier politically for Democrats in both houses to make the absence of the wildly popular stimulus checks an excuse for opposing this proposal.
What’s a bit pathetic is that McConnell doesn’t even have the votes yet to pass this emaciated stimulus proposal.
