WASHINGTON — Senators appear to be scaling back a proposed COVID-19 aid package to about $10 billion by eliminating a $5 billion foreign assistance component.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday confirmed the developments from the discussions Wednesday evening, although no decisions are final.
“What we want to do, given the fact that we dropped $2 trillion on the economy last year, is to pay for the package. It’s sort of still in, kind of a work in progress, but as of late last night it appeared as if, that it would be skinnied down from $15 (billion to $10 (billion),” McConnell said of the GOP position.
Speaking at an event hosted by Punchbowl News, McConnell criticized Democrats for not locating an additional $5 billion worth of offsets.
“That has the potential to take out the international vaccine part, which I think is terribly unfortunate,” McConnell said.
The minority leader said Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, was scheduled to brief the Senate Republican conference Thursday on the state of play, and McConnell remained hopeful for an agreement to get a bill done before the Easter and Passover recess.
McConnell said Romney was working with Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee ranking member Richard M. Burr, R-N.C., and Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt, the lead Republican on the Health and Human Services appropriations subcommittee, in representing the conference in the negotiations.
Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer preemptively filed cloture to limit debate on proceeding to an old appropriation bill that could be used as the legislative shell to allow the Senate to pass it first if an agreement between Democrats and Republicans is reached in the coming days.
Whatever the Senate is able to pass would have to get the House’s approval next week before heading to President Joe Biden’s desk. The White House requested $22.5 billion for COVID-19 response efforts earlier this month, so getting less than half of that in a final bill would deal a blow to the administration’s efforts.
Leaving House Democrats’ weekly whip meeting Thursday morning, Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois said her caucus would likely seek to restore the $5 billion for global vaccination efforts. But she seemed resigned to the fact that they’d need to accept what the Senate is able to do.
“Can we get enough ‘yes’ votes to make sure that we do the foreign assistance? I hope that we’re going to be able to do it. I don’t know if there would be too many ‘no’ votes (if it’s not included), but it’s so important,” Schakowsky said.
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(Lindsey McPherson contributed to this report.)
