Ten Senate Republicans have just made President Biden a COVID-19 offer he can easily refuse.
His to-the-ramparts progressive allies are eager to see the new president do just that. He shouldn’t. The promise and prospects are worth hard work and good will.
Yes, thus far, those Republicans are offering less than a third of what the president wants. Their package weighs in at $618 billion, whereas he seeks $1.9 trillion. On the face of it, such an offer doesn’t seem particularly attractive — not when the administration can use the so-called reconciliation process to push its plan through, 51 to 50, with Vice President Kamala Harris, as president of the Senate, casting the tie-breaking vote as the Senate’s presiding officer.
But it’s important to remember that this is just a first offer — and for such an opening gambit, it’s an interesting one. Some members of this Senate group were also part of the bipartisan Senate coalition that broke the gridlock and helped deliver a $900 billion COVID-19 package in late December.
They are now back, willing to spend another $618 billion on top of the $4 trillion or so that Congress has approved in the pandemic effort. By making this offer only a month or so after the last package passed, they are obviously signaling that bigger things can be done in a series of smaller bites. This, then, does not look like a partisan trap, an offer only made in the expectation that it will be rejected.
Some of these senators — Mitt Romney of Utah, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Rob Portman of Ohio, and Susan Collins of Maine, to name four — are serious people. Aside from Romney, they have been too timid in the past, but they are now looking to break through the hyper-partisan polarization that has beset the Senate for so long. They obviously know that Biden can’t sign off on a package that isn’t at least halfway between their respective starting points.
Some of this, mind you, will be tough. The GOP seems dug in against the big infusion of federal cash for state and local governments that Democrats want. But there may be ways outside of this legislation to finesse that matter.
Adequate funding to accelerate the vaccination effort is obviously crucial. But other Democratic preferences shouldn’t be treated as sacrosanct. The $100-per-week difference in extra unemployment benefits — Democrats seek $400, Republicans favor $300 — hardly justifies a line in the sand. Nor does the difference in duration. Democrats want the benefits to run through the end of September; Republicans say the end of June is long enough. That can be revisited later. The issue of income limits is thornier, but spending billions on aid to families who aren’t in need isn’t a wise use of resources. And though Democrats want to use this bill to hike the minimum wage to $15 an hour, that’s a fight that can wait.
Let’s say an agreement could be struck on a package somewhere around $1 trillion. Having those 10 GOP lawmakers on board would be big. For starters, it would eliminate the prospect of a filibuster. It would also help ease the most serious COVID-19 need while letting the president follow through on his commitment to strive for bipartisan compromise.
If the federal government is to work again, the center needs to be enlarged and empowered. Such a deal would do that. It would reestablish the idea that serious people of very different ideological perspectives can get together and get to yes. Even if not every member of the GOP group backed a final compromise, if they all agreed not to join a filibuster to block it, this effort could start to return the Senate to a time when not everything needed 60 votes to pass.
Biden already has partisans aplenty urging him to reject the GOP overture and use the full extent of the power he has, while he has it. For them, pursuing compromise is never worth the candle.
But this president, sharply criticized during the primary campaign for insisting senators can work across party lines, got where he is by trusting his instincts.
He should trust them now.
Scot Lehigh is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at scot.lehigh@globe.com. Follow him @GlobeScotLehigh.