$908 Billion Bipartisan Coronavirus Stimulus Bill Met With Counterproposal From Senate Republicans

A long-running battle over the stalled sequel to the spring’s $2 trillion coronavirus relief package is heating up again in Washington, according to a report from Bloomberg.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers proposed a $908 billion stimulus package on Tuesday (Dec. 1) that was rejected later by Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who is now circulating a draft of his own counterproposal, Bloomberg reported.

And tensions are likely to mount over the next two weeks, with McConnell signaling any coronavirus relief package could be wrapped into an overall government spending bill, according to Bloomberg. The government funding bill must be passed by Dec. 11 to avoid a shutdown.

Millions of unemployed workers also face their own, personal deadlines, with government relief checks and eviction bans running out and money from the last relief bill long since spent.

Still, despite the urgency created by the timeline, all sides appear to be far apart when it comes to the actual numbers in their coronavirus economic rescue bills, Bloomberg reported.

The $908 billion proposal, put forth by a group of lawmakers from both sides of the aisle, including Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Susan Collins of Maine, WLKY Louisville reported, was an attempt to bridge the chasm between what McConnell has said he would accept and what House Democrats have put in their own proposal.

McConnell has consistently pushed for a smaller coronavirus follow-up package in the $500 billion range, a number dwarfed by the $2.2 trillion plan called for by House Democrats.

McConnell is now circulating a plan that calls for $333 billion broken up between a revised Paycheck Protection Program and money for schools, vaccines and farms — as well as restoring full expensing of business meals for taxes, according to Bloomberg.

Despite falling somewhere roughly in the middle, the bipartisan proposal failed to move McConnell, who essentially called the plan a nonstarter, Bloomberg reported.

“We just don’t have time to waste time,” McConnell, who has argued for a “targeted” relief plan, told reporters Tuesday, according to published reports.

While McConnell did not appear to offer specific critiques of the bill unveiled by centrist senators, the Senate Republicans have been adamantly opposed to including aid to cities and states in any rescue package, which amounted to $160 billion in the bipartisan relief plan.