Senate appropriations chairman Richard Shelby, an Alabama Republican, announced the “fundamental agreement” on the funding portion of the Republican plan, which would include $ 105 billion for schools and additional billions in test funding.
“I think our agreement reflects our priorities, which is to go back to school, go back to childcare, go back to work,” Senate Health President Lamar Alexander, R-Tennessee, told reporters when he and his colleagues left the third closed-door meeting. in two days with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.
The deal marks progress in what has been hard to manage for several days on Capitol Hill for Republicans, with divisions in policies being made public between Republican senators and the White House, and between Senate Republicans themselves.
Blocking funding levels marked a step forward, but that serves only as part of a $ 1 trillion proposal that will include funding for schools, liability protections, direct payments for individuals and families, another round of Program loans. Check protection and forgivable incentives and incentives for companies to hire and retain workers.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told members he plans to present the package on Thursday not as a single bill, but in parts based on jurisdiction, Republican Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri told reporters. That will usher in negotiations with House Democrats, who approved their own $ 3 trillion proposal in May and have been waiting for Senate and White House Republicans to put up a marker of their own.
The talks come at an urgent time: The $ 600 federal upgrade to weekly unemployment benefits expires at the end of the month with millions still out of work. The White House on Wednesday raised the possibility of a short-term extension of benefits to provide more time to reach a broader deal, but Republican Senate leaders rejected the idea, wary of discouraging a far-reaching final deal.
Blunt, the chair of the appropriations committee health panel, said the appropriations deal would include $ 105 billion for schools that would be divided into $ 70 billion for K-12, $ 30 billion for colleges and universities, and $ 5 a billion for governors to use at their discretion.
Of the $ 70 billion, $ 35 billion would go to all schools on a per capita basis and the remaining amount would go toward reopening the schools and the costs associated with that.
Specific language will be included in the proposal to provide guidelines on how schools would qualify for the second pot of money, but the proposal would leave much of the decision-making to governors.
“The bill allows your state’s governors to define most of the determination threshold, rather than trying to have a national standard regardless of your healthcare setting,” Blunt said.
In addition, the agreement includes funds for the tests, a major point of conflict between White House negotiators and their counterparts in the Senate GOP. The top line number would be $ 25 billion, which would comprise $ 16 billion in new funds and a management commitment to designate to use the $ 9 billion in surplus funds.
The final deal served as a kind of compromise, as Republican senators were pushing for a total of $ 25 billion in new funds.
“Every day was not about your own agenda,” Meadows said of his Senate negotiating counterparts. “It was about the agenda of the American people.”
Shelby said there were “a few small things” that staff needed to close, but that the full package of assignments will be released Thursday.
Meadows said no final decisions had been made on what the Republican proposal would include on the extension of the federal unemployment insurance upgrade or on what was decided on a payroll tax cut, which President Donald Trump has prioritized Despite the resistance of a large number of Republican senators.
In a call with GOP aides, leadership staff said the proposal would include a two-month extension of the federal upgrade of unemployment benefits to a flat rate, but did not identify the rate, according to a person on the call.
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