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Capito recaps GOP meeting with Biden on COVID relief legislation

Morgantown – Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.V.a. recapped on Tuesday the highlights of the meeting she and nine other senators had with President Biden on Monday regarding their rival COVID-19 relief bills.

“He didn’t exactly pledge to redo his entire bill, but he certainly wanted to hear our viewpoints,” she said during a virtual press conference. Biden reemphasized that he wants to work in a bipartisan manner.

But, she said, new Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., appears inclined to move forward in a non-bipartisan approach called reconciliation — a budgetary process that bypasses the minority’s filibuster power and requires only a simple majority vote instead of the usual 60.

Reconciliation, she said, will slow passage of a relief bill. “We kept trying to emphasize to him that if we go with a more targeted approach, where we can get bipartisan ideas in, that we could do this a lot quicker because we’ve done five of them in the past.”

However, she said, it was good to spend two hours with the president and get the dialog going.

Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan includes $1,400 per person stimulus checks, money for vaccinations and various COVID response and relief measures, education and a $15 per hour minimum wage.

The proposal Capito and her colleagues put forward is more targeted and cheaper – $600 billion.

Answering questions, she noted that both bills agree on tackling the opioid crisis: $4 billion for state grants, including mental health issues. Overdoses and overdose deaths have risen across the country during the pandemic.

Capito commented on her discussion with Biden on the remarks offered by Gov. Jim Justice on Monday, when Justice came down in favor of the Biden plan, saying, “I don’t think America can go wrong being too high.”

Capito said she told Biden, “What governor wouldn’t want it to be as big as possible? … I was trying to make the point that we need to target this.”

The meeting with Biden covered what has been the most talked-about difference between the two bills: the stimulus checks.

The Biden plan would provide $1,400 checks for individuals earning up to $75,000 and $2,800 for couples earning up to $150,000, gradually phasing out at incomes above that.

The GOP plan provides $1,000 checks for individuals earning up to $40,000 with smaller checks moving toward a $50,000 income cap, and $2,000 for couples filing jointly earning up to $80,000, with smaller checks moving toward joint incomes of $100,000.

Capito said that the biggest area they may see changes — emphasizing “may” — is the income limits for the checks. Families making $300,000 who’d get checks under the Biden plan don’t need them for relief and probably wouldn’t spend them.

“You may see him narrow the window there of people who’ll be able to get a stimulus check.” But she’s not sure what the Schumer team will do.

Asked if the GOP might be willing to budge upward on its numbers in order to achieve a slimmer overall package, she said she’s open. But Biden said the $1,400 is non-negotiable though the income limits are.

And Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are leaning toward reconciliation, she said. So they’ll see what the Democrats move forward with.

Both plans include money for hospitals, but Capito said she talked with Biden about a specific set-aside for struggling rural hospitals. The GOP plan sets aside 20% — $35 billion — that Biden’s lacks. “We’ll see if we made an impression there.”

The GOP proposal doesn’t include a minimum wage hike. Capito said she’s open to that debate and voted for the previous hike in 2005. “But it’s not a discussion for COVID.”

She’s heard from small businesses who are concerned about a minimum wage hike, she said, and there’s a lot of ramifications to consider. “I don’t see any movement on the Republican side on willingness to have that debate right now while we’re trying to debate COVID.”

Also on Tuesday, Sen. Joe Manchin said in a press release that he’s ready to move ahead with a version of the Biden bill.

“I will vote to move forward with the budget process because we must address the urgency of the COVID-19 crisis,” Manchin said. “But let me be clear — and these are words I shared with President Biden – our focus must be targeted on the COVID-19 crisis and Americans who have been most impacted by this pandemic.

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