10 Senators Are Shortchanging Their Constituents by Pushing a Weak Alternative to American Rescue Plan
President Biden’s American Rescue Plan offers a robust, strategic path to contain the pandemic and provide desperately-needed aid to struggling American families. The package boosts direct stimulus checks to $2,000, extends and expands unemployment insurance, allocates funds for rental assistance, invests in communities and frontline workers, and scales up the nation’s pandemic response through testing, vaccines, genomic sequencing, and therapeutics. It’s been widely praised by economists and experts, and has strong support from Americans of all political stripes.
But Republican Senators have signaled their opposition to the package — 10 of them going so far as to propose an insulting, watered-down version that short-changes even their own states by eradicating funds for communities and rental assistance, slashing direct relief checks and unemployment benefits, and stripping funds for schools and child care.
According to estimated funding allocations, calculated based on states’ proportions of the US population, the states represented by the 10 Republican senators pushing an alternative proposal would lose out on billions in relief funding.
| American Rescue Plan | GOP Proposal | Difference | |
| Lisa Murkowski — Alaska | $1.4 Billion | $230 Million | ~$1.2 Billion |
| Todd Young — Indiana | $13 Billion | $1.8 Billion | ~$11.2 Billion |
| Jerry Moran — Kansas | $5.8 Billion | $1 Billion | ~$4 Billion |
| Bill Cassidy — Louisiana | $9 Billion | $1.5 Billion | ~$7.5 Billion |
| Susan Collins — Maine | $2.6 Billion | $451 Million | ~$2.1 Billion |
| Thom Tillis — North Carolina | $20 Billion | $3.5 Billion | ~$16.5 Billion |
| Rob Portman — Ohio | $22 Billion | $4 Billion | ~$18 Billion |
| Mike Rounds — South Dakota | $1.9 Billion | $330 Million | ~$1.6 Billion |
| Mitt Romney — Utah | $6.5 Billion | $1.1 Billion | ~$5.4 Billion |
| Shelley Moore Capito — West Virginia | $3.7 Billion | $550 Million | ~3.1 Billion |
More Detailed Breakdown of Funding Allocations HERE
CNN: An Estimated 29 Million People Would Lose Out On Stimulus Payments Under GOP Proposal
Forbes: GOP Unveils Counter Stimulus Package With $1,000 Checks, Goes Against Expert Recommendations
Newsweek: Lower Stimulus Checks, Unemployment Benefits: Key Differences in Biden, GOP Relief Plans
USA Today: 5 Charts Show The Wide Gap Between Biden’s, Republicans’ Coronavirus Aid Proposals
The Hill Opinion: If GOP Blocks Biden’s Covid Rescue Plan, America’s Working Poor Will Suffer
Mother Jones: Republicans’ Miserly Stimulus Plan Is More Band-Aid Than Economic Treatment
Kiplinger’s Personal Finance: Republican Senators’ Plan Drops the $3,000 or $3,600 Child Credit
MSNBC: Red-State GOP Governor Urges Congress To ‘Go Big’ In Relief Plan