Voters worry COVID relief will be too small — as GOP tries to cut it down even more

A poll conducted between Jan. 27 and Feb. 1 by the Democratic firm Navigator Research finds that nearly two-thirds of voters worry Congress won’t spend enough money on virus relief.

A much smaller percentage fear President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan will add too much to the national debt, the results say.

The poll found 62% of voters worry that “the federal government will not do enough to get help to regular people who have been most impacted by coronavirus,” while just 38% worry that “the federal government will spend too much money as a result of coronavirus and push the United States further into debt.”

The survey comes as Senate Republicans lobby Biden to cut the amount of funding contained in the bill, arguing that the price tag is too large and would increase the national debt to dangerously high levels.

Those same Republicans voted for the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which provided tax cuts to corporations and the wealthy and added nearly $1.7 trillion to the debt.

Senate Republicans want Biden to make direct stimulus checks to Americans smaller and unemployment relief less generous, and insist that he cut emergency funding to state, territorial, and local governments.

Biden spoke with Republican sponsors about their own $618 billion counterproposal on Monday, but the White House said that “he will not slow down work on this urgent crisis response, and will not settle for a package that fails to meet the moment.” Biden indicated that while he hopes for bipartisan support for a solution, he supports Senate Democrats’ plan to proceed with budget reconciliation, a legislative process that would allow the aid bill to pass without any GOP votes.

Republicans are say using budget reconciliation is a betrayal of Biden’s commitment to unify the country, even though it’s the very same process they used to pass the tax cuts bill in 2017 and in their failed effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Polling continues to show that Biden’s plan to get the American Rescue Plan passed with or without GOP support is popular.

The results of recent polling by Yahoo News/YouGov show broad support for Biden’s coronavirus relief bill, and a Monmouth University poll conducted between Jan. 21 and Jan. 24 found majorities of voters want Republicans to work with Biden and not obstruct his efforts.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.