(WASHINGTON, D.C.) — A $600-a-week add-on to unemployment benefits expired last week, and Indiana Senator Mike Braun is pushing back on efforts to revive it.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday he won’t stand in the way of resuming the enhanced benefits. The benefit has been one of the biggest sticking points in negotiations between the Republican Senate and Democratic House, though several other issues remain.
Braun had introduced a bill dialing the unemployment enhancement back to $200 or two-thirds of a worker’s former pay, and says the bigger check is a mistake. He says he’s hearing from businesses, especially smaller ones, who say they’re having trouble hiring workers back because they’re earning more on unemployment.
Braun says he expects a bill to reach the floor in the next 10-to-14 days. He isn’t saying definitively how he’ll vote, but he’s sounding a lot like a no vote. He says the biggest issue for him isn’t the details of the package so much as the total price tag, and says even Republicans’ trillion-dollar plan is too expensive. He says the bill should focus on small businesses missed by the last relief bill, and says that could be done for a lot less.
And while Braun predicts the final bill won’t be close to House Democrats’ $3.4 trillion package, he argues that bill would actually hurt the economy. He says Congress has an obligation to address problems created by government-imposed lockdowns, but says the economy was doing fine until then and needs space to pick up where it left off.
Indiana’s senior senator, Republican Todd Young, also says the bill needs to do more for small businesses overlooked in previous relief bills. But Young is pushing to add long-term loans for the hardest-hit businesses.
