By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — U.S. Senator Jerry Moran really isn't sure what the next stimulus bill will look like, or even if one will get passed in light of the upcoming election, though he believes one is necessary.
"We don't know a lot," Moran said. "Republican Senators have been meeting by conference call five days a week for the last about month, meeting with Secretary Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary and with Mark Meadows the President's Chief of Staff, all with the goal of trying to develop a plan that Republicans could get 51 votes for in the Senate. I think, where we are, the negotiations generally were in the hands of the White House and the Democrats in the House and those have gone nowhere."
Moran notes that even full Republican buy in won't be enough on the Senate side.
"That doesn't pass a bill," Moran said. "It takes 60 votes to pass anything. Again, Democrats and Republicans would have to reach an agreement. Then, there's this question, who wants a deal before an election and who doesn't want a deal before an election?"
Just for clarity, it takes 60 votes to invoke cloture, which is what stops debate on a measure and allows it to be voted on. That is what Moran is referring to. It takes just 51 senators to actually pass legislation once it gets to that final vote.
"We should pass something," Moran said. "My view is, it should be significantly smaller than what we did in the past. Already, incidentally, Kansas has received $13.4 billion in COVID relief. That's about two-thirds of the annual state budget in federal taxpayer or federal borrowed money coming to Kansas. I don't have the appetite to spend the trillions of dollars that we've spent in the past."
Moran said government does not have the ability to just keep funding and just keep developing new programs indefinitely.