The group of executives includes the top executives representing some of the powerful business interests in the US, ranging from bank and investment firms like Goldman Sachs and Blackstone, to technology companies like Google, Intel and IBM, to hospitality companies like Loews Hotels & Co and airlines including American and United Airlines. Top executives from real estate, insurance and utility firms also signed on to the letter.
“Previous federal relief measures have been essential, but more must be done to put the country on a trajectory for a strong, durable recovery,” the executives wrote in the letter addressed to bipartisan congressional leaders that will be sent Wednesday. “Congress should act swiftly and on a bipartisan basis to authorize a stimulus and relief package along the lines of the Biden-Harris administration’s proposed American Rescue Plan.”
The weight of the businesses getting behind the proposal provides a boost to Democrats as the House moves towards a final vote on the package later this week, with the Senate slated to follow suit shortly after.
Republican support, to this point at least, has remained non-existent, with even moderate GOP senators amenable to talks calling Biden’s proposal too large in scale and scope given the trillions in emergency aid deployed over the first year of the pandemic. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky attacked the plan as “totally partisan,” and Republicans in the House and Senate appear unified in voting against the proposal, aides in both chambers say.
Biden, however, has been steadfast that his mandate is to “go big,” and in recent days has challenged opponents of his plan to outline specifically what they’d like to strip from the package.
