© Doug Mills/The New York TimesIf Republican senators are united in opposition to President Biden's stimulus bill, the chamber's Democrats will need to be united in order to pass it.
President Biden agreed on Wednesday to place stricter income limits on the next round of stimulus payments, making the latest in a series of crucial concessions to moderates as Democrats worked to hold their fragile coalition together to push his $1.9 trillion pandemic aid package through a divided Senate.
The decision to scale back the direct checks - a popular centerpiece of Mr. Biden's economic relief initiative - was the second time in a week that Democrats had moved to curtail the sweeping stimulus plan by limiting or removing progressive priorities. The moves have underscored the narrow path Mr. Biden must navigate as he seeks to steer his first major legislative initiative through the 50-50 Senate, where he cannot afford to lose a single Democrat in the face of what is likely to be united Republican opposition.
The legislation, which Democrats hope to push through the Senate by the weekend, remains among the largest federal relief packages in modern American history. It would deliver hundreds of billions of dollars for vaccine distribution, hospitals, state and local governments and families struggling to recover from the economic toll of the coronavirus pandemic.
"We cannot go through the situation we did back in 2009, where the stimulus wasn't strong enough and we stayed in recession for years," Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, said on Wednesday. The legislation, he added, "will be the single largest anti-poverty bill in recent history."
But in recent days, it has narrowed to accommodate the moderates' concerns as well as the arcane rules of the Senate.
Under the new proposal blessed by Mr. Biden, individuals earning more than $80,000 and households with incomes exceeding $160,000 would be disqualified from receiving stimulus checks. The caps are $20,000 lower than they were in the last round, wiping out payments for millions of Americans.
The plan would send $1,400 checks to individuals earning up to $75,000, single parents with children earning $112,500 and couples making $150,000, with the amount gradually falling for people with larger incomes. The payment would disappear altogether for those over the cap of $80,0000 for individuals, $120,000 for single parents and $160,000 for couples. Mr. Biden's original proposal, which passed the House over the weekend, would have set the cap at $100,000 for individuals, $150,000 for single parents and $200,000 for couples.
The reduction was another blow to liberal Democrats, who are already angry over a decision last week to remove a minimum-wage increase from the stimulus plan. A top Senate official ruled that measure out of bounds under the rules governing the legislation, but it also lacked support from crucial moderates whose votes would have been needed to pass it.
Democratic leaders had hoped to begin debate on the legislation as early as Wednesday, but their timeline was slipping, and Republicans promised to further slow the process.
Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, said he planned to force a full reading of the legislation on the Senate floor - an hourslong process undertaken by journal clerks, not senators - and offer a slew of amendments to prolong what was already expected to be a marathon voting session, known as a vote-a-rama, of rapid-fire attempts to modify the bill.
"We need to keep this process going so we can highlight the abuse - obviously not Covid relief, obviously a boondoggle for Democrats," Mr. Johnson told a Wisconsin radio station.