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Posted: 2021-02-25T00:07:19Z | Updated: 2021-02-25T18:24:15Z

Polls show President Joe Bidens $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package is overwhelmingly popular with the American people, but that isnt stopping Republicans from lining up against it.

According to a survey conducted by The Economist/YouGov, 66% of Americans back Bidens plan, which includes $1,400 stimulus checks, added unemployment assistance, an expanded child tax credit, and hundreds of billions of dollars for schools and vaccine distribution. A survey released Tuesday by Morning Consult showed the plan polling even higher, at 76% with all Americans, including 60% of Republicans.

Congressional bills rarely see this kind of public support, especially in a political atmosphere as divided as this one.

But Republicans are trying to brand the bill as a payoff for progressives, packed with money that schools dont need to safely reopen, excessive benefits for unemployed workers and state and local governments, and a minimum wage hike that will wreck small businesses.

Unfortunately, the Democrats partisan proposal would not just be wasteful, but in certain areas, actively counterproductive, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Tuesday.

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) said the polls showed support for elements of the narrower $600 billion relief package that she and 10 other Republicans proposed last month that included direct payments and supplemental unemployment benefits, albeit at lower amounts.

Obviously, what people are responding to are the things that we ... wanted to happen in a COVID package, Capito said.

Still, Capito says she plans to vote against Bidens plan because its too costly.

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), one of Capitos co-authors, actually supports several elements of the bill. He also announced his own proposal for a sweeping child allowance that would give parents cash every month, an idea that resembles the Biden bills expanded child tax credit.

But in a Wall Street Journal op-ed published Monday, Romney slammed Bidens $1.9 trillion plan as a clunker, saying states have more revenue than previously forecast and highlighting a Congressional Budget Office analysis noting that only a small portion of the school funding would be spent this year.