In an interview, she urged the president to take advantage of money already approved in previous stimulus packages.
“There are hundreds of billions of dollars in unspent funds,” Ms. Collins said.
Democrats were expected to introduce legislation and begin committee debate in the House next week, aiming to move the plan through the budget reconciliation process.
While details remain in flux, people familiar with the plan said it would largely mirror Mr. Biden’s $1.9 trillion proposal. The most significant deviation, they said, was likely to be lowering the cost of providing direct payments to Americans.
At Mr. Biden’s insistence, the maximum amount of those payments would remain at $1,400. But Democrats and the administration are discussing phasing them out for higher-income Americans at a faster rate than the $600 payments that Congress approved in December, meaning that those earning more would get smaller checks.
Democrats could further reduce the cost of the plan by lowering the income threshold at which the payments begin to phase out. Mr. Biden has proposed beginning the phaseout for individuals earning $75,000 a year and couples earning $150,000 a year. Lawmakers are discussing reducing those thresholds to $50,000 for individuals and $100,000 for couples, though they have not made a final decision on whether to do so.
Among the Republican ideas that appeared to gain some traction with the White House was a proposal from Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, who unveiled a plan to send payments of up to $1,250 per month to families with children, in an effort to encourage Americans to have more children while reducing child poverty rates.
Mr. Romney’s Family Security Act would provide $350 a month for each child up to 5 years old and $250 a month for children ages 6 to 17, via the Social Security Administration. The payments would be capped at $1,250 per family per month, and they would phase out for individual parents earning above $200,000 a year and couples earning more than $400,000.
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