Ten Republican senators held a two-hour meeting with President Joe Biden at the White House this week — a first step toward a potential COVID relief compromise and an early test of the unity the president and Republicans have each said they want.

Among the White House visitors: Thom Tillis, which should be a welcome sight for North Carolinians. Our junior senator has long campaigned on being a bridge-building Republican, but it’s a space he hasn’t meaningfully occupied. We hope his participation in a COVID compromise is genuine, and we hope the president gives him and Republicans a chance to show it. If there is unity to be found in Washington the next four years, now is an excellent time to start.

The difference in Biden’s and the Republicans’ relief proposals is stark. The president’s $1.9 trillion plan is a sweeping response to the pandemic’s devastation. It includes more than $1 trillion in direct aid to families, with $440 billion to small businesses and local communities and $400 billion toward a national vaccination program and other public health infrastructure.

Republicans are proposing a more modest $618 billion plan, arguing that the economy already is showing signs of recovery and the pandemic’s damage to state budgets is less than previously thought. Their case was bolstered some by new projections from the Congressional Budget Office, which said Monday that the U.S. economy could return to its pre-pandemic size by mid-2021 even without additional pandemic relief from Congress. The independent Brookings Institution disagrees, however, saying last week that without a new relief package, “real GDP would remain below the pre-pandemic level for the next several years.”

In the short term, the president’s approach more fully addresses the urgent needs of struggling workers, small businesses and local governments. But there’s room for compromise. For starters, while Biden’s plan offers families $1,400 in addition to the $600 in stimulus checks from the relief bill Congress passed in December, some families making $300,000 or more a year could receive stimulus checks. Republicans are calling for checks to be more targeted.

There’s also negotiating space on school reopening aid, child care assistance and the size and duration of expanded unemployment benefits. Republicans should reconsider their resistance to help for local governments, which are feeling acute budget strains from the pandemic. Biden, who has a long history of brokering compromises, should consider taking proposals like a minimum wage increase out of his plan. A $15 minimum wage is certainly worthy of consideration, but it’s something that can and should be accomplished in separate legislation.

As with any negotiations, a COVID compromise could quickly unravel. Republicans already are protesting a Democratic plan to move Biden’s package forward under budget rules that would allow it to pass the Senate with a simple majority. (Republicans used the same tactics to pass tax cuts in 2017.)

Biden is smart to leave that avenue open. It’s possible a compromise relief package won’t get enough support from Democrats who want a bolder approach or Republicans who will blanch at anything sizable. It’s also possible that the Senate Republicans at the White House this week are more interested in appearing to compromise than actually achieving it. Democrats haven’t forgotten how Republicans initially talked about collaboration on Barack Obama’s health care plan in 2009 before pulling out of bipartisan talks and declining any opportunity for meaningful compromise.

But if Tillis and Republicans genuinely want to work toward a middle ground on COVID relief, Biden should do the same. It’s how some legislating was done once upon a time in Washington, and it might actually make for a better relief package. We wouldn’t mind seeing more Republicans support the next trip to the White House. It might even signal a legislative era in which the hard work of governing, instead of the easy temptation of politicking, gets done.