Suggesting a narrower pandemic relief package may be all that’s possible, the White House still pushed ahead with today’s planned rollout of the Senate Republicans’ $1 trillion effort as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi assailed the GOP “disarray” as time-wasting during the crisis.
The administration’s chief negotiators—White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin—spent the weekend on Capitol Hill to put what Meadows described as “final touches” on the relief bill Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is expected to bring forward this afternoon.
“We’re done,” Mnuchin said as he and Meadows left Capitol Hill on Sunday after meeting with GOP staff.
But looming deadlines may force them to consider other options. By Friday, millions of out-of-work Americans will lose a $600 federal unemployment benefit that is expiring and federal eviction protections for many renters are also coming to an end.
Pelosi panned the Trump administration’s desire to trim the $600 weekly unemployment boost to about 70% of pre-pandemic wages. She also said she opposes tackling a relief package in a piecemeal fashion.
Both Mnuchin and Meadows said earlier Sunday that narrower legislation might need to be passed first to ensure that enhanced unemployment benefits don’t run out for millions of Americans. They cited unemployment benefits, money to help schools reopen, tax credits to keep people from losing their jobs, and lawsuit protections for schools and businesses as priorities.
But negotiations with Democrats have yet to begin with billions at stake and deadlines near.
Separately, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said that a federal eviction moratorium on millions of rental units, due to expire at the end of the month, will be extended. “We will lengthen it,” he said, without specifying for how long.
On the jobless benefits, Republicans have argued that federal jobless benefits should be trimmed because the combination of state and federal unemployment assistance left many people better off financially than they were before the pandemic and therefore disinclined to return to their jobs.
Many Democrats contend that a lot of people don’t feel safe going back to work when the coronavirus is surging again around the country.
Apart from jobless benefits, Mnuchin said Saturday that new $1,200 direct payments would be based on the same formula from the earlier aid bill. Then, people making $75,000 or less received the full amount and those making more than $75,000 received less, depending on their income. Read the full story from the Associated Press.
