The clock is ticking for Republicans and the White House to reach an agreement with Democrats for trillions more in coronavirus stimulus if either party wants voters to know additional aid is en route before the election, says House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
President Donald Trump also said this weekend that he wants even more federal funding than House is offering, while the Republican-led Senate is scheduled to vote on a pair of much smaller bills this week.
The Senate bills do not seem to include an additional round of $1,200 stimulus checks for Americans, something the president said he wants.
House Speaker sets Tuesday deadline
Pelosi gave the Senate and the White House two days to make a deal on additional coronavirus stimulus.
“Here’s the thing. The 48 (hours) only relates to if we want to get it done before the election, which we do,” Pelosi, D-Calif., told anchor George Stephanopoulos of ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday.
“I’m optimistic because, again, we’ve been back and forth on all of this,” Pelosi added.
The House passed a $2.2 trillion relief bill earlier this month and the White House countered with an $1.8 trillion offer.
A bipartisan agreement of the language in a relief package appeared to be the hold-up, not the legislation’s sticker price.
As an example, Pelosi discussed the difference between “shall” and “may,” arguing that legislation should be clear and provide direction for the president — that he shall do a task, not that he may.
“If you think of it this simple way,” she told Stephanopoulos, “when you say ‘may,’ you’re giving the President a slush fund. He may do this. He may grant. He may withhold.”
The definitive language is important to Democrats as the White House continues to criticize Democratic-run cities and states.
“Nancy Pelosi doesn’t want to approve anything because she wants to bail out poorly run Democrat states and we don’t want to do that,” Trump told Milwaukee television new station TMJ4’s Charles Benson on Saturday.
Trump says show me the money
Benson asked the president how much money he was willing to spend on new pandemic legislation.
“I’d go higher than her (Pelosi’s) number. Who knows what her number is, but if you said a trillion-eight, two trillion, if you said two trillion-two, so many numbers, I’m willing to go higher than that because it wasn’t the people’s fault,” Trump said.
The Wisconsin reporter then pressed the president on Senate Republican’ resistance to spending that kind of money and increasing government debt.
“I will take care of that problem in two minutes,” Trump responded. “If I had something that would be good, I think I can quickly convince the Republicans to do it.”
A multitrillion-dollar deal would be much higher than bills currently be floated in the Senate.
White House Chief of Staff not as confident
Speaking to reporters Monday outside the White House, chief of staff Mark Meadows said it was “too early to tell” whether Republicans in the Senate would support a trillion-dollar relief bill, NBC News reported.
“I can tell you this, that there are some in the Senate who would support it. Whether there’s enough votes to get to the 60vote threshold, that’s up to leader McConnell,” Meadows said.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said last week that he supported “targeted relief,” like an extension of the CARES Act’s Payment Protection Program (PPP), but has balked at larger coronavirus packages approved in the House.
Senate to vote on two “targeted” bills this week
In a press release Saturday, McConnell announced the Senate would vote a on standalone PPP bill on Tuesday and a larger $500 billion proposal on Wednesday.
“Nobody thinks this $500B+ proposal would resolve every problem forever. It would deliver huge amounts of additional help to workers and families right now while Washington keeps arguing over the rest,” McConnell said in the statement.
At nearly a quarter of the amount the White House and Pelosi are talking about, the Senate bill is much smaller than what Trump has said he’d like to sign.
McConnell’s statement said the legislation to be voted on Wednesday includes PPP funding, an expansion of the federal unemployment benefits, testing and tracing money, funding for school pandemic safety and money for Operation Warp Speed — the coronavirus vaccine effort.
Not listed was funding for another round of coronavirus stimulus checks — similar to the $1,200 checks earlier this year — which the president has said he wants.