Trump ups economic relief offer
Pelosi notes lack of plan to deal with COVID-19
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin made an over $1.8 trillion offer to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D -Calif., Friday in a renewed search for an economic relief deal, but agreement remained elusive as Pelosi said her terms still weren’t met.
“Of special concern, is the absence of an agreement on a strategic plan to crush the virus,” Pelosi’s spokesman, Drew Hammill, said on Twitter after
Pelosi and Mnuchin spoke for 30 minutes Friday afternoon. “For this and other provisions, we are still awaiting language from the administration as negotiations on the overall funding amount continue.”
The negotiations took place just three days after President Donald Trump declared talks
over. He’s now reversed himself completely and is urgently seeking a deal with weeks to go before the election — even though some congressional Republicans appear far less enthused over the prospect of a massive new spending bill.
“Covid Relief Negotiations are moving along. Go Big!” Trump said on Twitter Friday. Later in the day, speaking on Rush Limbaugh’s radio program, Trump said, “I would like to see a bigger stimulus package, frankly, than either the Democrats or the Republicans are offer
ing.”
White House communications director Alyssa Farah contradicted that assertion, however, saying that the White House wanted to keep the final tally “below $2 trillion.” Democrats have been seeking a $2.2 trillion bill.
The new $1.8 trillion offer is an increase from the White House’s most recent proposal of around $1.6 trillion, which Pelosi had dismissed as too mea
ger. Among the changes: The new offer proposes $300 billion for cities and states, up from $250 billion in the earlier proposal; it maintains a $400 weekly enhanced unemployment insurance benefit from the previous version, but for a somewhat longer duration, according to a person familiar with the contents who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss them.
The White House’s offer on stimulus checks includes $1,000 per child, instead of the $500 per child provided in the original Cares Act approved in March, according to two people with knowledge of the plan. The increase in the payment to children appears to be intended as a compromise measure for rejecting tax credits for children pushed by Pelosi in negotiations.
The figure for states and cities, first reported by Politico, is still significantly lower than Democrats had been seeking. That issue has been a long-running point of contention between the two sides, with Republicans claiming Democrats are trying to “bail out” blue states, a claim that angers Democrats, especially since many Republican governors also are seeking additional federal aid. Roughly $400 billion of the spending would come from money that had already been approved by Congress and would be repurposed, an administration official said, so that the net cost of the bill would be closer to $1.5 trillion.
Trump’s sudden desire for a huge spending bill does not match the mood from many Republicans on Capitol Hill, who have been cooler to the idea of a big package less than four weeks before the November elections. It comes, though, amid signs the U.S. economy is hitting a rough patch several months into a partial recovery.