Trump weighs order to suspend evictions
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Monday that he’s looking at unilaterally taking steps to stop tenant evictions, and that such a backup plan might be necessary if a deal for a new coronavirus relief bill is not reached on Capitol Hill.
“A lot of people are going to be evicted, but I’m going to stop it because I’ll do it myself if I have to,” Trump told reporters at an event at the White House. “I have a lot of powers with respect to executive orders, and we’re looking at that very seriously right now.”
Pressure is increasing for a bill after expanded federal unemployment benefits expired for about 30 million workers on Friday, and a moratorium on housing evictions also expired recently.
Trump spoke as the latest round of negotiations was underway in the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. The meeting with Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows lasted about two hours.
Schumer said afterward that the group was making progress and that the issue of executive orders had not come up.
“There are a long list of
things that are needed and the good news is our Republican colleagues agree with a few of them,” Schumer said, adding, “the discussion is productive.”
The group has met regularly for the past week, with limited signs of progress. Democrats have been hold- ing out for a wide-ranging $3 trillion bill while Trump administration officials had been pushing a short-term fix for unemployment benefits, evictions and a few other issues.
On Monday, though, Mnuchin said the administration was open to a comprehensive bill if a deal could be reached.
“The president wants us to get a deal so we can resolve these issues that are very important to the American public,” Mnuchin said, adding in response to a reporter’s question: “We’re open to a bigger package if we can reach an agreement.”
Schumer said they spent Monday’s meeting comparing elements of a $1 trillion bill Senate Republicans unveiled last week to the more generous spending provisions Democrats have proposed.
Meadows, when asked whether an eventual bill could cost more than $1 trillion, said, “We’re so far apart right now that’s not even a valid question.”
At the White House, Trump insisted he was involved when asked why he was not taking part in the talks.
“I’m totally involved, I’m totally involved,” Trump said, but he accused Democrats of “slow-rolling” the talks and said he might have to act on his own.
It’s not clear what steps the administration could take without the help of Congress on issues such as lapsed enhanced unemployment benefits or the expired moratorium on evictions — the two matters Trump has recently identified as his highest priorities in the ongoing talks. Both of those programs were authorized by Congress this year but were designed to be temporary.
STICKING POINTS
On the Senate floor, Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., re-upped his complaint that Democrats are taking too tough a line. McConnell is not a direct participant in the talks but is likely to be an important force in closing out any potential agreement.
“The speaker of the House and the Democratic leader are continuing to say ‘our way or the highway’ with a massive wish list for left-wing lobbyists that was slapped together a few weeks ago called a coronavirus bill,” McConnell said.
Speaking to reporters after the two-hour session, Democratic negotiators pressed the case for additional food aid, funding for the U.S. Postal Service, and the $600-perweek jobless benefit that lapsed last week. The benefit has helped prop up the economy and family budgets as the coronavirus has wrought havoc.
The White House is seeking opportunities to boost Trump, like providing another round of $1,200 stimulus payments and extending the supplemental jobless benefit and partial eviction ban. Pelosi, the top Democratic negotiator, appears intent on an agreement as well, but she’s made it clear she needs big money for state and local governments, unemployment benefits and food aid.
“It was productive; we’re moving down the track. We still have our differences, we are trying to have a clearer understanding of what the needs are, and the needs are that millions of children in our country are food insecure,” Pelosi said. “Millions of people in our country are concerned about being evicted. Tens of millions of people are on unemployment insurance.”
Most members of the Democratic-controlled House have left Washington and won’t return until there is an agreement to vote on, but the GOP-held Senate remains in the capital.
Areas of agreement already include the $1,200 direct payment and changes to the Paycheck Protection Program to permit especially hard-hit businesses to obtain another loan under generous forgiveness terms.
But the terms and structure of the unemployment benefit remain a huge sticking point, negotiators said Sunday, and Meadows hasn’t made any concessions on the almost $1 trillion Pelosi wants for state and local governments grappling with pandemic-related revenue losses.
Pelosi said she’d consider reducing the $600 benefit for people in states with lower unemployment rates. Republicans want to cut the benefit to encourage beneficiaries to return to work and say it is bad policy since it pays many jobless people more money than they made at their previous jobs.
“Right now, today, we have an emergency,” Pelosi said Monday on CNN. “A building is on fire and they are deciding how much water they want to have in the bucket. This is very important to stop — millions of people could have fallen into poverty without this $600.”
The White House’s strategy in the negotiations has shifted several times in the past few weeks. The Democratic-led House passed a $3 trillion package in May that included an extension of the $600 weekly enhanced unemployment benefits, new stimulus checks, aid for states and localities, and various other programs. The White House expressed opposition to that bill but did not begin negotiations with Democrats until recently. It also took the White House much longer than expected to broker a unified proposal with the Senate Republicans after blowback on several of the White House’s ideas. The Republican bill extended unemployment benefits at a much lower rate.
Despite intense partisanship on Capitol Hill, Congress often manages to act when forced to by a deadline. But lawmakers did not reach a compromise ahead of the expiration of enhanced unemployment benefits at the end of July. The partisan divisions and policy disagreements have intensified as the November elections approach, and the bipartisan spirit evident in the negotiations earlier in the year has disappeared.
This is one of the variables guiding the White House’s decision to explore unilateral actions. Two people with knowledge of the discussions, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic, said talks were preliminary and that no final decisions had been made. The preferred path is still to make a deal with Congress.
Stephen Moore and Phil Kerpen, two outside economic advisers to the White House, published a Wall Street Journal opinion piece on Sunday, urging Trump to declare a “national economic emergency” and announce that the Internal
Revenue Service would temporarily defer the collection of payroll taxes. The effect would be to cut payroll taxes for workers, something Trump has long sought, though the legality of such a maneuver could come under immediate attack.
It was not clear whether this idea was under serious consideration among administration officials.
The Treasury Department on Monday projected government borrowing of $947 billion in the current July-September period, which would be a record for the quarter but down from the all-time high of $2.75 trillion in this year’s second quarter.
Treasury officials also announced Monday that the government plans to borrow $1.22 trillion in the October-December period.
Those amounts include $1 trillion in expected borrowing to finance another economic stimulus package.
Treasury officials said the $1 trillion amount, spread over this quarter and the October-December period, is essentially a place holder since both sides remain far apart on the issue of how much support is needed for the economy, on top of the more than $3 trillion Congress has already provided.
The $947 billion in projected borrowing for the current quarter surpasses the old mark for the period of $530 billion set in 2008 when the government was having to spend large sums to deal with the 2008 financial crisis.
The Congressional Budget Office is projecting that the deficit for this year will soar to $3.7 trillion, far surpassing the previous record deficit of $1.4 trillion in 2009, the first time the shortfall for a single year topped $1 trillion.
The government’s new borrowing for this budget year, which ends Sept. 30, is expected to total $4.51 trillion under Treasury’s current projections. Much of that borrowing is for rolling over existing debt. Treasury expects to begin the 2021 budget year with record first quarter borrowing of $1.22 trillion.
The borrowing estimates released Monday will be followed Wednesday by an announcement of the types and sizes of Treasury securities the government expects to sell this quarter to cover its borrowing needs.