Mnuchin says new aid package needed
WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Tuesday that a new stimulus package is still needed to help the economy recover from the ravages of the coronavirus, and he committed to calling Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., right away to try to restart talks.
Mnuchin’s comments came in testimony before the select subcommittee on the coronavirus crisis, which convened on Capitol Hill in the final week of Congress’s summer recess. Mnuchin and the panel’s chairman, Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., appeared in person along with a handful of lawmakers, while others spoke through a video link.
“While we continue to see signs of a strong economic recovery, we are sensitive to the fact that there is more work to be done, and certain areas of the economy require additional relief,” Mnuchin testified in his opening statement. “I believe a bipartisan agreement still should be reached and would provide substantial funds” for areas including schools, testing, vaccines, small businesses, enhanced unemployment benefits and the Postal Service.
President Donald Trump, meanwhile, said on Tuesday that the struggling airline industry would also need more assistance.
“Additional economic stimulus is urgently needed … as the pandemic drags on, states, cities and businesses are warning that more layoffs may be coming,” Clyburn said. “Secretary Mnuchin, I hope you will return to the negotiating table prepared to find common cause.”
Mnuchin was involved in talks last month with Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows aimed at producing a new economic relief package. But those talks collapsed amid partisan rancor, and Trump moved forward on his own with executive actions aimed at providing some relief in areas including unemployment assistance.
Meadows reiterated in a television interview Tuesday that more such unilateral moves were under consideration.
Pelosi and Meadows spoke last week, with Pelosi saying Democrats would agree to a $2.2 trillion package. But that figure is still too high for Republicans.
“I do not support $2.2 trillion,” Mnuchin said Tuesday. “But what is more important is what is the breakdown of getting money to American workers, American families, kids … there are tremendous areas of agreement and that’s what we should be doing right away.”
“I don’t think the right outcome is zero. No one thinks the right outcome is zero,” Mnuchin said.
The administration has pushed Democrats to agree to a slimmed-down package addressing areas of common ground, but Democrats have refused to abandon their goal of a comprehensive package.
Senate Republicans have been working to agree on what they’re calling a “skinny” or “targeted” package with a price tag under $1 trillion that they may try to move forward on the Senate floor as soon as next week. Democrats would probably block this, but Republicans have been trying to put the focus on what they view as Democrats’ unreasonable refusal to compromise in the talks. Senate GOP incumbents in tight races are also eager to be able to vote on some additional recovery measures.
Some 27 million Americans are receiving some form of unemployment aid. Last week, the Labor Department said another 1 million Americans filed jobless claims the prior week.
The stock market has made strong gains, and the economy has recovered slightly less than half of the jobs that were initially lost during the pandemic in March and April. Trump has been talking bullishly about the economy’s revival, focusing on things like the stock market, as he and some other White House advisers insist that the economy is poised for a strong “V-shaped” recovery.
Democrats and some liberal economists, however, have expressed concerns about a “K-shaped” recovery, in which the economically advantaged bounce back, while people who are on the lower levels of the income scale fare poorly.
Rep. Andy Kim, D-N.J., asked Mnuchin if he agreed the economy was poised for a strong “V-shaped” recovery.
“I think we are set for a very strong recovery but let me just say, there are many businesses, many industries that have been destroyed by this, and that’s why I urge Congress, the House and the Senate, to move forward and let us provide help especially for those hardest-hit businesses,” Mnuchin said.
“Let’s not get lost on different letters of the alphabet, let’s move forward in a bipartisan basis on areas we can agree on,” he said.