GOP, White House still at odds over new stimulus plan

WASHINGTON — Lingering differences among Senate Republicans and the White House stalled the rollout of their proposal for another pandemic relief package, and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the $1 trillion GOP plan won’t be ready until Monday.

Lawmakers had expected McConnell to begin releasing a series of bills as soon as Thursday, but senators began leaving Washington for the weekend without any legislation in hand.

As the Senate closed out business, McConnell said that committee chairman and other Republicans

would begin introducing components of their stimulus plan on Monday.

“The sum of these efforts will be a strong targeted piece of legislation aimed directly at the challenges we face right now,” he said.

Republicans and Democrats are headed into a furious round of negotiations to get another stimulus passed as the economy continues to reel from a still raging coronavirus pandemic. With the government reporting that jobless claims rose last week, the supplemental unemployment insurance approved in the last relief bill is about to expire with no replacement in place. Among the details still to

be worked out are how the supplemental insurance would be extended at a lower rate than the $600 per week boost now in effect.

Other provisions of the last stimulus, including a temporary moratorium on evictions, also are set to end.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said there can be no negotiations without a fleshed-out Republican proposal.

“One of the reasons we are up against this cliff is that Republicans have dithered,” Schumer said Thursday at a news conference with Pelosi. “The administration has no direction, no plan.”

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows spent much of the week negotiating with fellow Republicans. They got agreement on the rough outline of a new stimulus plan after dropping a payroll tax cut proposal that had been one of President Donald Trump’s central goals.

“We have a fundamental agreement, we’re just looking at language,” Mnuchin said following a meeting with McConnell at the Capitol.

Abandoning the payroll

tax holiday that Trump sought was an about-face by the administration. As recently as Sunday, Trump said he would reject any stimulus legislation if it didn’t include the tax holiday.

Trump in a tweet blamed Democrats for scuttling the payroll tax cut. While Democrats were opposed to including it, some senior Republicans, including Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and John Thune of South Dakota, were publicly dismissive of the idea, and that lack of support is what kept it out of the Republican plan.

Instead of a payroll tax cut, the GOP will now back $1,200 checks for individuals who make as much as $75,000 a year, exactly as in

the March stimulus bill. Mnuchin said that would get money into the economy faster than cutting the payroll tax, which would take weeks to implement and would provide a modest boost only to people who have jobs.

Mnuchin suggested the White House might try again in a possible followup

measure for virus relief, but time is running short for another major initiative before the November elections. The next chance for another stimulus bill could come in late September when Congress and Trump will need to agree on a spending bill to avert an Oct. 1 government shutdown.