Economic rescue balloons past $1 trillion
Trump sees ‘great victory’ over virus on the horizon
WASHINGTON – Negotiators from Congress and the White House resumed top-level talks Saturday on an economic rescue package to fight the coronavirus outbreak.
President Donald Trump expressed optimism that the stimulus package could soon be forged.
“They’re all negotiating and everybody’s working hard and they want to get to a solution that’s the right solution, I think we’re very close,” said Trump, who continued to strike a confident tone about the nation’s ability to defeat the pandemic soon. “We are going to be celebrating a great victory in the not-toodistant future.”
On Capitol Hill, key congressional and White House officials reconvened Saturday for more talks on the sweeping aid package said to include paychecks for suddenly jobless Americans, money for hospitals and aid to industry. Though it had carried an initial $1 trillion price tag, when new clauses and other actions by the Federal Reserve were tallied, it could be a $2 trillion pump to the economy, officials said Saturday.
The Senate was convening a rare weekend session with the aim of drafting the package Saturday, holding an initial vote Sunday and winning Senate passage Monday.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Saturday that negotiators are making “important progress,” but urged talks to wrap up.
“This is not a political opportunity, this is a national emergency,” he said. “It’s time to come together, finalize the results of our bipartisan discussions and close this out.”
McConnell said he wants to pass the aid package “as quickly as humanly possible.”
It was a sentiment shared by White House legislative affairs director Eric Ueland.
“We need to act with urgency, we need to act with significance, we need to act with boldness,” he said.
Despite the enormous pressure on Washington for swift action, the challenges are apparent. Lawmakers and administration officials labored late into the evening Friday over eye-popping sums and striking federal interventions, surpassing even the 2008-09 bank bailout and stimulus.
“Everybody is working very hard,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said, exiting one closed-door session and heading into another.
Mnuchin began negotiations with McConnell, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and senators from both parties using McConnell’s GOP offer as a starting point. House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi late Friday called the GOP plan a “non-starter” but Schumer was optimistic Saturday, saying “we are making very good progress.”
The GOP plan would send $1,200 directly to Americans and billions to small businesses to pay idled workers during the global pandemic.
But Democrats called McConnell’s plan insufficient, arguing for greater income support for workers and a “Marshall Plan” for the U.S. health care industry, which is preparing for an onslaught of newly sick patients.
At the White House, Trump welcomed the stimulus plan, believing it is needed to stabilize the economy. On Saturday, he opened the briefing with a roll call of his administration’s accomplishments, a week-in-review meant to rebut criticism that the White House was moving too slowly to combat the crisis.
Health officials on Saturday again warned Americans that the number of coronavirus cases will increase in part as testing grew more widespread. But Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, promised that the administration’s measures were slowing the spread even though they were not yet easily quantified.
Trump also sowed further confusion about whether he is using the powers of the Defense Production Act to force American businesses to manufacture needed medical supplies. He offered conflicting accounts of when he officially authorized it and did not provide any details to companies or products he was mobilizing.
Unveiled Thursday, McConnell’s rescue proposal from Republicans builds on Trump’s request for Congress to “go big.”
The GOP plan proposed $300 billion for small businesses to keep idled workers on payroll and $208 billion in loans to airlines and other industries. It also seeks to relax a just-enacted family and medical leave mandate on small to medium-sized businesses from an earlier rescue package.
It puts McConnell’s imprint on the GOP approach after the Senate leader left earlier negotiations to Pelosi and Mnuchin, which angered some of his GOP senators feeling cut out of the final product.
Keeping paychecks flowing for workers not at work is a top priority for both Democrats and Republicans as jobless claims skyrocket. But how best to send direct payments to Americans – as onetime stipends, ongoing payroll support or unemployment checks – is a crucial debate.
Under McConnell’s approach, small businesses with 500 or fewer employees would be able to tap up to $10 million in forgivable loans from the federal government to continue cutting paychecks. Democrats prefer sending the money to workers via the existing unemployment insurance system. Schumer called it “unemployment insurance on steroids.”