NO HO HO TILL DOUGH FLOWS
People do want to get home for the holidays, such as that is, but what’s more important is that we get the job done for the American people. Pelosi: Work through Christmas for deal
HOUSE SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI
It’s beginning to look a lot like members of Congress won’t be going home for the holidays.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested Thursday that lawmakers may have to stay on Capitol Hill over Christmas in order to hash out another coronavirus relief package and avert a looming government shutdown, as another round of marathon negotiations produced little progress.
“People do want to get home for the holidays, such as that is, but what’s more important is that we get the job done for the American people,” Pelosi (D-Calif.) said at a news conference. “We’ve been here after Christmas, you know ... I can tell you stories about that if you want. So again, it has to be done before year’s end.”
Congress is supposed to recess for the rest of the year on Dec. 18, but lawmakers still need to pass annual spending bills to keep the government running. At the same time, they hope to lock in a long-sought stimulus of economic relief for coronavirus-ravaged workers, businesses and states.
The House bought itself some time Wednesday by passing a continuing resolution that keeps the government open on current spending levels for another week past Friday’s shutdown deadline.
The Senate is hoping to pass the same bill on Friday before the government runs out of cash at midnight.
However, South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the No. 2 Republican in the upper chamber, acknowledged Thursday that some members of his own party are trying to force votes on a more comprehensive government funding package that could jeopardize the passage of the short-term bill sent from the House.
“It’s got to get done by tomorrow night at midnight ... or a short, temporary shutdown,” Thune told reporters.
If the Senate ultimately approves the shutdown-averting House bill and President Trump puts his signature on it before midnight, Congress has one week to figure out a long-term government spending bill before the new Dec. 18 shutdown deadline. Lawmakers ideally want to aattach a stimulus mmeasure to the sspending bill as wwell.
Pelosi said oone of her main ppriorities is a sstimulus that rrenews a couple oof critical federal uunemployment pprograms before tthey expire the dday after Christmmas. “We want it bbefore Dec. 26,” shes said,” so that we remove all doubt.”
Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and a bipartisan group of lawmakers are favoring a $908 billion stimulus blueprint that would fill up the unemployment programs and renew the lapsed federal jobless enhancement at $300 per week; provide budgetary relief for strapped state and local governments; allocate more aid for small businesses, and earmark cash for COVID-19 vaccine distribution, among other provisions.
But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Trump’s chief negotiator, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, are favoring another proposal that would bankroll $600 stimulus checks to most U.S. taxpayers and renew the baseline unemployment programs at current levels.
The Mnuchin-McConnell proposal contains no bailouts for states or enhanced unemployment aid, which Democrats deem unacceptable.
They say a lack of state aid could result in mass layoffs of government employees like police officers and health care workers across the country. In New York alone, Gov. Cuomo says thousands of government workers will have to be let go if state aid doesn’t come soon.
Stimulus talks continued through the evening Thursday, with McConnell, Pelosi, Mnuchin and Schumer doing most of the talking behind closed doors.