Senate set to take up narrow stimulus bill
WASHINGTON — Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., announced Tuesday that the Senate will take up a narrow economic relief bill when it comes back in session next week. President Donald Trump immediately undermined the move, writing on Twitter: “STIMULUS! Go big or go home!!!”
The clashing messages were a stark display of GOP disunity three weeks before the November election, and Senate Republicans balked at a $1.8 trillion relief package Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has offered to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. Trump, though, has suggested Republicans should agree to an even bigger deal than what Democrats have offered.
Pelosi has rejected Mnuchin’s offer as inadequate, criticism she repeated Tuesday in a letter to House Democrats in which she wrote, “Tragically, the Trump proposal falls significantly short of what this pandemic and deep recession demand.
“A fly on the wall or wherever else it might land in the Oval Office tells me that the President only wants his name on a check to go out before Election Day and for the market to go up,” Pelosi wrote. “The American people want us to have an agreement to protect lives, livelihoods and the life of our American Democracy. Democrats are determined to do so!”
Pelosi later convened a conference call with House Democrats in which she and her top committee chairpersons took turns criticizing the proposal, according to several people on the call who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss it.
The developments reinforced the vanishing prospects for any kind of relief legislation to pass before the election, even though Pelosi and Mnuchin are continuing to negotiate.
McConnell will try again to pass a much more limited proposal, something he attempted last month. Democrats blocked it at the time and may do so again with the new bill, which seems like it will be similar to the last one.
The new bill will cost about $500 billion and will include provisions to extend enhanced unemployment insurance and the small-business Paycheck Protection Program, as well as money for hospitals and schools, among other provisions. McConnell discussed it at an event Tuesday in Kentucky, where he is campaigning for reelection.
Although McConnell is not considered vulnerable in his race, he has come under scathing criticism from his Democratic opponent, Amy McGrath, for Congress’ failure to enact new relief legislation since the spring, when lawmakers rushed through four bipartisan bills totaling about $3 trillion.
At a debate Monday night, McGrath accused McConnell of an “absolute dereliction of duty” for not passing a new relief bill even as he jams through a Supreme Court nomination. McConnell blamed Democrats for the inaction, saying Pelosi does not really want a deal.
“The point is why can’t we sensibly come together and agree to go after what the actual needs are? And that’s what my bill is designed to do,” McConnell said Tuesday.
“The choice is do you want to do something or nothing. So far they have said if we can’t do everything we want to do we won’t do anything,” McConnell said. “That doesn’t solve the problem.”
Holding a floor vote on a narrow relief package could give cover to endangered Senate Republicans while putting Democrats on the spot as a bipartisan package remains out of reach. A spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., had no immediate comment on what Democrats would do. Democrats blocked the slimmed-down package McConnell tried to advance last month, calling it woefully inadequate because it omitted provisions like new $1,200 stimulus checks.
Even if it were to advance to pass the Senate such legislation would face almost certain death in the House.
The White House’s messaging on economic relief plans has become muddied in recent days. Mnuchin and Chief of Staff Mark Meadows have recently said Congress should at least approve a smaller-scale deal, similar to what McConnell appears to now be pursuing. But Trump has consistently called for a giant package, saying last week that he wanted more new spending than even the $2.2 trillion package that Democrats had sought so far.
Still, a Senate vote on a targeted relief package could put some Democrats in the uncomfortable position of voting against financial aid that has wide bipartisan support. More than a dozen moderate Democrats in the House have suggested support for a Republican-led plan to could force a floor vote on a stand-alone PPP bill, but that effort may not have enough votes to succeed.