Talks escalate on COVID-19 relief deal
WASHINGTON – Talks on a longdelayed COVID-19 aid package intensified Tuesday as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi summoned other top congressional leaders for a potentially critical meeting.
Pelosi, D-calif., spoke with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin for more than an hour, her office announced, and Mnuchin was to join the make-or-break meeting of Capitol Hill’s “big four” leaders by phone.
The uptick in activity could be a sign that an agreement is near, though COVID-19 relief talks have been notoriously difficult.
Pelosi hasn’t met with Senate Republican Leader Mitch Mcconnell in months. The Kentucky Republican is pressuring Democrats to drop a muchsought $160 billion aid package for states and local governments struggling to balance their budgets because of the pandemic.
Rank-and-file Democrats appear increasingly resigned to having to drop, for now, the party’s demand for fiscal relief for states and local governments whose budgets have been thrown out of balance by the public health crisis.
Pelosi, D-calif., pressed in talks with Mnuchin on Monday for help for struggling states and localities.
But top Democratic allies of President-elect Joe Biden came out in support of a $748 billion plan offered by a bipartisan group of lawmakers and hinted they won’t insist on a pitched battle for state and local aid now.
“We cannot afford to wait any longer to act. This should not be Congress’ last COVID relief bill, but it is a strong compromise that deserves support from both Republicans and Democrats in the Senate,” said Sen. Chris Coons, D-del. “We cannot leave for the holidays without getting relief to those Americans who need it.”
The message from Coons, a confidant of Biden, and a similar message from Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, DIll., came as a bipartisan group of lawmakers unveiled a detailed COVID-19 aid proposal in hopes it would serve as a model for their battling leaders to follow as they try to negotiate a final agreement.
But the group was unable to forge a compromise on Gop-sought provisions shielding businesses from COVid-19-related lawsuits, a key priority of Senate Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell. The Kentucky Republican is pressing a lowest-common-denominator approach that would drop the lawsuit shield idea for now if Democrats agree to drop a $160 billion state and local aid package.
“We can live to fight another day on what we disagree on,” Mcconnell said Tuesday. “But we ought to go forward with what we can agree on.”
Pelosi has insisted for months that state and local aid would be a part of any final bill, but as time is running out, Democrats appear unwilling to hold the rest of the package hostage over the demand.
Several Democrats appeared at a bipartisan news conference Monday to endorse the $748 billion package.
“We’re not going home until this is done,” Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.VA., said on CNN on Tuesday morning. “We’ve got to get people a lifeline. It will pass – the $748 (billion).”