Awaiting COVID-19 relief bill, Pittsburgh region frets over sluggish recovery
WASHINGTON — The roller coaster of talks on Capitol Hill toward another COVID-19 relief bill has left the Pittsburgh region with some serious nausea, as many provisions of the March relief bill — renters protections, farm purchases, unemployment compensation and business grants and loans — are expired or set to phase out in the coming weeks.
Over three months, the three negotiating parties — White House officials, Senate Republicans and House Democrats — have failed to come to an agreement on a top-level spending figure.
As of last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., refused to support anything less than $2.2 trillion. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said he would hold a vote this week on a $500 billion package that was previously rejected by Democrats.
And Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has offered $1.8 trillion, which was rejected by both parties’ leadership. This month, President Donald Trump pulled the plug on negotiations, only to restart them hours later and urge Republicans to join Democrats and “go big or go home.”
“I would like to see a bigger
stimulus package, frankly, than either the Democrats or the Republicans are offering,” Mr. Trump said on Oct. 9. “I would like to see money going to people.”
The prospect of heading into Election Day with no additional relief amid a pandemic is a politically daunting challenge for the president and lawmakers in both parties. But a Congress with
stubbornly polarized parties appears headed in that direction.
About 74% of voters surveyed on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1 believed the Senate should pass COVID-19 relief before confirming U.S. Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, according to the The Hill-HarrisX poll. That majority included 88% of Democrats, 77% of independents and 55% of
Republicans, The Hill reported.
Pointing to The Hill-HarrisX poll numbers, David Chambers, a political science professor at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, said incumbents with tough reelection contests could face critical blowback from constituents.
“Given the margin in some races, it could be significant,” Mr. Chambers said. “It is a risk, I don’t think there’s any question about that.”
The Pittsburgh region’s economy remains fragile, and there is growing evidence of “K-shaped” recovery.
The term refers to a graph showing the rebound of upper-income households, which have bigger savings and the ability to work-from-home, and the decline of lower-income Americans, who remain unemployed or work lowpaid essential jobs and face a savings crunch.
“The data suggest that, at least at the moment, the recovery is proceeding along two tracks,” Guhan Venkatu, group vice president of regional analysis for the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, wrote in an email last week.
Mr. Venkatu added, “Whilemany workers and companies have found ways to work around the pandemic, it is hard to imagine how contact-intensive
industries can make a full recovery — and re-employ those they’ve laid off — while people remain concerned about contracting COVID.”
In August, after supplemental unemployment benefits lapsed, the Pittsburgh region’s seasonally adjusted jobless rate stood at 10.5%, down slightly from 12.8% recorded in the previous two months, according to the most recent figures from the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry.
About 121,600 people were unemployed throughout the sevencounty metro region, more than double the 53,500 unemployed people the state counted in August 2019.
Employers in the region added just 6,400 positions in August, still down about 100,000 jobs from August 2019.
“These businesses and other organizations need a bridge to make it to the other side of the pandemic, and each day delayed in passing additional federal pandemic support means more and more of our businesses will have to permanently close their doors,” said Matt Smith, president of the Greater Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce, in a statement.
Mr. Trump has disagreed with the “K-shaped” assessment. In a virtual Rose Garden speech last week to the Economic Club of Pittsburgh and clubs in four other cities, Mr. Trump claimed the economy had almost totally rebounded in a V-shaped recovery.
“We’re rounding that final turn,” he said, warning, “If the left gains power, the recovery will be terminated and the economy will be destroyed.”
Republicans have pushed back against large spending bills, especially any proposal with additional funding for state and local governments and the $600-a-week supplemental unemployment
benefits.
Republicans, including Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Reps. Guy Reschenthaler of Peters and Mike Kelly of Butler, were leading the charge to reopen businesses in May and June with the hope that an economic recovery would replace the need for more government spending.
A spokesman for Mr. Toomey, who voted for a $500 billion “skinny” bailout bill in September, said last week the senator “prefers a narrowly focused bill that places an emphasis on protecting residents while allowing businesses and attractions to safely re-open.”
“This includes establishing liability protections for businesses, schools, and other entities that follow safety protocols and continued improvements in testing, therapeutics, and vaccine research,” spokesman said.
Meanwhile, Ms. Pelosi — supported by Democratic members of Congress like Rep. Mike Doyle of Forest Hills and Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey — has called for additional aid to state and local governments, $600 a week supplemental unemployment benefits,
hazard pay for essential workers and funding for nursing homes or long-term care facilities.
Ms. Pelosi has dug in her heels over rising pressure from her party to cut a deal.
Rep. Conor Lamb, D-Mt. Lebanon, voted against a $3.3 trillion package proposed by House Democratic leadership in May, called the Heroes Act, because it wasn’t a bipartisan agreement. He voted against a $2.2 trillion version of the Heroes Act in September for the same reasons, joining a handful of moderate House Democrats.
Those bills, as expected, have not been taken up in the Republican-controlled Senate.
During an Oct. 8 telephone town hall, Mr. Lamb was pressed by constituents on when another package would be approved. One person asked why there was not more emphasis on sending out another round of $1,200 cash payments. He faced a question from the local Amalgamated Transit Union, on behalf of its 500 members, about additional aid to airlines and public transit authorities.
“We should’ve saved the airline industry already,” Mr. Lamb said, referring to the blown Oct. 1 deadline to renew government grants to airlines. “Congress should’ve done its job and come to a bipartisan agreement.”
He added that lawmakers were concerned about the unemployed, and he supported a $400 weekly supplemental benefit.
Asked by someone else about the ballooning federal deficit, Mr. Lamb said the government needed to spend big during the COVID-19 pandemic as it did during World War II, recalling the postwar economic expansion fueled by middle-class prosperity and infrastructure projects.
“If we pinch pennies right now, we won’t beat the virus,” he said, adding he was still optimistic a deal could be reached.
Progressives have joined the call for Ms. Pelosi to take the $1.8 trillion White House offer, which includes a $400-per-week federal boost in unemployment insurance, $300 billion for state and local governments and another round of cash payments.
“Members are hearing in their districts that people are suffering,” Rep. Ro Khanna, DCalif., a key progressive, told CQ Roll Call, a Capitol Hill news publication last week.
“We have a moral obligation to do something; we are the party that stands for the working poor,” Mr. Khanna said, adding that at least 10 of his progressive colleagues share his position.
In an interview with CNN following Mr. Khanna’s comments, Ms. Pelosi dismissed that view.
“I don’t know why you’re always an apologist and many of your colleagues are apologists for the Republican position — Ro Khanna, that’s nice,” Ms. Pelosi said. “That isn’t what we’re going to do.”