Paralyzed Congress to try one more week on stimulus

WASHINGTON — After months of fruitless haggling and a frenzied few days of revived talks, Congress missed yet another deadline Friday to deliver an economic stimulus package to help struggling Americans weather the pandemic, instead agreeing to extend government funding for an additional week as leaders continued to search for a deal.

The Senate approved a oneweek stopgap bill to keep federal spending flowing until next Friday, securing additional time for negotiators to hammer out both a catchall spending package and an elusive coronavirus aid compromise that has divided them since summertime. Leaders have said they planned to merge the two packages should agreement be reached.

While President Donald Trump signed the temporary funding bill and kept the government from shutting down, it remained unclear whether seven days would be enough for lawmakers to complete the dozen must-pass annual spending bills and break through their impasse over providing relief to millions of Americans, small businesses and schools and funding efforts to distribute a vaccine.

Time is waning for lawmakers to resolve policy divisions, with a number of government programs and policies that are helping insulate millions of Americans from the economic consequences of the pandemic set to expire in the coming weeks. An estimated 12 million workers could lose jobless benefits when two federal programs that expand and extend the unemployment insurance system expire this month, and a federal moratorium on evictions lapses Dec. 31 without administrative action.

Support for the stopgap measure, which overwhelmingly passed the House on Wednesday, was widespread enough in the Senate that it ultimately passed by voice vote. But the private wrangling before the vote Friday forecast how difficult it will be for lawmakers to strike an agreement on the first infusion of pandemic relief since April and the broader funding package.

An unlikely bipartisan pair, Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., warned that they planned to try to force a vote on legislation that would send another round of $1,200 checks to Americans if that provision was left out of a deal, with Hawley promising “an interesting week” ahead in the Senate.

“If I have anything to say about it — and I guess I do — we’re not going to go home for the Christmas holidays unless we make sure that we provide for the millions of families in this country who are suffering,” Sanders said on the Senate floor.

Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., had also resisted voting on the stopgap bill without the promise of a vote on a measure to end the threat of government shutdowns, and it was unclear if he and other conservative allies would try another blockade.

Lawmakers and aides planned to work through the weekend to haggle over a stimulus plan and the broader spending package. Signaling that the negotiations could bleed into the holidays, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California noted Thursday that Congress had previously worked through Christmas in the absence of an agreement.

An omnibus package may include legislation that would end the practice of “surprise medical billing,” which is when a patient is unexpectedly treated by a doctor who does not take their insurance, after top lawmakers reached a bipartisan, bicameral agreement.

The current proposal would protect patients from surprise bills, and would require insurers and medical providers who cannot agree on a payment rate to use an outside arbitrator, who would determine a payment amount based partly on what other doctors and hospitals are typically paid for similar services.

Pelosi said in a statement Friday night that the House planned to push for the legislation to be included in a final spending package.

But on the matter of providing additional pandemic relief, the two policy divides that have long impaired a deal — Republicans’ insistence on sweeping coronavirus liability protections and Democrats’ demands to provide an infusion of federal funds for states and cities facing fiscal crises — remain sticking points.