(Headline USA) After Democrats attempted to squeeze an array of radical and irrelevant measures into the CARES II stimulus package—demanding that their Republican colleagues find middle ground in areas like promoting ballot fraud and subsidizing welfare for illegal immigrants in sanctuary cities—they now appear poised to wind up with nothing.
“Unfortunately we did not make any progress today,” said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin after Friday’s last-ditch effort.
Republicans said Pelosi was relying on budget maneuvers to curb costs and contended she has overplayed her hand.
As a result, Americans displaced economically by coronavirus-related shutdowns seem unlikely to find any extra relief from the federal government in the foreseeable future.
At stake was a fresh round of $1,200 direct payments to most people.
The impass also means a longer and perhaps permanent expiration of a $600 per-week bonus pandemic jobless benefit that’s kept millions of people from falling into poverty.
Also at stake in the impasse was more than $100 billion to help schools reopen this fall, although Democrats insisted that many be allowed to operate exclusively online, even as evidence shows most children pose little risk of spreading or suffering serious symptoms from the virus
And it denies billions of dollars to state and local governments, some of which have openly flouted federal guidelines by, among other things, issuing stimulus checks to noncitizens, which now must come out of their own pockets.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., also had aimed to squeeze in measures that would automatically mail absentee ballots to every registered voter—despite evidence that leftist activists have been busy registering the deceased cats of voters in some key battleground states.
And it would have permitted the controversial practice of ballot harvesting, which Democrats themselves have vocally denounced in cases where it benefited a Republican candidate.
Both the House and Senate have now left Washington, with members sent home on instructions to be ready to return for a vote on an agreement. With no deal in sight, their absence raises the possibility of a prolonged stalemate that stretches well into August and even September.
President Donald Trump for now appears poised to go it alone, despite the considerable limits of that approach.
Following through on earlier warnings, Mnuchin said Trump will move forward with executive orders on home evictions and on student loan debt, and to permit states to repurpose COVID relief funding into their unemployment insurance programs.
But a potential executive order to defer collection of Social Security payroll taxes has been shelved.
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said, “This is not a perfect answer — we’ll be the first ones to say that — but it is all that we can do, and all the president can do within the confines of his executive power.”
Friday’s session followed a combative meeting on Thursday evening that for the first time cast real doubt on the ability of the Trump administration and Democrats on Capitol Hill to come together on a fifth COVID-19 response bill.
Pelosi summoned Mnuchin and Meadows in hopes of breathing life into the negotiations, which have been characterized by frustration and intransigence—particularly on top issues such as extending the bonus pandemic jobless benefit that expired last week.
Pelosi declared the talks all but dead until Meadows and Mnuchin give ground.
“I’ve told them ‘come back when you are ready to give us a higher number,’” she said.
The breakdown in the negotiations is particularly distressing for schools, which have been counting on billions of dollars from Washington to help with the costs of reopening.
In a news conference on Friday Pelosi claimed she offered a major concession to Republicans—and taxpayers present and future who would be saddled with the massive debt.
“We’ll go down $1 trillion, you go up $1 trillion,” Pelosi said.
The figures are approximate, but a Pelosi spokesman said the speaker is in general terms seeking a “top line” of perhaps $2.4 trillion since the House-passed HEROES Act is scored at $3.45 trillion.
Republicans say their starting offer was about $1 trillion but have offered some concessions on jobless benefits and aid to states, among others, that have brought the White House offer higher.
Mnuchin said that renewal of a $600 per-week pandemic jobless boost and huge demands by Democrats for aid to state and local governments are the key areas where they are stuck.
“There’s a lot of areas of compromise,” he said after Friday’s meeting. “I think if we can reach an agreement on state and local and unemployment, we will reach an overall deal. And if we can’t we can’t.”
Democrats have offered to reduce her almost $1 trillion demand for state and local governments considerably, but some of Pelosi’s proposed cost savings would accrue chiefly because she would shorten the timeframe for benefits like food stamps.
Pelosi and Schumer continue to insist on a huge aid package to address a surge in cases and deaths, double-digit joblessness and the threat of poverty for millions of the newly unemployed.
“It’s clear the economy is losing steam,” Schumer claimed. “That means we need big, bold investments in America to help average folks.”
Senate Republicans have been split, with roughly half opposed to another rescue bill at all.
Four prior coronavirus response bills totaling almost $3 trillion have won approval on bipartisan votes despite intense wrangling, but conservatives have recoiled at the prospect of another Pelosi-brokered agreement with a whopping deficit-financed cost.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has kept his distance from the negotiations while coordinating with Mnuchin and Meadows.
In addition to restoring the lapsed $600-per-week bonus jobless benefit, Pelosi and Schumer have staked out a firm position to extend demanded generous child care assistance and reiterated their insistence on additional funding for food stamps and assistance to renters and homeowners facing eviction or foreclosure.
“This virus is like a freight train coming so fast and they are responding like a convoy going as slow as the slowest ship. It just doesn’t work,” Pelosi said Friday.
