House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell each took a stab at breaking the deadlock over a new stimulus, but it wasn’t clear that either side budged enough to get a deal in the short time Congress has left to act.
Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer -- who’ve previously stuck with a $2.4 trillion coronavirus relief package -- presented a new proposal to McConnell and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, but refused to publicly release details. Schumer called it “a private proposal to help move the ball forward.”
McConnell, in response, began circulating his own plan to fellow Republicans, saying it had the blessing of President Donald Trump. While he labeled it a new proposal, an outline distributed to GOP senators showed it was largely a revision of an earlier $500 billion plan that had been rejected by Democrats as inadequate.
The emergence of the proposals Tuesday reflected the rising concerns that the economy needs another boost amid evidence that surging Covid-19 cases are undermining the recovery as past fiscal support runs out. President-elect Joe Biden on Tuesday called on Congress to pass a “robust” aid bill while unveiling his economic team, without offering specifics of how big it should be or what measures it ought to contain.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell reiterated to lawmakers at a hearing on Tuesday that “the risk of overdoing it is less than the risk of underdoing it” on fiscal stimulus. He pointed out that the pace of improvement in the economy has weakened in recent months.
At the same hearing, Mnuchin said he was urging Congress to “pass something quickly.” Powell and Mnuchin are also to appear before a House Financial Services Committee hearing on Wednesday.
Many business groups are pressing Congress to compromise.
“Large parts of the business community are running out of patience,” said Kip Eideberg, senior vice president for government and industry relations for the Association of Equipment Manufacturers, which represents more than 1,000 U.S. Companies. “It is beyond surreal that they are still bickering over politics when they should be focused on policies. That’s been our message to both parties in the House and the Senate.”
But both sides in Washington appeared to be holding to some of their earlier positions that have left negotiations at a standstill. They again accused each other of putting partisanship ahead of compromise.
Both McConnell and the White House brushed aside a proposal for a $908 billion compromise package offered by a bipartisan group of lawmakers from the House and Senate.