Both House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer declined to say whether this assistance would be a red line for them in the talks. During a 22-minute phone call on Monday evening, the Speaker told Treasury Secretary Steven Munuch that the GOP’s insistence on adding case protections for businesses and other entities was “an obstacle” to the agreement on state and local aid – the two should be merged as Republicans demanded.
The two senior Democrats, who briefed on the talks, said it was unlikely that state and local aid would become an epidemic relief package for CNN.
Even Illinois Democrat Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, who held weeks of negotiations with bipartisan lawmakers who released their own plan on Monday, agreed that the only way to get a deal was to drop state and local aid. “After spending two weeks I can tell you, this is a challenge.”
In the run-up to the election, an agreement could not be reached on a large-scale set-up of Pelosi and Munuch, even though the White House had raised its chance to the north of $ 1.5 trillion. A final deal could be worth less than $ 800 billion, although these terms are subject to negotiation.
To get a deal this week, Republicans will have to agree to drop responsible protections for businesses and others facing potential lawsuits during epidemics, but GOP leaders have already signaled their willingness to drop the issue in these rounds of talks.
In fact, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell argued that Democrats should drop their state and local government aid demands, which many Republicans oppose, while Republicans abandon the Republican demand for accountability protection. The Target Bill focused on consensus provisions.
Top Democrats did not publicly acknowledge the call, but when asked by CNN, Pelosi said he would not break the agreement with state and local aided Democrats as part of relief talks: “We are in talks.”
A spokesman for Pelosi tweeted Monday evening that Pelosi had spoken to Munuchin about the status of the Disaster Relief and Government Funding Bill, and that “with regard to Govt., The Speaker reiterated the Democrats’ concerns about the provisions that are an impediment to protecting the state and local finances.”
House and Senate allocators plan to release a $ 1.4 trillion spending bill on Tuesday to fund federal organizations until the end of September 2021, reducing the amount of error for Congress to avoid a strike at midnight on Friday when the funds expire. If an agreement can be reached on the Govt relief, it will be merged with the finance bill and passed at the same time.
Of that, $ 152 billion will go to state and local governments as part of the Corona virus relief fund. One-third of that $ 152 billion will be made up based on the state’s population size, while two-thirds will be paid based on an individual state’s revenue losses.
In terms of liability protections, the plan calls for “a nationwide standard of indifference to COVID-19 exposure, medical malpractice and workplace test claims.”
A summary of the structure of the bipartisan package released last week indicates that it will extend all epidemic unemployment plans for an additional 16 weeks and increase federal subsidiary unemployment insurance benefits by $ 300 per week during that period.
Now, Congress leaders need to weigh in on the bipartisan plan and make a quick decision on whether to merge an epidemic relief deal or risk a collapse in efforts to negotiate the much-needed Govt-19 relief when the epidemic escalates.
Senate majority whip John Dune on Monday signaled optimism about the bipartisan coalition, saying “in the end I think, it’s going in the right direction.”
GOP Sen. of Texas. John Cornell said he expects the government spending bill to have a “pretty solid one” in the middle of the week so Congress can get out by the end of the week, and he expects the bill to include modified pieces. The bipartisan Govt-19 relief bill could leave provisions for state and local assistance and liability protection.
“I’m not sure what extra things are included in the bipartisan Govt-19 relief bill (in the spending bill), but I think everything except the really controversial pieces are state and (local) aid and accountability reforms,” he said.
Bipartisan lawmakers made it clear at a news conference on Monday that the Congress leadership should now come to an agreement on what happens next.
“Now it’s time for the leadership (to do it) to happen,” said Democrat Sen. of West Virginia. Joe Manzin said.