Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said on Tuesday that the House would not leave for the November elections without acting on an additional round of stimulus to prop up the coronavirus-ravaged economy, responding to growing concern among rank-and-file lawmakers over the prospect of returning home to face voters without doing so.
“We have to stay here until we have a bill,” Ms. Pelosi privately told lawmakers on a conference call on Tuesday morning, according to two people familiar with the remarks who disclosed them on condition of anonymity.
Shortly afterward, Ms. Pelosi repeated the promise in an interview on CNBC, saying, “We are committed to staying here until we have an agreement that meets the needs of the American people.”
Her vow came just before a bipartisan group of 50 centrist lawmakers was planning to present a $1.5 trillion stimulus plan, making a last-ditch effort to revive stalled talks between top Democrats and the White House.
Members of the group — which calls itself the House Problem Solvers Caucus — concede privately that their framework stands little chance of becoming law. But the decision to offer it up publicly reflected the frustration among some lawmakers in both parties at the failure by their leaders to agree to another round of pandemic aid, and a reluctance to face constituents weeks before Election Day without cementing such help.
The proposal includes measures that enjoy bipartisan support, like reviving the popular Paycheck Protection Program for small businesses and direct checks of $1,200 or more for American taxpayers, as well as more contentious ones like new legal rights and protections for workers and their employers.
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But the bulk of its proposed spending would fall somewhere in the middle of what Republicans and Democrats have championed. The measure would reinstate lapsed federal jobless aid at $450 per week for eight weeks, then replace up to $600 weekly in lost wages for an additional five weeks. That is more than Republicans wanted, but less than the flat, $600-a-week benefit that lapsed at the end of July, which Democrats have insisted must be extended in full. And the proposal would send $500 billion to strapped state and local governments, less than the nearly $1 trillion Democrats included in their $3.4 trillion stimulus plan that passed the House in May, but roughly double what the White House has signaled it could support.
In unveiling the plan, the group was seeking to send a signal to Ms. Pelosi and the lead White House negotiators — Mark Meadows, the chief of staff, and Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary — that there was ample common ground to be found in talks that have been dormant for weeks.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/15/world/covid-19-coronavirus.html
