Democrats may be willing to settle for smaller stimulus package right now

Right now, it looks like if another stimulus package happens, it will come in the form of a skinny package.

This will be a much smaller stimulus package than anticipated and it will likely focus on the following items:

• Aid for the Postal Service
• Education and health programs
• Enhanced federal unemployment benefits
• Extension of the Paycheck Protection Program

Democrats have long opposed approving a stimulus package that is not comprehensive but it looks like that could be changing.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested Democrats might be willing to make major cuts to their stimulus proposal in order to get an agreement done and then come back later after the November elections to get everything done that was left out.

“We’re willing to cut our bill in half to meet the needs right now… We’ll take it up again in January.”

Cutting the bill in half would mean that the total price tag on the Democrats stimulus package would be around $1.7 trillion.

That is still significantly higher than the $1 trillion ceiling Republicans have been pushing for and just slightly below the $2 trillion mark Democrats have been willing to settle for.

However, it doesn’t look like Nancy Pelosi’s words were intended to mean that.

Pelosi’s spokesman Drew Hammill later said that she was referring to previous offers to meet Republicans “halfway, not cutting our bill in half.”

Honestly, that doesn’t sound like what she meant but either way there is talk about Democrats returning to Capitol Hill to get things done after elections, which means that they will likely be more willing to settle for something smaller right now.

That is slightly encouraging but people still want to know what the heck is going on with the next round of stimulus checks?

We still don’t know why they have been left out of the skinny stimulus package when they are perhaps the only major element that has had clear agreement for sometime.

It really doesn’t make much sense to me.

While the president has signed several executive orders and executive memorandums, some of which have questionable authority, he definitely does not have the authority to sign more stimulus checks into law.

So until the Senate acts we will not be seeing more stimulus checks. But maybe with this new approach Democrats are taking they can negotiate stimulus checks as part of a smaller package.

H/T

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