This past week, we saw negotiations make no progress between Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.
(Essentially, the entire month of August was a month of zero progress with little negotiations happening between the parties.)
However, it looks like there may be some progress about to come about. And it might be coming from the White House.
“The president right now is willing to sign something at $1.3 trillion,” Meadows told White House reporters yesterday.
This is about $300 billion higher than the package that the Senate Republicans proposed but it is still almost $1 trillion under the demand from House Speaker Pelosi.
The original proposal from Democrats was around $3.4 trillion but Nancy Pelosi stated that she is not willing to budge from that $2.2 trillion proposal.
So the President’s willingness to sign a $1.3 trillion bill may not mean much to Democrats.
“We have said again and again that we’re willing to come down and meet them in the middle—that would be $2.2 trillion—and when they’re ready to do that, we’ll be ready to discuss and negotiate the particulars,” Pelosi stated.
Based on the prior proposals, this compromised package would include additional $1,200 stimulus checks although I did not see 100% confirmation about that.
While there still is a decent gap to bridge, this increase of $300 billion is at least a modest form of progress in the negotiations.
Unfortunately, there is still about a $900 billion difference between what Democrats will accept and what Republicans are offering.
That is a lot of ground to make up.
Hot button issues still include increased unemployment benefits and aid to local governments.
One thing that is clear is that more aid is desperately needed. Unemployment is still at record highs (the August 27 Labor Department jobs report stated that more than 1 million Americans filed for unemployment in the last week) and some programs like the Paycheck Protection Program have now ended.
Some action needs to happen and it needs to happen quickly.
Related
Stimulus check update: Where things stand
IRS sending 50,000 stimulus checks next month
Stimulus check update: White House now reaching out to Democrats
Daniel Gillaspia is the Founder of UponArriving.com and the credit card app, WalletFlo. He is a former attorney turned travel expert covering destinations along with TSA, airline, and hotel policies. Since 2014, his content has been featured in publications such as National Geographic, Smithsonian Magazine, and CNBC. Read my bio.
