Update:
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin continued “to narrow their differences” yesterday according to Pelosi’s spokesperson Drew Hammill.
Reportedly, the two had an almost hour long discussion trying to sort out the details.
Today is a very pivotal day because it is the self-imposed deadline that Pelosi set this past weekend when she said that lawmakers had 48 hours to make an agreement.
This deadline was supposedly imposed to allow enough time for Americans to receive aid before the election although many people don’t believe that was possible after October 15th.
But now it sounds like the deadline is to just have “clarity” as to whether or not they can create and pass a bill before the election.
“The Speaker continues to hope that by the end of the day Tuesday we will have clarity on whether we will be able to pass a bill before the election,” Hammill said.
Hammill also revealed one more key aspect of the negotiations when he revealed staffs from both sides are working “around the clock” on a deal.
Up until this point, we have not heard a lot about the amount of time that involved parties are putting into the negotiations.
In fact, there were even stretches where the members involved apparently were not doing anything and just waiting around for something to happen.
So it’s interesting that now it sounds like there are people working from sun-up to sun-down trying to make something happen.
(This of course assumes that these reports are true.)
It will be very interesting to see what type of news comes out later this afternoon.
It’s possible that a deal could be reached and I think that it would be an extremely positive happening for Americans if it does.
People really could use some hope right now.
If not, we will be back to the drawing board and the prospect on relief getting sent out before the end of 2020 will be in question.
Original article:
To give you a good idea of where things currently stand with respect to another stimulus package, I think it would be helpful to do a quick rundown of a few key actors in the stimulus negotiations.
Pelosi and Mnuchin
At the top of the negotiation totem pole, you have Nancy Pelosi who is the Speaker of the House of Representatives and Steve Mnuchin who is the Treasury Secretary. Mnuchin is acting as the representative for President Trump and Pelosi and Trump have not had direct communications in these negotiations.
Nancy Pelosi headed up the proposal of the Heroes act which was a $3.4 trillion relief package that eventually got trimmed down to around $2.2 trillion.
These two have been negotiating with each other for a couple of months and although progress has been painfully slow, they have apparently negotiated up to a 1.8 to $2.2 trillion package range.
Their main disagreements have been on things like the level of state and local government aid and also on a comprehensive coronavirus testing and tracing program. However, they have been in clear agreement on certain issues such as more stimulus checks.
Larry Kudlow
Larry Kudlow is another individual you probably have heard mentioned in my articles. He is a top economic adviser to President Trump and has weighed in at different times about the prospects of a stimulus package. Based on his prior comments, he seems to be one of the more “optimistic” actors involved.
In many ways, he has given us insight into the Republican controlled Senate when it comes to how the senators truly feel about passing more aid. This makes me believe that he is actively in talks with key Senate Republicans about passing more relief.
President Trump
President Trump has been actively involved and pushing for stimulus aid from the beginning.
His support has come in different forms as he has been a fan of pretty much every type of aid from standalone packages to a huge comprehensive measure.
He has retracted his support at one point but quickly did a 180 and some questioned if his retraction came as a result of meds taken to treat his coronavirus symptoms.
The vice president has also voiced his support and recently reiterated his interest in getting aid to the public.
“President Trump will continue to call on the congress, democrats in congress to come to the table and negotiate on a new recovery bill,” said Vice President Pence.
“We have been moving, the President put $1.8 trillion on the table and we are prepared to provide additional support to families and businesses.”
So it’s pretty clear that the White House has been and currently is a proponent of a pretty huge package. Because of the upcoming election, it’s hard to know how much of the White House support is motivated by political gain and how much of it is a genuinely held belief that a large stimulus deal could take place.
Mitch McConnell
Mitch McConnell is the Senate Majority Leader and he has largely been missing in action over the past couple of months.
Reportedly, he does not feel safe at the White House due to coronavirus protocol and so he has not been very involved in the stimulus negotiations.
He has led the charge on getting “skinny” stimulus packages in front of the Senate but those have not gotten anywhere so his actions have been largely symbolic up to this point. His ceiling for another stimulus package is probably at around $1 trillion although it’s possible he might be open to getting on board with a larger amount.
Problem solvers caucus
There is also a committee within the House that is a bipartisan committee known as the “problem solvers caucus” and they have worked to get a stimulus proposal out that falls somewhere in the middle (~$1.6 trillion). White House chief of staff Mark Meadows has worked with this caucus to help facilitate negotiations.
The extreme actors
There have also been some more makers who have offered extreme stimulus packages which include things like ongoing monthly stimulus checks. These type of ongoing checks were part of the “Monthly Economic Crisis Support Act” and supported by Senators Kamala Harris (D-CA), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and Ed Markey (D-MA).
Unfortunately, the price tag for this type of relief was just astronomical so these initiatives did not gain traction within Congress.
These are all of the main actors in the stimulus negotiations and they each have their own views on how things should play out.
The trend has been slowly moving towards a larger comprehensive package even though key Republicans still insist on a much smaller relief packages or in some cases no relief at all.
Yesterday, Pelosi stated that lawmakers had 48 hours to come to an agreement in order to get aid out before the election but it does not look like that it’s actually going to happen.
We’ll see what kind of updates come out this week as it should be a pretty eventful week.
Related
Trump versus Biden: which outcome is better for stimulus checks?
Pelosi says stimulus deal must be made in 48 hours to get aid out before election
Why Republicans may in fact support a large stimulus package
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.