Great news: Stimulus negotiations might be re-starting

Most of the news that we have come across regarding stimulus relief has been negative.

But yesterday, we heard some very encouraging news regarding the next stimulus package.

We heard that lawmakers were proposing a $900 billion stimulus plan but that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell basically rejected it out the gate.

But we didn’t know how Democrat leaders felt about this bill.

Well, now we know that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer want to use the $908 billion bipartisan stimulus plan as the basis for relief talks!

This is pretty fantastic news.

“While we made a new offer to Leader McConnell and Leader McCarthy on Monday, in the spirit of compromise we believe the bipartisan framework introduced by Senators yesterday should be used as the basis for immediate bipartisan, bicameral negotiations,” Schumer and Pelosi said.

So this is still the very beginning of potential progress but it is a very promising sign.

It’s promising for a few reasons.

First, the leaders in Congress have essentially done nothing since the election and so this is a nice first step to making actual progress.

It was looking like nothing would happen until the end of January but now there is a reasonable shot of something happening before the end of the year.

Second, Pelosi was adamant about going with a large stimulus bill valued at least $2 trillion or more. She stuck with this position for months and was unwilling to budge.

But now she’s willing to go along with this $900 billion stimulus plan as a basis for negotiations.

Obviously, Pelosi and other Democrats will be pushing for a larger package than $900 billion but at least the starting point now is under $1 trillion which is going to be much more appealing to Republicans.

One has to wonder if the Biden administration already has had an effect on Pelosi considering that this was something Biden and his campaign were reportedly pushing for behind the scenes.

Pelosi showed no signs of compromising at this level prior to the election so it does seem like the Biden administration probably has a lot to do with them being willing to negotiate from this new starting point.

Regardless of the motives, this news is also very encouraging because they specifically stated that they wanted to pass aid by the end of the year.

Now it is true that McConnell is still not showing support for this new bill, presumably because it is too high.

But there still efforts being made to win him over.

Per CNBC, Democratic House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., was set to speak to McConnell on Wednesday about a pandemic relief bill and told reporters he hopes the parties can strike a deal by the end of the weekend and pass it by next week.

That would involve a pretty quick compromise decision by McConnell but it could be possible.

The deadline for authorizing spending to avoid a government shut down is December 11 and there is talk about linking coronavirus provisions with the spending measure.

“The need is great, it is immediate, it is urgent and I think we certainly have the capacity to act,” Hoyer said.

“By the way, Sen. McConnell agrees on that.”

It is worth noting that this proposal does not contain stimulus checks.

That doesn’t mean that they will never go out because it is possible that they could be added into this bill after negotiations or that they could go out later on — perhaps after inauguration day.

Overall, this is probably the best news we have heard in several weeks regarding the chances of more coronavirus relief.

Hopefully something can be done and a new bill can be agreed to in the next week or two.

Related

McConnell rejects new $900 billion stimulus proposal

A stimulus deal before inauguration?

Could stimulus checks be included in a smaller stimulus package?