We have some more encouraging news stemming from the stimulus package negotiations.
Apparently, progress continues to be made.
“The biggest step forward… in the negotiations is, I think they’re about to embrace the science in a substantial way,” Pelosi told MSNBC.
What science is she talking about?
Most likely, she is talking about testing and contact tracing related to the pandemic.
That has been a long disputed issue but it sounds like the White House and Pelosi are in much closer agreement on that end.
In fact, it sounds like they have made substantial progress and have begun drafting the bill.
Nancy Pelosi stated:
“We put pen to paper… we are writing the bill, and hopefully we will be able to resolve it… we could do that before the election if the president wants to.”
Pelosi also stated that a bill could be passed before election day if Trump “wants” to approve it.
President Trump already said that he would sign off to an agreement that is made between his representatives and Pelosi so it should be a given that Trump will approve it.
Given some of the recent outcry from Republicans though, Trump might be reconsidering giving his blessing to an oversized package if he fears it will cause a major rift in the Republican Party.
Many Republicans don’t like the fact that Pelosi seems to have nothing compromised as much as the Republicans have.
Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, is in agreement.
“We haven’t seen a lot of action from Speaker Pelosi,” Meadows said.
“Most of the progress we’ve made have been concessions that the president has made.”
The lopsided set of compromises might prove to be very problematic for GOP members in the Senate when it comes time to vote on this new package.
If a deal were to be reached prior to the November 3 election date, stimulus checks should be processed and distributed around or possibly even before Thanksgiving.
The IRS certainly has the capacity to send out checks that quickly; I think it would just be a matter of whether or not the distribution would be complicated by political controversies or disagreements.
If for some reason the election were to be seriously contested, it is possible that the stimulus checks could get caught up in the mix and it could take longer for things to get moving.
Hopefully, lawmakers would view any efforts related to the stimulus recovery has completely separate items from political disputes and would focus on getting their job done but you never know.
As far as Trump goes, it’s not clear what will happen with respect to stimulus checks if he does not win.
“I’m never very optimistic about the lame duck and I’ve never been surprised,” said Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo.
“You don’t get near as much done as you think you’re going to get done.”
Most seem to be in agreement that if Trump loses, we won’t see much happen until the new president is sworn in (assuming no pre-election day agreement).
Related
More Republican support for stimulus package coming out
GOP staffer says not enough votes for “pile of crap” stimulus
Stimulus package negotiations making real progress
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