White House Offers $916 Billion Stimulus
Proposal, Cutting Jobless Benefits
The proposal by Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary,
was the administration’s first substantive engagement with Congress on a
stimulus deal since the election.
Emily
Cochrane
By Emily
Cochrane
Dec. 8,
2020
WASHINGTON
— Jump-starting negotiations with days to spare, the White House on Tuesday
offered Democrats a $916 billion pandemic stimulus proposal that would meet
their demand to provide some relief to state and local governments and include
liability protections for businesses that have been a top priority of
Republicans.
The offer
from Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, to Speaker Nancy Pelosi was the
first time since November’s elections that the Trump administration has engaged
directly in talks on Capitol Hill about how to prop up the nation’s flagging
economy. It came as lawmakers raced to reach a deal on another round of
coronavirus relief before they conclude this year’s session, now expected to
happen next week.
The plan
does not include a proposed revival of $300 weekly enhanced unemployment
benefits, though it would extend other federal unemployment programs set to
expire in the coming weeks. Instead, it would include another, smaller round of
direct payments to Americans, amounting to $600 per person.
The
original $2.2 trillion stimulus law enacted in March distributed a round of
$1,200 stimulus checks and established the enhanced unemployment benefits at
$600 a week through July, which President Trump later extended at $300 a week
for most workers. The proposal put forward by Mr. Mnuchin would not address the
lapsed benefit and would halve the one-time payment.
“The
president’s proposal must not be allowed to obstruct the bipartisan
congressional talks that are underway,” Ms. Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer of
New York, the minority leader, said in a statement, calling the cuts to
unemployment insurance benefits from a proposed $180 billion to $40 billion
“unacceptable.”
In a
statement issued after his conversation with the speaker on Tuesday, Mr.
Mnuchin offered little detail other than his intent to offset the cost of the
package in part by repurposing $429 billion in funds from earlier legislation
and using unspent funds from a popular federal program for small businesses
that lapsed this year.
The
proposal emerged as a bipartisan group of moderate lawmakers was meeting
virtually to work toward an agreement on the details of its $908 billion
compromise plan. It was unclear how Mr. Mnuchin’s proposal would affect
discussions on that package, which Democratic leaders on Tuesday said “are the
best hope for a bipartisan solution.”
The two
provisions Mr. Mnuchin singled out as part of his offer — what he called
“robust” liability protections for businesses, schools and hospitals, and funds
for state and local governments — have been the largest sticking points in
efforts to reach a compromise.
The
administration’s proposal also included funds for vaccine distribution and the
revival of the Paycheck Protection Program, the small-business loan program.
“It’s a
very good offer,” said Representative Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California
and the minority leader, who, along with Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky,
the majority leader, was briefed on the plan by Mr. Mnuchin and Mark Meadows,
the White House chief of staff. “It focuses on the things that need to be
there.”
“My view,
and I think it’s a view shared by literally everybody on both sides of the
aisle, is we can’t leave without doing a Covid bill. The country needs it. We
have an agreement that we need to do this. We know the new administration is
going to be asking for another package. What I recommend is we set aside
liability and set aside state and local, and pass those things that we can
agree on knowing full well we’ll be back at this after the first of the year.”
“Now, Senator McConnell has put the jobs of firefighters, ambulance workers,
sanitation officers, police officers in jeopardy. Every governor and mayor
across the country has been fighting to keep these people working. And
McConnell is pulling the rug out from under them. Leader McConnell has refused
to be part of the bipartisan negotiations, and now he’s sabotaging good-faith
bipartisan negotiations because his partisan ideological effort is not getting
a good reception.”
Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, on
Tuesday offered to drop his demand for liability protections if Democrats would
forego aid to states and local governments. Senator Chuck Schumer, the minority
leader, rejected the offer.
Earlier
Tuesday, Mr. McConnell signaled openness to a deal, floating the possibility of
removing both the liability provision and funding for state and local
governments. He argued that dropping both parties’ top priorities could smooth
the way for a narrower deal with funding for vaccine distribution, schools and
small businesses.
“We know
the new administration is going to be asking for another package,” Mr.
McConnell said on Tuesday, offering an implicit acknowledgment of
President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory. “What I recommend is we set
aside liability, and set aside state and local, and pass those things that we
agree on, knowing full well we’ll be back at this after the first of the year.”
The idea
amounted to the first significant concession in months from Mr. McConnell, who
had previously called the legal protections a “red line” in stimulus talks. But
Democrats scoffed at it, after months of insisting that any stimulus agreement
include funds to bolster state and local governments that have lost hundreds of
billion of dollars during the pandemic and are facing devastating budget cuts.
Republicans have branded the provision a “blue-state bailout,” though state
officials in both parties have lobbied for additional relief.
“He’s
sabotaging good-faith bipartisan negotiations because his partisan ideological
effort is not getting a good reception,” Mr. Schumer said. In her own
statement, Ms. Pelosi declared that “Leader McConnell’s efforts to undermine
good-faith, bipartisan negotiations are appalling.”
Mr. Schumer
said Democrats’ proposals for funding state and local governments had “broad
bipartisan support,” unlike Mr. McConnell’s liability proposal. The measure
would provide five years of legal protection from coronavirus-related lawsuits
for businesses, schools, hospitals and nonprofit organizations that make
“reasonable efforts” to comply with government standards.
But many
Democrats have rejected what Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent,
derided as “a get-out-of-jail-free card to companies that put the lives of
their workers and customers at risk.” And while Mr. McConnell has warned of a
wave of lawsuits related to the pandemic, economic data shows that there have
been only a relatively small number so far.
The
bipartisan group of lawmakers is discussing liability protections in its
outline of the $908 billion compromise, as well as how to allocate $160 billion
currently set aside for state and local governments. But after unveiling an
outline this month, the group has not yet completed text.
“I hope
that we can come up with an agreement,” Senator Susan Collins, Republican of
Maine, told reporters when asked about Mr. McConnell’s suggestion. “If we
can’t, then I see a certain logic in passing what we do agree with, given that
there’s widespread support for another round of P.P.P., helping our schools,
our health care providers, providing more money for testing and vaccine
distribution.”
Leaders of
both parties have agreed that some form of relief needs to be approved before
Congress departs at the end of the year, and to work toward attaching it to a
catchall government spending package. Lawmakers and aides are still working to
resolve a number of outstanding issues in the dozen must-pass bills that keep
the government fully funded.
Both chambers
are expected to approve a one-week stopgap bill in the coming days to avert a
government shutdown on Friday and buy additional time for negotiators.
Reporting
was contributed by Luke Broadwater, Nicholas Fandos, Jim Tankersley and Alan
Rappeport.
Emily
Cochrane is a reporter in the Washington bureau, covering Congress. She was
raised in Miami and graduated from the University of Florida. @ESCochrane
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