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Partisan forces are not going to make this any easier now.
Republicans are buried and well aware Democrats would prefer a deal now to give President-elect Joe Biden a clean slate in January. The party to watch right now is not Republicans, they are Democrats and how much they are willing to give so that Biden can start his presidency with some kind of economic stimulus bill already in his rearview mirror.
The executive assistants talk about what could be attached to the spending omnibus bill that funds the government and faces a Dec. 11 deadline for its passage.
A bipartisan group of members are stepping up their own calls to action. Tuesday, one of those groups, which included the Republican Senses. Lisa Murkowski, Mitt Romney, Bill Cassidy and Susan Collins and the Sens Democrats Joe Manchin, Mark Warner, Jeanne Shaheen as well as Independent Senator Angus King, will make an announcement at 10 a.m. ET on a proposal that they hope will reignite those discussions .
The group met before Thanksgiving in person and spoke with Zoom during the Thanksgiving break. They met again on Monday evening.
Let’s keep this development in context: there is no guarantee that even their agreement will make a difference or gain leadership. However, their efforts are among the only signs of progress we are currently seeing on Capitol Hill, so they can’t be completely ignored.
According to an aide familiar with the discussions, group members sought to try to find areas they could agree on: extending unemployment benefits, increasing funding for schools, providing money for more tests and vaccine distribution program and re-launch another round of Paycheck Protection Program. These are ideas that members rallied around for a month. This is only the first time that senators have put pen to paper. The group had also looked for ways to agree on state and local funding and accountability, but these are areas that have been more difficult.
What you still haven’t seen: At the end of the day, the House and Senate are all about leadership and these discussions are still stalled. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Republican House Leader Kevin McCarthy were not in a room to discuss details for hours. In fact, the main negotiators here haven’t met since the election to try to get together. This is not a good sign when you consider how much leadership the latest stimulus bills have been focused on.
Why this week matters so much
There are only two weeks left on the legislative calendar. That doesn’t mean the members couldn’t stay longer on Capitol Hill and try to strike a deal before Christmas. But, the only hope for a stimulus deal at the moment is to attach it to the spending bill which is due December 11.
Congress could perhaps get its hands on the road for a few days, but at the end of the month there is a huge cliff face when unemployment benefits expire, student loan payment deferrals and a federal moratorium on expulsions are running out.
Add to that the reality that this is not a normal year. It’s a year when a pandemic threatens the very place where the deal is to be made. Dozens of members have fallen ill, and as cases multiply across the country, members are even less inclined to stay in the Capitol. Sometimes Congress likes to cancel a hiatus and seem like they’re trying just for the sake of optics. With a pandemic raging around and in their midst, no one has an appetite for it.
What leadership says
The language surrounding these discussions seems to be softening. Here is McConnell and Schumer on the floor Monday saying a deal should be done before lawmakers leave for the holidays. Note the calls to come together.
- McConnell: “There is no reason – none – that we shouldn’t deliver another major pandemic relief program.”
- Schumer: “We must unite. Both parties must give.”
Another important change is happening on the Hill
As progress among leaders remains elusive, Democratic senators are opening up to a smaller Covid-19 relief deal. What a little question is another question, but several Democratic members CNN spoke to on Monday night said a deal was so crucial they would be willing to find something between the Republicans’ $ 500 billion proposal and the Pelosi’s $ 2 trillion bill if that meant coming home with a deal. .
There are a lot of motivations for this. On the one hand, the members want to deliver something to Biden before he takes office. The other factor? The people are in real pain and the people are willing to try to come to the table.
“It is extremely important that we have an agreement,” said Senator Gary Peters, a Democrat from Michigan. “I don’t want to negotiate publicly, but we have to do something.”
“I think the most important thing about any package is… it will be very targeted to where you want the money to go,” said Jon Tester, a Democrat from Montana. “Now, it can’t be that small … where you’re going to have people running around saying what’s going on with it, where it really doesn’t do the job.”
Pressed to be able to support something less than $ 2 trillion, New Jersey Democratic Senator Bob Menendez said, “It depends on how it’s divided. It’s possible.”
King also answered “yes” when asked if he could support less than $ 2 trillion.
You can also expect House Democrats to step up the pressure on Pelosi when House members return on Wednesday. Freshman Democratic Representative Dean Phillips of Minnesota told CNN ahead of Thanksgiving that her support for the speaker would depend on whether or not she could introduce a stimulus bill before the end of the year .
“I need to see a Covid relief bill passed before the end of the year,” he said. “There is no higher priority.”
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