Democrats and Republicans have not scheduled new negotiations on a coronavirus aid package two days after President Trump took executive action to extend unemployment benefits and provide other coronavirus-related aid.
“I’d hoped the Senate would be spending this week turning a major agreement into law,” Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on the Senate floor Monday. “But sadly for the country, sadly for struggling Americans, the speaker of the House of Representatives and the Senate Democratic Leader decided we would not deliver any of that.”
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The Capitol was nearly empty on Monday.
The House is out of session with no votes scheduled until the week of Sept. 14. The Senate is in session but with no votes planned. Lawmakers in both chambers may be summoned back if the two parties strike a deal on a new aid package.
On Saturday, Trump announced he would no longer wait for Congress, and he unilaterally extended federal unemployment insurance benefits at $400 per week. He also extended a moratorium on some rental evictions, deferred student loans interest-free, and instituted a payroll tax holiday.
Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said Trump’s actions are not sufficient to address the needs created by the coronavirus outbreak. The payroll tax, Schumer noted, would have to be reimbursed later, which makes it unlikely businesses will partake in it.
“President Trump’s recent executive orders are so unserious in terms of meeting the large needs of the American people as to be pathetic,” Schumer said.
Democrats have proposed a coronavirus aid package that would cost $3.7 trillion, which they said could be reduced to $3.4 trillion if Republicans agree to reverse the 2017 tax cuts. Democrats passed a $3 trillion measure in May but have since added $700 billion in new spending.
Republicans in July unveiled a $1 trillion proposal, and White House negotiators said they’d be willing to spend more, but not $2 trillion, which Democrats have declared the halfway point.
Schumer, a New York Democrat, said on Monday that the GOP is refusing to “meet in the middle” and pass a compromise.
McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, accused Schumer and Speaker Nancy Pelosi of loading up their coronavirus proposal with “far-left demands,” including $1 trillion for state and local governments that critics said would be used to bail out mismanaged pension programs. Republicans point out that states have spent only a quarter of the aid Congress provided in previous coronavirus legislation.
McConnell called the state and local funding request “a trillion-dollar slush fund.”
Neither party nor White House officials have announced new talks on passing a broad coronavirus aid package.
White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin spent nearly two weeks in closed-door talks with Schumer and Pelosi but were not able to get close to a deal.
Schumer said Democrats will resume talks if Republicans abandon their $1trillion-range offer.
“We’re ready as soon as our Republican colleagues have come off this view that it’s their way or no way and meet us in the middle,” Schumer said.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, said the Senate should negotiate a deal without the White House.
“It’s awfully quiet around here,” Van Hollen said Monday. “The virus isn’t taking any time off. Talks break down with the administration. We are a separate branch of government. Let’s get back here and do our job for the American people.”
