House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday she won’t resume coronavirus aid talks with White House officials unless they agree to a starting number of $2 trillion, which is double the cost of a Republican proposal.
The California Democrat has engaged in a verbal battle with Trump administration officials over the stalled talks, accusing Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin of refusing to negotiate. Mnuchin fired back with a statement Wednesday claiming that Pelosi is mischaracterizing their phone conversation.
Now, the talks are going nowhere. A reporter asked Pelosi Thursday when the two sides might meet again to negotiate.
“When they come in with $2 trillion,” Pelosi responded.
Democrats have increased the cost of their proposal substantially since the House passed a $3 trillion package in May.
Pelosi said the true cost of the measure is $3.7 trillion unless Republicans agree to reverse much of the 2017 tax cut law, which would cut the cost of the Democratic proposal to $3.4 trillion.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said Thursday that the Democratic plan costs $3.5 trillion in total and that the party has offered to pare it back by $1 trillion.
“The speaker’s latest spin is that it’s some heroic sacrifice to lower her demand form a made-up $3.5 trillion marker that was never going to become law to an equally made-up $2.5 trillion marker,” McConnell said. “She calls that meeting in the middle? That’s not negotiating. That’s throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks.”
Republicans oppose $1 trillion for state and local governments included in the Democratic plan, as well as $25 billion for the financially troubled U.S. Post Office.
Mnuchin has said repeatedly that the Trump administration will not agree to the $2 trillion cost, but he has offered to spend more than the GOP’s $1 trillion proposal.
Pelosi is not budging.
“We’ve said to them, we’re here, $2 trillion,” Pelosi told reporters. “Let’s sit down and divide how we would spend that, and let’s have it based on science and evidence and data and truth and facts. The needs of the American people are not changing. They are only getting more so, not less.”
