Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said lawmakers “are on the 5-yard line” in getting a bipartisan agreement on an urgent economic relief package that has been stalled for days in the midst of an economic and health crisis caused by the coronavirus.
“We are very close,” McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said after the Senate opened for business Tuesday morning. A vote could take place today, McConnell said.
McConnell huddled with Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and other Trump officials in his office Tuesday to try to finalize a deal after a brutal partisan battle that has left lawmakers angry and bitter.
Republicans accused Democrats of walking away from an agreement on a $2 trillion economic relief package they helped craft. Democrats blocked the measure twice, causing the stock market to continue its dayslong decline.
Democrats seek changes to the bill that include additional unemployment insurance, new worker protections, and additional oversight of the federal loans that will be provided to help stabilize large companies.
McConnell, in his floor speech, said Democrats did not get all they had hoped to add to the bill.
“At different times, we received Democrat counteroffers that demanded things like new emission standards or tax credits for solar panels,” McConnell said.
McConnell criticized a 1,000-plus page economic relief bill written by House Democrats, which includes many provisions unrelated to the crisis.
“We saw the speaker of the House release an encyclopedia of demands as though it were like a coronavirus proposal, somehow,” McConnell said.
Senate Majority Whip John Thune, a South Dakota Republican, accused Democrats of hijacking the legislation for their political purposes.
“I’m still hoping we will arrive at a bill sometime later today,” Thune said.
The bill, as currently written, would provide direct cash payments to some individuals and families, additional funding for medical facilities and coronavirus treatment, enhanced unemployment insurance, grants to help small businesses survive, and loans for big companies hurt by the economic slowdown.
