The White House and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have informally agreed to keep an interim funding bill needed to avoid a government shutdown in late September conflict-free.
The deal aims to keep any chance of the shutdown occurring just two months before the general election off the table. For this purpose, both parties have put aside their differences on the new economic stimulus package for COVID-19, which have kept talks stalled since the beginning of August.
The informal pact was reached during a phone call Tuesday between Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, Democratic and Republican aides familiar with the talk confirmed.
While this paves the way for the government to continue operating at the beginning of the fiscal year on October 1, does not resolve the confrontation over the new aid package or if some relief measures could be included, while the pandemic continues to wreak havoc the nation’s economy and millions of Americans remain unemployed.
Negotiations for new relief legislation in the face of the financial ravages of COVID-19 have remained stalled since last August 7.
“House Democrats are in favor of a clean and ongoing resolution,” said Drew Hammill, a Pelosi spokesman, referring to the temporary funding measure. For her part, the White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, said on Thursday: “We believe that we will be able to obtain funds to avoid a (government) shutdown.”
There is no certainty how long the temporary financing measure will last after September 30, although during an election year it is usual for it to cover government expenses until mid-December.
If the agreement is not finalized before the end of this month, the Government could face a closure such as that of 2018-2019, which lasted 35 days and was the longest recorded in the country, when President Donald Trump insisted on getting more funds to build the border wall with Mexico.
[“¿Saben quién está pagando el muro?”, pregunta Trump. Su respuesta es (de nuevo) falsa]
News of the deal comes amid the summer recess of Washington lawmakers, who are preparing to return for a short pre-election session, which will likely spark a resumption of the battle for new coronavirus relief legislation. .
However, the chances of another bailout bill have diminished as the summer draws to a close.
The check for 1,200 dollars, increasingly distant
Congressional Democrats and the Trump Administration have reached a stalemate on stimulus since talks broke off in early August.
The two banks differ by a trillion dollars in their respective proposals, with Democrats pushing for 915,000 million in aid to states and localities and insisting that the 600 dollars a week in federal supplemental unemployment benefits, which expired at the end of July, be maintained.
During Tuesday’s call, which sources said lasted about half an hour, Mnuchin and Pelosi were unable to close this gap, even after the Treasury secretary pointed out that fiscal relief was urgent for parts of the US economy.
Pelosi later noted that Democrats had already reduced their previous demand from $ 3.4 trillion to $ 2.2 trillion.
[Las solicitudes de ayuda por desempleo llegan a su cifra más baja durante la pandemia]
On Wednesday, Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said at an event at a hospital in his home state of Kentucky: “I don’t know if there will be another package in the next few weeks or not”. And he pointed to the political polarization of both benches as the autumn elections approach.
Senate Republicans are discussing a vote next week on a roughly $ 500 billion package, and they are aiming for a majority of their lawmakers to accept it.
But McConnell’s Democratic counterpart, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, said in a letter to colleagues Thursday that Republicans weren’t taking the needs of the economy seriously to move toward that vote.
“Republicans may call their proposal ‘thin’, but it would be more appropriate to call it ‘haggard.’ Your proposal seems to be completely inappropriate And, in every way, it doesn’t meet the needs of the American people, ”said Schumer.
With information from The Associated Press and Politico
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