WASHINGTON — Congressional Democrats and the White House were stuck Friday over the scale of federal government spending in another round of coronavirus aid, with both sides indicating a stalemate had arrived.
Democrats said their lowest offer was $2 trillion, down from their initial request of $3.4 trillion.
“That’s a nonstarter,” Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin said in response. Congressional Republicans have made offers closer to $1 trillion.
In the balance: whether Congress and the White House will be able to find a compromise that allows them to pass a new round of aid for people in the United States who remain jobless, and to help fund efforts to reopen schools in the fall.
The lack of a deal means another week without boosted unemployment payments. The Department of Labor revealed in the monthly jobs report Friday that the national unemployment rate is at 10.2 percent, and indicated that economic recovery may be flagging.
Mnuchin, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., continued their talks Friday.
Aug. 7, 202004:20
Negotiators on both sides offered dour assessments of the talks Friday, publicly criticizing each other over the failure to reach a compromise.
President Donald Trump threatened Thursday that if a deal was not reached by the end of the week — a largely arbitrary deadline — then he would utilize executive orders to circumvent Congress and enact jobless benefits and an eviction moratorium on his own. Democratic leaders have already warned they would file lawsuits to stop him, since the power to fund programs is constitutionally given to Congress.
The two sides have been unable to agree on just how much money should be spent in the bill, a byproduct of their inability to find compromise on the specifics.
“We are committed to negotiating,” Schumer said. “And as we said, we are willing to make compromises,” he added, calling the latest Democratic proposal “a very fair offer.”
“And you should’ve seen the vehemence: ‘No!'” he said of the White House response.
Schumer told reporters that $2 trillion was the lowest level of aid that would still draw enough Democratic votes to pass the House and the Senate. Leaders from both parties have already indicated they expect minimal Republican support in Congress, necessitating robust Democratic backing.
Schumer blamed the broken negotiations on Meadows, who before serving as Trump’s chief of staff led the most conservative group in the House.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaks next to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer during a news conference on Capitol Hill on Aug. 7, 2020.Jonathan Ernst / Reuters
“Mr. Meadows is from the tea party, you have 20 Republicans in the Senate greatly influenced by them, and they don’t want to spend the necessary dollars to help get America out of this mess,” he said. “Ideology sort of blinds them.”
The greater than trillion-dollar gap remaining between the parties includes their disagreement on continued unemployment benefits. Congress created a $600-a-week additional payment for the jobless earlier this year, but was unable to find a deal to extend the payments after they expired at the end of July.
The two sides also remain apart on how school funding should be disbursed. Pelosi told reporters the White House wants the money to go largely to schools that reopen; Democrats want the aid to also fund schools that are unable to reopen and must spend to launch and implement distance learning programs.
Julie Tsirkin, Rebecca Shabad, Leigh Ann Caldwell and Haley Talbot contributed.
