The Senate GOP has spent months insisting on a smaller, targeted stimulus package worth $1 trillion or less, but President Trump unexpectedly pushed Republicans this week to accept a more expensive bill and a new round of stimulus checks before the Nov. 3 election.
The most recent GOP offering (which failed in the Senate last week) included $300 billion in new spending, while House Democrats led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi want the $3.4 trillion Heroes Act, which passed the House in May but not the Senate.
Trump said at a news briefing that he “want(s) to see people get money,” Forbes reported. Pelosi doubled down Thursday on a comprehensive stimulus package worth at least $2.2 trillion, telling reporters that “it’s hard to see how we can go any lower.”
Economists warn that the U.S. economy will lose its momentum without new fiscal support in the form of direct payments to households, enhanced unemployment benefits and aid to small businesses and state and local governments, Financial Times reported.
One of the biggest dangers to economic recovery is that consumption could slow down after being supported so heavily by direct payments of up to $1,200 per adult and emergency federal unemployment benefits of $600 per week — part of the $3 trillion stimulus approved at the beginning of the pandemic.
At a White House press conference on Wednesday, Trump said that he liked “the larger numbers” in a compromise $1.5 trillion stimulus proposal from a bipartisan group of House lawmakers. Democrats and Republicans have been deadlocked for months over a new round of stimulus during the coronavirus pandemic.
Pelosi said on Tuesday that Democrats were open to delaying an October recess to get a deal.
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“I agree with a lot of it,” Trump said of the plan. “I heard Nancy Pelosi say she doesn’t want to leave until we have an agreement … she’s come a long way.”
The plan from a 50-member group of House Democrats and Republicans has a bigger total spending figure than the administration previously endorsed. It’s also higher than what Senate GOP leaders say would be acceptable to Republicans, Bloomberg reported.
Despite the fact that Democrats are asking for more than Republicans, Trump tweeted on Wednesday, “Democrats are ‘heartless’. They don’t want to give STIMULUS PAYMENTS to people who desperately need the money, and whose fault it was NOT that the plague came in from China. Go for the much higher numbers, Republicans, it all comes back to the USA anyway (one way or another!).”
