Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Schumer huddled with Mr. Biden by phone on Thursday, stressing afterward that they were on the same page about the “urgent need” for Congress to provide bipartisan funds to support the unemployed, workers, small businesses, state and local governments facing huge budget deficits, and the nation’s health care system before he takes office. It had been unclear how actively Mr. Biden, the incoming head of the party, would involve himself in negotiations before his inauguration.
Ms. Pelosi portrayed Republicans as “coldhearted” for insisting on a smaller relief package and tried to upbraid them.
“It’s like the house is burning down and they just refuse to throw water on it,” she said.
That message had clear political overtones. Nearly everything said in the halls of Congress these days appears to be aimed, at least in part, at voters in a pair of runoff Senate elections in Georgia in January that will determine control of the Senate. Economists at Goldman Sachs suggested that Republicans might be eager to secure a deal before the Jan. 5 vote to avoid claims that the Republican-controlled Senate prevented help from reaching households — but Democrats might have an incentive not to compromise much, with that vote imminent.
“The political atmosphere is less conducive to a deal than it seemed a week ago,” Alec Phillips and his colleagues at Goldman Sachs wrote in a research note on Thursday, noting that the prospect for a vaccine could itself reduce appetite for a big government package.
The two sides will also have to reach an agreement on crucial spending legislation to prevent a lapse in government funding on Dec. 11, with either an agreement on the dozen annual must-pass bills or another stopgap spending bill. There is a possibility that lawmakers will wrap additional relief funding into a larger package with that legislation.
“We’d like to do a streamlined or targeted stimulus bill, but we’ve got to have some support from the other side,” said Senator Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/12/business/economy/economy-covid-stimulus.html
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