Speaking at a virtual event hosted by The Washington Post, Senator Roy Blunt, Republican of Missouri and a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said he hoped a relief package could clear Congress before January. But he voiced some reservations, noting that “the lame duck is always a more challenging moment than we think it’s going to be.”
After the election, at least one moderate Democrat, Representative Cindy Axne of Iowa, called for quick action on a bill. “There is no campaigning left to distract and detract from negotiations,” Ms. Axne wrote in a letter to Ms. Pelosi and Mr. McConnell. “Americans cannot wait longer for aid.”
If Mr. Trump is declared the loser in the election, there would be competing political pressures on the lame-duck session. Mr. McConnell could be eager to reach a deal with Democrats before a Democratic president, Joseph R. Biden Jr., would take office, and before runoff elections in Georgia that could decide control of the Senate. Mr. Trump may be less focused on stimulus and more on the legal challenges his campaign is waging in a handful of states over election results.
Stephen Moore, a member of the president’s economic task force, said that if Mr. Trump loses he could envision the president still backing a stimulus package so that he could take credit for handing off a relatively healthy economy to his successor. However, he said that it would probably be more targeted than the “go big or go home” pitch that Mr. Trump made before the election.
“If he loses, it’s inadvisable for Trump’s last act as president to pass a $2 trillion stimulus,” Mr. Moore said. “That’s not what Republicans do. Let Biden own it.”
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/05/business/economy/stimulus.html
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