The Indian Panorama

Tag: Relief Bill

  • Trump says he supports larger coronavirus relief package

    WASHINGTON (TIP): U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday, Oct 15  he was willing to support a comprehensive COVID-19 coronavirus relief package larger than $1.8 trillion to make a deal with Democrats and get a bill passed.

    “I would,” he said during a telephone interview with Fox Business News. “Absolutely, I would. I would say more. I would go higher. Go big or go home.”

    He went on to say that he had directed Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to make an offer over the $1.8 trillion package previously supported by the White House but said Mnuchin “hasn’t come home with the bacon.”

    Trump said he would not accept “goodies” in the Democrats’ proposal.

    House Democrats, led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), have been pushing for a $2.2 trillion package that would include funding for state and local governments, schools, and coronavirus testing and tracing, among other priorities.2

    Republicans in the Senate support a $500 billion bill that would not offer a wide a range of measures. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the upper chamber would be working on the bill next week.

    REPUBLICANS

    Democrats demanding a ‘wish list’

    “(Democrats) say anything short of their multi-trillion-dollar wish list, jammed with non-COVID-related demands, is ‘piecemeal’ and not worth doing,” McConnell said in a statement. “Speaker Pelosi frequently says she feels ‘nothing’ is better than ‘something.’ And she has worked hard to ensure that nothing is what American families get.”

    DEMOCRATS

    Republicans have the wrong priorities

    “We want to have an agreement. Yet Republicans refuse to ensure that such an agreement puts #FamiliesFirst,” Pelosi said.

    (Agencies)

  • Comprehensive Relief Bill is back on Table

    Comprehensive Relief Bill is back on Table

    Trump: “We’re talking about airlines and we’re talking about a bigger deal than airlines. We’re talking about a deal with $1,200 per person, we’re talking about other things”.

    Prof. Indrajit S. Saluja

    WASHINGTON (TIP): The deal under discussion would include new $1,200 stimulus checks, renew enhanced unemployment benefits, and provide $75 billion for coronavirus testing and tracing, among other provisions. When talks broke off Tuesday, October 6, Democrats were pushing for language ensuring a wide-scale testing strategy. Pelosi said Thursday, October 8, they were still waiting to hear back on that and that she had reminded Mnuchin of that.

    And Trump said: “We’re talking about airlines and we’re talking about a bigger deal than airlines. We’re talking about a deal with $1,200 per person, we’re talking about other things, but it’s not anybody’s fault, they were trying to get things, and we were trying to get things and it wasn’t going anywhere, I shut it down. I don’t want to play games. And then we reopened, and I see the markets are doing well but I think we have a really good chance of doing something.”

    The labor market remains weak, with another 840,000 Americans filing for unemployment claims last week, more than six months after the coronavirus pandemic began in the United States.

    It remains highly uncertain that any deal can be reached, on airlines or anything else. Talks have been on again and off again for months, but ultimately Congress and the administration have been unable to strike a deal since the spring when they passed around $3 trillion in aid.

    Multiple programs approved at that time have since expired, including enhanced unemployment insurance for individuals.

    The Cares Act from March included a Payroll Support Program for airlines that expired Oct. 1. Democrats have been pushing an approximately $25 billion bill to renew the program, but it’s unclear if the administration supports the Democrats’ approach and Pelosi has now dropped the idea of advancing it on its own.

    The developments Thursday, October 8, were just the latest confusing events in days full of them. While hospitalized at Walter Reed over the weekend, Trump tweeted a demand for a new stimulus bill, only to abruptly pull out of talks on Tuesday, a day after getting released from the hospital.

    He began backtracking within hours as a number of Republicans in tough re-election races criticized his move and urged him to re-engage.

    Trump said Thursday, October 8, he was hopeful the talks would bear fruit even though he commented that Pelosi is “not my favorite person, she impeached me for no reason.”

    Both the Democrats and Republicans are acutely aware of the immediate need for an infusion of financial aid to individuals and companies to enable them to survive. They also fear, a failure to come up with an aid may damage them in the elections. No American would like to see the daily bread being denied.

    (With inputs from Agencies)