Washington – Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday that the Senate is “very likely” to work through the weekend as Congress leaders rush to agree on a government funding move and a bill for coronavirus.
The Republican leader suggested that Congress might need to pass a short-term ongoing resolution to keep the government open after a Friday deadline to avoid a shutdown and give lawmakers more time to negotiate.
“We’ll stay here, right here, until we’re done, even if that means we have to work through the weekend, which is very likely,” McConnell said in a speech on the Senate floor on Thursday. McConnell added that if an ongoing resolution was needed, he hoped it would extend the government’s funding deadline by a “short period.”
McConnell later said on Thursday that “talks are ongoing” and that negotiators are “making progress.” Speaker Nancy Pelosi echoed McConnell’s words on Thursday night, saying that negotiators are “doing well”.
“We’ll have our announcement when we have our announcement,” Pelosi said.
Congress passed an ongoing resolution last week to extend the deadline for government funding to December 18, but an additional week for negotiations does not seem to be enough time for lawmakers to draft an omnibus spending bill that is mutually acceptable to the Democrats who control the House. and the Republican majority in the Senate. Lawmakers also want to add a coronavirus control bill to this omnibus measure, and congressional leaders are still negotiating that deal.
The need to pass an emergency relief bill is just as urgent as an overarching government spending bill. About 12 million Americans are will lose their unemployment benefits the day after Christmas, with the expiration of the pandemic unemployment benefit and the pandemic emergency unemployment compensation programs instituted in the spring by the CARES law. Nearly 500,000 people applied for the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation Program, designed to help gig workers, in the week ending Dec. 12.
So is the Lost Wages Assistance program, set up by Mr. Trump through an executive order in August largely tapped. Mr. Trump signed an order directing states to pay $ 300 in additional weekly benefits on top of unemployment insurance in August, after a popular provision in the CARES law that provided for an additional $ 600 per week in unemployment benefits expired in late July. Now about 885,000 people first unemployment claims submitted in the week ending Dec. 12, the Labor Department said Thursday – an increase of 23,000 from the week before.
A bipartisan, bicameral group of lawmakers last week introduced two bills worth $ 908 billion that would address some of these issues, such as a provision to restore weekly unemployment benefits to $ 300 a week for four months.
McConnell, speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority House Leader Kevin McCarthy have spent the past few days negotiating a bill based largely on this framework with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. The bill they are negotiating would also likely cost about $ 900 billion and also includes a second round of direct payments to Americans below a certain income line.
Top lawmakers have been pushing to get close to agreeing a bill, even as time is running out to reach an agreement. Schumer told reporters on Wednesday that negotiators are “very close” to a deal.
“We’re really close. We’re making really good progress. We’re feeling pretty good,” said Schumer.
House majority leader Steny Hoyer said on Thursday that Pelosi had told him the negotiators were “very close.”
“I believe we are very close. I hope today, hopefully within hours, we will get an agreement and get that agreement on paper,” Hoyer told CBS News. He also said the second round of direct checks would likely be around $ 700 for individuals and $ 1,400 for couples, with additional cash for kids.
Hoyer sounded more optimistic than McConnell, saying the omnibus was largely “ready to go.”
In his speech on Thursday, McConnell said he did not want Congress to continue to “negotiate and spar that this was an ordinary political exercise.”
“After all these months, Americans who are struggling don’t just need action. They need action quickly,” McConnell said.
The House passed a massive $ 3.4 trillion bill in May and a smaller one in October, but McConnell and other Republicans declined to consider these bills due to the price tag. McConnell and Senate Republicans filed a targeted $ 500 billion emergency relief bill, but it was blocked several times in the Senate by Democrats who claimed it didn’t go far enough.
But with an imminent government shutdown and a new government waiting in the wings to take office next year, congressional leaders have finally decided to engage in serious negotiations.
“I hope we also remember how urgent the situation is for millions and millions of our fellow citizens,” McConnell said on Thursday, nearly nine months after the CARES Act was signed into law.
Nancy Cordes contributed to the reporting.