WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump on Wednesday rejected Democratic demands for aid to cash-strapped cities in a new coronavirus aid package and lashed out at Republican allies as talks stalled over aid for millions of Americans. Another legislator tested positive for the virus.
Republicans, beset by delays and internal strife, expressed their readiness to quickly approve a modest package to renew a weekly $ 600 unemployment benefit that is running out. But Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from California, flatly rejected that approach as meager, but forced Republicans to return to the negotiating table. Without action, aid expires on Friday.
“We are not close to the deal,” said White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. He said they are “miles apart.”
Big differences remain between the Democrats ‘$ 3 trillion proposal and the Republicans’ $ 1 trillion meter, a showdown that is testing Trump and Congress ahead of the November election and putting aid to communities at risk. of all country.
Pelosi said the best way to reopen schools and the economy is to defeat the virus, and that cannot be done with the “skinny” bill that Republicans are quick to improvise. “They still don’t get it,” said Pelosi.
The number of viruses continued to rise in the United States, with 4.4 million confirmed cases and deaths exceeding 150,000. Open-minded Rep. Louie Gohmert, a Republican from Texas, who is often opposed to wearing masks, became the latest Capitol lawmaker to test positive for the virus.
Money for states and cities is a crucial dividing line as local governments ask for help to shore up budgets and avoid deeper layoffs as they incur COVID-19 costs and lose tax revenue in crisis economies.
Trump complained about sending “large amounts of ransom money” to the nation’s cities, whose mayors he often criticizes.
“It is a shame to reward misguided radical leftist Democrats with all the money they are looking for,” he said in the White House.
Democrats proposed nearly $ 1 trillion for local governments, but Trump and Republicans are reluctant to send more money to states and cities.
Instead, the Republican Party offers flexibility to states to use $ 150 billion previously allocated for the virus on other needs. At one point this year, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said states could file for bankruptcy.
Governors and mayors who have been urging Congress to help warned that inaction would hit hard.
“If Congress does not dedicate financial assistance to state and local governments, it will force deep cuts in the programs that workers and families need to recover,” said Tara Lee, spokeswoman for Washington Governor Jay Inslee, a Democrat.
Most states have accumulated reserves since the Great Recession, but the pandemic stopped the fringes of the economy in March.
Municipal cuts and layoffs began. By June, roughly 1.5 million fewer people worked for US governments compared to February, according to federal data. More than half of the government’s layoffs have been in education, a sector that faces daunting costs as schools prepare to reopen students.
Last month, Moody’s Analytics said states faced a cumulative $ 312 billion budget gap in the next two years and that local governments would need nearly $ 200 billion more. Some estimates have calculated the budget gaps as even larger.
“These are not sophisticated actions,” said Democrat Nan Whaley, mayor of Dayton, Ohio, and vice president of the United States Conference of Mayors. “These are actions related to emergency medical service providers, firefighters, police, services that the president says he values.”
Democrats are clearly trying to push a lead in the negotiations because Republicans are very divided on the prospect of large government spending.
Trump rejected the Republican bill as “semi-irrelevant” when his team began talks with Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York.
McConnell defended his approach as “serious,” but was unable to incorporate his majority. Many Republicans flocked to the White House court for a smaller package by Friday.
That’s when the $ 600 increase in unemployment benefits expires, as well as a federal moratorium on eviction of millions of rental units, which can lead to homes in devastating turmoil.
Speaking at the White House, Trump expressed interest in reaching an agreement and avoiding an eviction crisis.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who leads the negotiations, said “the president is very focused” on unemployment aid and tenant assistance.
But the president said his Republican allies should “go back to school and learn” after they turned down $ 1.7 billion for FBI headquarters in the bill. Trump wants the central FBI building to remain in Washington, across the street from his Trump International Hotel. McConnell opposed the request as unrelated to virus relief.
But Pelosi showed no interest in boring help. When asked what he thought of that approach, Pelosi said: “Nothing. Not even “not much”. Nothing.”
Republicans propose reducing the increase in weekly unemployment benefits from $ 600 to $ 200 per week as an incentive to push people back to work. On the eviction freeze set in March, Democrats proposed to extend it, but Republicans did not include it in their bill and Trump has not specified what he wants to do.
“There is no consensus on anything,” said Senator John Cornyn, R-Texas.
On Capitol Hill, Pelosi used a zoo metaphor to explain the division to Mnuchin and Meadows. You see a giraffe, you see a flamingo, Pelosi told the White House team Tuesday night during private conversations. These two bills, he said, “are not compatible.”
The conversations were broadcast by two people who were not authorized to publicly discuss the private session and spoke on condition of anonymity.
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Associated Press writers Geoff Mulvihill in Cherry Hill, NJ; Rachel The Court in Olympia, Washington; and Jill Colvin, Mary Clare Jalonick and Andrew Taylor in Washington contributed to this report.
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