While Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, advocated for a smaller COVID-19 financial aid package, the progressive wing of the Democratic Party called for a more costly measure that includes the expected checks. for $ 1,200.
McConnell said Tuesday that he
would be willing to remove a provision that Republicans have sought to include to advance
negotiations for a second coronavirus aid package, if Democrats agreed to set aside one of their top priorities.
In exchange for failing to include a provision that would protect companies against negligence lawsuits related to the COVID-19 pandemic, McConnell asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to scrap the creation of a fund. for states and cities of 160,000 million dollars.
The new economic stimulus plan provides for payments to the unemployed, but not the check for $ 1,200
Dec. 3, 202002: 22
McConnell's offer coincides with the bipartisan proposal of a group of moderate senators to rescue the negotiations, stalled for more than half a year.
Senators Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia, and Susan Collins, R-Maine, have endorsed a package of just over $ 900 billion, which
does not include the expected direct checks of $ 1,200.
This has provoked the rejection of both Democrats on the progressive wing and the White House.
Six senators led by Bernie Sanders, independent from Vermont,
published a letter Tuesday asking for another round of $ 1,200 direct payments to be included in the bipartisan package.
[Schumer says the relief package doesn't include "at all" everything he would want and hopes for more when Biden is president]
"Please join us in demanding that any new COVID-19 relief proposal include a direct payment of $ 1,200 for adults and $ 500 for their children," reads the letter, signed jointly by Democrats Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley from Oregon and Kirsten Gillibrand from New York.
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"We greatly appreciate the hard work that has gone into the current $ 908 billion proposal being drafted by various Democratic and Republican senators. But simply put, given the dire scope of the current crisis and the desperation that working families are experiencing in this whole country, this proposal doesn't go far enough, "they said.
Another big obstacle
For his part, the president,
Donald Trump
, supports another round of direct payments and is in negotiations with the Republican leadership to include them in the bipartisan package.
The other big hurdle in the negotiations is
whether to provide legal protection for companies whose workers fall ill from the coronavirus
.
Critics of this measure argue that some companies, such as meatpacking plants, should not be protected if there are indications that they did not take adequate sanitary precautions.
But many Republican lawmakers note that such a move could bankrupt thousands of small businesses, some of which would go under if they had to pay their employees for COVID-19 tests.
[The federal government reported incorrect unemployment data and paid less aid than it should to workers]
McConnell said Tuesday that Congress will not adjourn without providing financial assistance for COVID-19.
"Getting out of here without a coronavirus relief package can't happen
," McConnell said.
"Why don't we put aside the two obviously most contentious issues? We know we will face another request after the first of this year. We will live to fight for them another day."
With information from NBC News and The Associated Press
.