(TheLibertyRevolution.com)- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pushed through a $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief package on Thursday. Not only did she get no support from Republicans, though, she had many Democrats who weren’t with her, either.
Roughly 20 Democrats voted against Pelosi’s new bill. Many did so to press the speaker to come to a compromise deal with Republicans by Friday, when most legislators will return to their homes to campaign ahead of the November 3 election.
Utah Representative Ben McAdams is one of the Democrats who voted no. He told Politico he wanted a compromised deal to be reached by Friday, saying:
“Republicans have put forward a serious offer, and I think leadership should stay at the table and get this across the finish line. It’s a serious offer and a good faith offer, and it feels like we are getting close.”
The offer he’s referring to is the White House’s most recent $1.6 trillion proposal. That’s up roughly $600 billion from its initial high point. To this point, though, Pelosi has balked at that offer.
That led Kayleigh McEnany, a spokeswoman for the White House, to accuse Pelosi of “not being serious” during negotiations. She said:
“We raised our offer to $1.6 trillion. It is a good proposal but is one she is not interested in.”
Cindy Axne, a Democratic Representative from Iowa, agreed with McAdams, saying of the House’s approval of the $2.2 trillion bill:
“This is going nowhere. We know it’s going nowhere. This is just a vote to make people feel good. I want to help people, and that means sitting at the table and getting the damn deal done.”
Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin have plans to meet again on Friday to continue negotiations on a bi-partisan coronavirus stimulus bill. It’ll mark the sixth day in a row the two have worked to hammer out a deal.
For her part, Pelosi has said that she believes a deal can be agreed upon by Friday. If that does happen, she said she would keep House members in Washington, D.C., through the weekend. She’d even do so if a deal is close to being reached, she said.
As she told reporters Thursday night:
“We’ll see where we go from here tonight, but I’ve spoken to him (Mnuchin) a number of times already. Even if we came to some agreement, nothing is agreed to until everything is agreed to — it’s the language.”
It’s funny to hear Pelosi said the two sides are close to a deal after she blasted the White House’s latest proposal on Thursday. On Bloomberg TV, she said of the proposal:
“This isn’t half a loaf. What they’re offering is the heel of the loaf. It’s no use going into a negotiation if you say, ‘I’ll just take the path of least resistance.'”
Even if a deal can somehow be reached between House leadership and White House negotiators, though, it’ll have to be sold to Senate Republicans, who for the most part have balked at another expensive stimulus package.
