Pelosi: Relief package might not get done before election
By Tribune News Service
WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi raised doubts Thursday about getting a coronavirus aid bill passed before the Nov. 3 elections, even if a bipartisan deal is reached in the coming days.
While talks continue, she said it would take time to get a comprehensive bill written and reviewed by budget scorekeepers and legal counsel before a floor vote could be scheduled. And with only 12 days to go before the elections and no deal yet reached, there may be little time left, she said. “If we can resolve some of these things in the next few days, it will take a while to write the bill,” Pelosi, D-Calif., said at her weekly news conference. While a deal could still pass before Election Day, she said, “We wouldn’t take less of a bill to get it sooner.”
Pelosi said she remained hopeful of reaching a deal with the Trump administration that could end a monthslong stalemate over a new relief package to combat the health and economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. She planned to have another conversation with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Thursday, the latest in what has become a series of daily consultations between the two camps.
But her hedging comments about the timing of potential votes injected a fresh dose of doubt that any new aid could get delivered before Election Day. And Pelosi said President Donald Trump would need to convince Senate Republicans to back any potential deal that they so far have panned as excessively costly.
McConnell has sought to limit the size of a new aid package. While Pelosi and the White House negotiate a roughly $2 trillion measure, the Kentucky Republican pushed a $519 billion aid package to the Senate floor Wednesday. Democrats decried the bill as an “emaciated” version of pandemic relief and blocked it from advancing.
Two of the biggest obstacles to a deal, liability protection for employers and aid to state and local governments, remain unresolved, Pelosi said.
Democrats have pushed in their most recent bill for $436 billion in state and local aid.
