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Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House chief of staff
Mark Meadows said they would head to the Capitol for
negotiations, even though hours of meetings so far have left
deep divisions over how best to help the country recover from
the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Senate's Republican majority leader, Mitch McConnell, said
on Wednesday he still thought there could be some form of an
agreement this week. "Many things around here happen at the last
minute," McConnell told PBS, adding that "hope springs eternal."
A $600-per-week supplemental unemployment benefit, a lifeline
for tens of millions of Americans left jobless by the health
crisis, expires on Friday. A federal moratorium that prevented
evictions ended last Friday, leaving untold numbers of Americans
at risk of losing their homes.
Congress has already passed aid packages totaling $3 trillion to
alleviate the effects of the virus, which has killed 150,000
Americans.
The Democratic-led House of Representatives passed a plan, worth
another $3 trillion, in May. But the Republican-led Senate
refused to consider that bill.
Instead, Senate Republicans unveiled on Monday their own plan,
reached with the Trump administration, with a $1 trillion price
tag.
After meeting on Wednesday with the top two Democrats in
Congress - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader
Chuck Schumer - Mnuchin and Meadows said there were still deep
divisions on a host of issues.
Those include whether to pass a temporary extension of the
extended unemployment benefit, whether to provide aid to state
and local governments and a Republican plan to prevent liability
lawsuits.
(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle and Susan Cornwell; Editing by
Peter Cooney)
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