J. Scott Applewhite/AP
- A second round of stimulus checks could take weeks or months to arrive as Democrats and Republicans remain at odds over the details of another trillion-dollar stimulus bill.
- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin have struggled to agree on items such as financial aid for state and local governments and protection from COVID-19 liability for employers.
- “The speaker, on a number of issues, is still dug in,” Mnuchin told reporters on Friday.
- The two sides could still hash out a bill before the November 3 election “if the president wants to,” Pelosi said on Thursday.
- However, some legislators don’t expect a bill to be passed until next year, The Wall Street Journal said.
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The millions of Americans holding out for stimulus checks could be kept waiting for weeks or months as Democrats and Republicans remain locked in negotiations.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin continue to clash over the terms of a bill to inject up to $2 trillion of government aid into the US economy.
The legislation is a follow up to the $2 trillion bill in March, which aimed to offset the devastating economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and provide relief to struggling families and businesses.
Democrats and Republicans have agreed on some elements of a second bill, including another round of stimulus checks and the reintroduction of emergency jobless benefits.
However, they’ve locked horns on issues such as funding state and local governments and protecting employers from COVID-19 liability.
The two parties could resolve their disagreements and hash out a bill before the election on November 3 "if the president wants to," Pelosi said in a MSNBC interview on Thursday.
"We've offered compromises," Mnuchin told reporters on Friday. "The speaker, on a number of issues, is still dug in."
"We've made lots of progress in lots of areas but there's still some significant differences that we're working on," he added.
The stand-off prompted President Trump to take aim at Pelosi in the final presidential debate on Thursday night.
"Nancy Pelosi does not want to approve it," he said. "We are ready, willing, and able to do something."
Pelosi's deputy chief of staff, Drew Hamill, suggested there was still hope for an agreement in the coming days.
"The Speaker remains hopeful that an agreement with the White House can be reached soon," he tweeted on Friday night. "As part of the negotiations, committee chairs have made some headway. Committees and staff will continue to work through the weekend."
However, several policymakers are highly doubtful the two sides will reach an agreement before the election. Some only expect a stimulus bill to be seriously discussed next month and predict it won't be passed until next year, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.
"It'd take a colossal get-together, just a huge get-together, to put a stimulus package together, and I don't see it happening," Richard Shelby, chairman of the Senate's appropriations committee, told Bloomberg.