Nancy Pelosi is creating another near trillion dollar stimulus bill for the states and local governments, however she’s doing it without Republican help:
FOX NEWS – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is reportedly drafting legislation that would assist states and local governments that have seen their economy contract amid the coronavirus pandemic, but any new bill is expected to face resistance from Republicans who’ve said they have been largely left out of negotiations.
The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that the legislation may be completed this week and inject more than $750 billion into state and local governments’ coffers. The report pointed out that House Democrats have not engaged with the GOP-controlled Senate and Republican representatives.
Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., said, “We’ve really not been invited into those discussions yet.”
McConnell, Trump, and other Republicans have said that any new bill shouldn’t go toward fixing the debt of states that have spent irresponsibly, and my guess is that’s exactly what Pelosi wants to do. Republicans would be against that, however they aren’t against spending more money on trying to protect the economy.
Mnuchin said yesterday “we’re willing to spend whatever it takes”:
Axios reported that President Trump has said he is “in no rush” to negotiate a new deal.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin seemed to echo Trump’s approach to any new bill. Mnuchin, who was on Fox News Sunday, said he would like to spend a few weeks discussing the next steps.
“What the president and I are now saying is we’ve spent a lot of money, a lot of this money is not even into the economy yet, ” Mnuchin said, adding, “we just want to make sure that before we jump back in and spend another few trillion of taxpayers’ money that we do it carefully.”
Mnuchin said emergency spending “worked quickly” before, and that “we’re willing to spend whatever it takes, but whatever it takes needs to be done carefully.”
I’m definitely glad Trump and Mnuchin aren’t in any big hurry. But I wish they weren’t “willing to spend whatever it takes” because I thought we’d already done that with the 2.2 trillion dollar stimulus, followed by the near half trillion to replenish small businesses.