White House officials and top congressional Democrats plan to meet again Tuesday after both sides cited some progress in their effort to find agreement on a new coronavirus aid package.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday staff members would meet overnight, and that she and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer would hold another round of talks Tuesday with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.
“We are moving down the track,” Pelosi told reporters after two hours of negotiations Monday. “We still have our differences. We are trying to have clearer understanding of what the needs are.”
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, center, waits in the office of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., on Capitol Hill in Washington, Aug. 3, 2020.
The two sides have been divided by the size of their proposed aid packages, with Democrats calling for $3 trillion in new spending and Republicans wanting to limit it to $1 trillion.
Among the items under discussion are sending out another round of stimulus payments, helping renters avoid eviction, aiding the Postal Service, and action to address $600-per-week federal unemployment payments that expired last week.
Republican leaders have put forth the idea of passing a smaller aid package that addresses some items while leaving negotiations on others for later, but Mnuchin signaled some flexibility Monday.
"We're open to a bigger package if we can reach an agreement," he told reporters.
Democrats have dismissed that approach, arguing instead that the federal government needs to take big action to confront the economic challenges facing the country.
“If we don’t have that response, it’ll take longer, more people will stay unemployed for a longer amount of time, more businesses will close, et cetera,” Schumer told reporters Monday.