FRIDAY, JULY 31 , 2020. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ M2 A
BY SEUNG MIN KIM,
ERICA WERNER
AND JEFF STEINSenate Republicans and the
Trump administration on Thurs-
day began moving on a temporary
extension of expanded unemploy-
ment insurance — confronting
significant pressure to keep that
temporary financial lifeline while
negotiations on a broader corona-
virus relief bill continued to
flounder and senators left Wash-
ington for the weekend.
But the short-term efforts
pushed by Republicans ran swift-
ly into Democratic resistance, as
top leaders chastised Senate GOP
leaders and the administration
for waiting until just days before
the additional jobless aid expired
to offer their proposal.
After a two-hour meeting that
stretched into the night, the chief
negotiators — House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate
Minority Leader Charles E. Schu-
mer (D-N.Y.), Treasury Secretary
Steven Mnuchin and White
House chief of staff Mark Mead-
ows — made clear they remained
at an impasse.
Administration officials said
they proposed a temporary ex-
tension of the expanded unem-
ployment insurance, but Demo-
crats rejected that offer.
“We made progress on certain
issues; we're still very far apart,”
Mnuchin said. “We made a pro-
posal for a short-term deal and as
of now, they’ve repeated they
don’t want to do that.”
In their own remarks after the
meeting, Democrats questioned
the utility of a temporary exten-
sion if there was no broader
agreement. Both Schumer and
Pelosi accused Republicans and
the administration officials of
not grasping the “gravity” of the
crisis.
“What is a one-week extension
good for?” Pelosi said. “A one-
week extension is good if you
have a bill and you’re working it
out, the details.”
The rapid shift in strategy
from Republicans reflected the
immense pressure that GOP sen-
ators had faced as the expanded
jobless benefits are set to expire
Friday. On Thursday afternoon,
Senate Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell (R-Ky.) took pro-
cedural steps to set up a legisla-
tive path to swiftly pass any
short-term extension of jobless
benefits should there be a plan
that could pass the Senate.
At his news conference on
Thursday, President Trump reit-
erated that he would support a
“temporary extension of ex-
panded unemployment ben-
efits” and also urged for some
solution to deal with a federal
eviction moratorium that ex-
pired last week.
Earlier Thursday, as they left a
party lunch, GOP senators ap-
peared to be coalescing around a
proposal drafted by Sens. Ron
Johnson (R-Wis.) and Mike
Braun (R-Ind.) that would con-
tinue the expanded jobless ben-
efits but at $200 per week, or an
amount roughly two-thirds of an
individual’s average wage, rather
than the current $600-per-week
increase approved by Congress in
March. The Republicans’ ulti-
mate plan was not finalized,
however.
Before he met with Demo-
crats, Meadows told reporters
Trump would support a one-
week extension of unemploy-
ment benefits at $600, an ap-
proach rejected by Democratic
leaders as a “stunt.” Meadows
and Mnuchin have also ex-
pressed alarm about letting the
unemployment benefit expire al-
together.
“I think there is a sensitivity to
the cliff that we’re facing,” Sen.
Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) told
reporters Thursday.
The move by McConnell, sena-
tors said, was primarily meant to
try to break the Senate’s logjam
over not only the expiring ben-
efits but also on a broader relief
package meant to address the
ongoing economic and public
health crisis imposed by the
novel coronavirus. The proposal
by Johnson and Braun is slightly
less generous than Senate Fi-
nance Committee Chairman
Charles E. Grassley’s ( R-Iowa)
initial proposal on unemploy-ment, released on Monday.
The Cares Act approved by
Congress in March gave every
person on unemployment an ex-
tra $600-per-week bonus on top
of their typical state unemploy-
ment allocation, but the addition-
al federal benefit expires Friday.
The Johnson-Braun proposal
would give states the option to
extend that benefit at $200 per
week instead of $600.
I t also allows states to switch to
a complicated wage replacement
plan in which the state and feder-
al government would provide a
targeted replacement of two-
thirds of what the worker was
making before losing his or her
job.
D emocrats continued to scoff
and reject the Republicans’ latest
play, noting that the emerging
plan from the GOP on temporary
jobless benefits was less generous
than what had been included in a
bigger, $1 trillion Senate Republi-
can plan released earlier this
week.
“ The bottom line is very sim-
ple,” Schumer said. “This new
proposal moves things evenbackward. Instead of a 30 per-
cent cut from what people are
getting, it’s a 33 percent cut. And
we all know that the proposal
that is in existence now has kept
millions out of poverty.”
Earlier, McConnell and Schu-
mer exchanged the most biting
criticism yet of each other’s coro-
navirus relief proposals — cloud-
ing the prospects of even a
short-term deal. The political
acrimony also came as statistics
released Thursday showed the
U.S. economy shrank 9.5 percent
from April to June — the largest
quarterly decline since the gov-
ernment began publishing the
data seven decades ago.
But the discouraging eco-
nomic figures did little to move
the needle in Congress, as sena-
tors instead consumed them-
selves with partisan bickering
and political theater.
A trio of conservative senators,
led by Johnson, took to the floor
to try to unanimously pass his
temporary unemployment insur-
ance proposal.
That effort from Republicans
was summarily blocked by Schu-mer, who led his own group of
Democrats to try to unanimously
pass the $3 trillion Democratic
coronavirus plan the House
cleared in May. That, too, was
blocked — this time by Republi-
cans.
The procedural shenanigans
were not meant to actually enact
policy but rather to help further
the political blame game as Con-
gress prepared to leave town
without an agreement. A pair of
dueling speeches on the Senate
floor from its top two leaders also
appeared to be aimed at setting
up political blame as Congress
remained on the cusp of failure
to reach a deal as expanded
jobless benefits for about 20 mil-
lion Americans were set to ex-
pire.
One Republican pollster, who
spoke on the condition of ano-
nymity to freely discuss private
conversations, said there is grow-
ing alarm among GOP lawmak-
ers about the political conse-
quences of letting the unemploy-
ment benefits lapse.
The approaching deadline
amounts to a financial cliff forconsumers that could send the
economy reeling. Republicans
have increasingly talked up a
potential short-term extension
of the jobless benefits as negoti-
ations continue on a larger
deal, but Democrats — who
have had a comprehensive plan
since May — have refused that
option.
In a floor speech earlier
Thursday, McConnell blasted
the $3 trillion Democratic plan
as a “totally unserious propos-
al” and accused Democratic
leaders of refusing to allow
their rank-and-file members to
engage in discussions with Re-
publicans. But McConnell has
largely extricated himself from
the primary negotiations on the
next phase of coronavirus legis-
lation, as internal divisions
among Republicans weaken his
leverage.
McConnell had been quickly
followed by Schumer, who noted
that the majority leader said
about 20 GOP senators are expect-
ed to oppose any plan and Repub-
licans had wasted precious time
in responding to the pandemic,
which has killed nearly 150,
people in the United States.
“The House speaker moves the
goal posts while the Democratic
leader hides the football,” Mc-
Connell said Thursday morning.
“They won’t engage when the
administration tries to discuss
our comprehensive plan. They
won’t engage when the adminis-
tration floats a narrower propos-
al. They basically won’t engage,
period.”
Schumer said Republicans
“dithered for months” and then
released a “ half-baked, halfheart-
ed proposal of half-measures.”
He also noted that the main
negotiations were among him,
Pelosi, Meadows and Mnuchin —
and not McConnell.
“I would remind him, he refus-
es to go into the room when
Speaker Pelosi, Secretary
Mnuchin, Chief of Staff Meadows
and I sit in there,” Schumer said.
“Once again, Senator McConnell
engages in ‘Alice in Wonderland’
tactics and speeches and words.
What he says is exactly the oppo-
site of what is true.”
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[email protected]GOP pushes short-term unemployment boost extension
DREW ANGERER/GETTY IMAGES
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said P resident Trump would support a one-week extension
of unemployment benefits at $600, but Democrats have rejected a piecemeal approach to a relief bill.Senate Republicans face
pressure with expanded
benefits to expire FridayHosted by The Post’s Robert Costaon Friday, July 31 at 11:00 a.m. ETTo receive a live stream reminder for thisevent, visit: washingtonpostlive.com@POSTLIVE #POSTLIVE