McConnell: Uh No, Senate Republicans Aren't Going Along With Trump's $1.8 Trillion Stimulus Proposal

Wait. Did someone on Capitol Hill just object to a debt-fueled spending blowout just weeks before an election?

Maybe there’s hope for this republic yet. Or maybe Senate Republicans see little advantage at this point in taking chances while following the lead of a certain president. Either way, this is an unexpected and welcome development:

“I don’t think so. That’s where the administration is willing to go. My members think half a trillion dollars, highly targeted, is the best way to go,” McConnell said, asked about the prospect of a deal totally between $1.8 trillion and $2.2 trillion.

McConnell added that while a reporter was correct that there are negotiations ongoing between Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and the White House about the higher price range, “that’s not what I’m going to put on the floor.”

Trump has had Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin negotiating directly with Pelosi, apparently in the belief that Senate Republicans will simply go along with whatever deal Trump decides to announce.

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It appears they forgot to ask McConnell about that. He has not moved from Senate Republicans’ original proposal to pass a much smaller stimulus of $500 billion. McConnell’s proposal would provide for another round of PPP loans, along with money for testing and hospitals, along with protection for businesses from COVID-related lawsuits.

(Er . . . why does Congress have to allocate any money for the latter priority? Why not just pass a law that you can’t sue businesses for things that happened because of COVID?)

This doesn’t make it appear more likely that a deal gets done – and three cheers from that from us – but I wonder if it could actually provide a perverse incentive for Nancy Pelosi to compromise with Trump on the remaining $400 billion that separate the two sides.

Here’s my thought: Pelosi knows Trump’s biggest problem is going to be getting the bill through the Republican Senate, and it would represent an embarrassing defeat for him to announce this deal and then have his own party thwart it. Pelosi could join Trump in announcing the deal, then kick back and eat popcorn while Senate Republicans hand Trump a major defeat in the midst of a crisis and on the eve of the election.

That would of course do nothing for the country, but when did Nancy Pelosi ever care about that?

Meanwhile, Mitch McConnell emerges as one of the few people in Washington who seems to understand that we can’t just deficit-spend our way to eternity and not have to pay the consequences at some point. Why is there no one like that in the White House?