December 4, 2020: COVID-19 Legislative Update
COVID-19 - December 04, 2020
Policy Resolution Group COVID-19 Legislative Update
December 4, 2020
Are we close to a new COVID-19 relief deal?
The primary driver of optimism about a new deal is simple: Democratic leaders (prompted by President-Elect Biden) have publicly embraced a new bipartisan “framework” as a basis for negotiations (see details below on Page 3), rapidly closing the top-line chasm from trillions to mere hundreds of billions.
Of course, as we have cautioned all along, the overall spending figure is one of the easier hurdles to elide. The other notable development is that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has entered the ring, supplanting Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin as the chief Republican negotiator. The hand-off is important both practically and symbolically, as McConnell had stayed conspicuously out of the fray in deference to the White House.