Top CEOs Call for Covid Relief, Mask Mandate

By Yuval Rosenberg

Talks to Keep the Government Open Advance, but No Signs of a
Stimulus Deal

Congressional staffers are making progress in talks over an
omnibus funding package for the federal government ahead of a
December 11 deadline, Politico
reported Tuesday. Appropriators are working on a
12-bill, bicameral agreement that could win support from both
parties, and negotiators are reportedly close to defining the size
of elements of the spending package.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said he was
encouraged by the progress so far. “Our colleagues on the committee
and their counterparts in the House need to continue their
bicameral discussions and settle on top-line dollar amounts for
each separate bill,” he said. “I hope they will be able to reach
this broad agreement by the end of this very week.”

McConnell also said that he and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
(D-CA) were in agreement on the issue. “The Speaker would like to
do that. I would like to do that,” McConnell said when asked about
the prospects for the 2021 omnibus.

President Trump could be a bit of a wildcard in the process.
McConnell said he hoped the administration would accept whatever
agreement congressional negotiators can reach, but the White House
has been silent so far.

Senate Appropriations Chair Richard Shelby (R-AL) — who reported
that “extensive talks” are occurring and that “some basic
agreements in principle” are in place — said that the president has
not offered support for the potential omnibus package, nor for a
possible continuing resolution that would be necessary if the
omnibus talks fail.

“We understand that the president has a powerful voice,” Shelby
said. “Let’s see what we can accomplish first.”

Pelosi and Schumer ask McConnell to restart stimulus
talks: It’s still looking unlikely that a coronavirus relief
bill will pass before the New Year. “There are no conversations
right now about another round of Covid relief. None,” Politico’s
Jake Sherman
reported Tuesday. “The White House is silent. The
Hill is quiet. That means no new programs, no new money for
Americans before the holiday season.”

Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on
Tuesday asked McConnell to come to the negotiating table “so that
we can work towards a bipartisan, bicameral Covid-19 relief
agreement to crush the virus and save American lives.” The two
sides remain far apart on the size and details of another relief
package.

If lawmakers are unable to agree, numerous pandemic-related aid
programs will expire at the end of December. They include two
emergency unemployment programs, the moratorium on evictions, aid
for state and local governments and student loan forbearance. “In
other words,” Sherman said, “a huge safety net for Americans is
going to be yanked away at the end of 2020, and Congress isn’t
preparing much of anything to keep people from plummeting.”

The best hope for passing at least some aid may be by
attaching it to the omnibus spending package currently under
negotiation, Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO), a senior appropriator, said
Monday. “There seems to be more interest in trying to move an
omnibus and more serious discussion about that than I've heard
about a Covid package,” Blunt told reporters.

Fauci Calls for Covid Response That Differs Sharply From
Trump's

The United States reported 166,045 new Covid-19 cases and 995
more virus-related deaths on Monday, according to data from Johns
Hopkins University. The nation has now seen more than 100,000 new
infections a day for two straight weeks. Here’s what else is
happening on the pandemic front:

Fauci calls for ‘uniform’ pandemic response that differs from
Trump's: Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious
disease expert, said Tuesday that the United States needs “a
uniform approach” to combating the pandemic rather than a
“disjointed” state-by-state effort — comments that, as The New York
Times’ Sheryl Gay Stolberg
notes, “echoed the views of President-elect Joseph
R. Biden Jr. and contrasted sharply with President Trump’s
coronavirus strategy.”

“We need some fundamental public health measures that everyone
should be adhering to, not a disjointed, ‘One state says one thing,
the other state says another thing,’” Fauci said at a virtual New
York Times event.

Fauci reportedly also stressed the public health importance of a
smooth presidential transition and said that the pandemic response
should not be a political issue. “We’ve got to get public health
issues out of the realm of political divisiveness — this is not a
political issue,” he said. “We’ve got to do everything we possibly
can to pull together as a nation.”

Business Roundtable backs Covid relief bill, national mask
mandate: The head of the Business Roundtable, a group of CEOs
from top U.S. companies, on Tuesday called for the presidential
transition to a Biden administration to proceed and said lawmakers
should quickly pass another relief package to address the
coronavirus pandemic.

“What we’re talking about here is important economic relief for
people who are hurting, and a lot of economic damage can be done in
the next two or three months before the next Congress can get
going," Joshua Bolten, the group's president and a former White
House Chief of Staff under President George W. Bush, told
reporters, according to
The Hill.

Bolten reportedly urged lawmakers to address the surge in
coronavirus cases by passing a relief bill that includes aid for
small businesses, families and schools and then build on that
legislation with another package once Biden is on office. He said
the CEO group supports a national testing strategy and mask mandate
among its priorities for an incoming Biden administration and new
Congress. Bolten also
said that the group believes Biden should roll
back some of the tariffs on foreign goods imposed by the Trump
administration.

Medical associations urge Trump to cooperate with Biden on
pandemic: The leaders of the American Hospital Association, the
American Medical Association and the American Nurses Association on
Tuesday urged President Trump to cooperate with the Biden
transition team and share “all critical information” related to
Covid-19 in order to “save countless lives.”

“All information about the capacity of the Strategic
National Stockpile, the assets from Operation Warp Speed, and plans
for dissemination of therapeutics and vaccines needs to be shared
as quickly as possible to ensure that there is continuity in
strategic planning so that there is no lapse in our ability to care
for patients,” the three leaders wrote in a
letter to the president.

Pentagon Fails Another Audit

The U.S. Department of Defense failed its third-ever
audit, officials
said Monday, and it may be years before the
Pentagon can achieve a clean report. Thomas Harker, the acting
comptroller, said officials “have been clear that this is a journey
that will require a sustained effort over several years,” with the
current timeline pointing to more satisfactory results in 2027. The
audit cost $203 million this year, Harker said, while identifying
savings worth about $700 million.

Angry at Vaccine Makers, Trump Pushes Plan to Lower Drug
Prices

President Trump is angry that Pfizer and Moderna announced
promising results for their Covid-19 vaccines after the election,
The Washington Post’s Paige Winfield Cunningham
reports, and is now seeking to impose a rule that
would require pharmaceutical firms to accept lower prices for some
drugs.

The so-called “most favored nation" policy would set prices paid
by Medicare at the lowest level paid by any country in the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Trump had
threatened to impose the rule before, but drugmakers thought the
administration had run out of time.

“This is basically Trump being pissed off because he
thought the industry campaigned against him and delayed in
announcing the [vaccine] results, so he is going to get back at
them with favored nations,” a GOP lobbyist told Winfield
Cunningham. The rule would be difficult to impose in the few days
the administration has left, however, and could be subject to legal
challenges or reversal at a later date.

Hundreds of Businesses That Got PPP Loans Have Gone Bankrupt:
Report

Nearly 300 companies that received loans from the U.S.
government’s Paycheck Protection Program have filed for bankruptcy,
according to a
Wall Street Journal analysis of big borrowers in
the program. The companies, which employ more than 23,000 workers,
received between $228 million and $509 million in loans, based on
data from the government, which disclosed loan amounts in ranges.
“The total number of companies that failed despite getting PPP
loans is likely far higher,” the Journal’s Shane Shifflett writes,
noting that “many small businesses simply liquidate when they run
out of cash rather than file for bankruptcy.”

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