Pelosi: Dems Will Press Ahead on Covid Relief, With or Without GOP

By Yuval Rosenberg

Pelosi: Dems Will Press Ahead on Covid
Relief, With or Without GOP

Democrats are pressing ahead with preparations to pass a
coronavirus relief plan without Republican support. Speaker Nancy
Pelosi (D-CA) said Thursday that the House will pass a budget
resolution next week, a key step in the reconciliation process that
would allow Democrats to approve another aid package without GOP
votes.

Once passed by the House, the budget measure would head to the
Senate, where it would likely be amended and returned to the House.
Pelosi told reporters she expects that “by the end of the week
we’ll be finished with the budget resolution.”

Rushing for relief or looking for leverage? Senate
Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said Thursday that his chamber
would begin considering a Covid relief bill as early as next week.
“Our preference is to make this important work bipartisan, to
include input, ideas and revisions from our Republican colleagues,”
Schumer said. “But if our Republican colleagues decide to oppose
this urgent and necessary legislation, we will have to move forward
without them.”

Pelosi similarly said she hopes that President Joe Biden can win
Republican support for another relief package. “We have to act. And
that is why I said we want it to be bipartisan, always, but we
can't surrender if they're not going to be doing that,” she told
reporters. Pelosi added that the preparations for reconciliation
may also drive Republicans to negotiate. “I do think that we have
more leverage getting cooperation on the other side if they know we
have an alternative,” she said.

White House officials have been
aggressively courting a wide range of lawmakers on
the legislation, with a deputy press secretary describing the
effort as “a full-court press to engage leaders and stakeholders in
Washington,” according to
Axios. But Biden’s plan has met with stiff
resistance from Republicans. While some have expressed support for
elements of the proposal, many in the GOP, including party
moderates, have questioned the need for another package as big and
broad as Biden has put forth.

Republicans warn Dems against going it alone: At the same
time, moderates in both parties are still holding out hope for a
bipartisan deal, with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV)
urging Biden to continue efforts to reach an
agreement and turn to reconciliation as a last resort. Some in the
GOP have reportedly grown frustrated that Democrats are forging
ahead with plans for the reconciliation process — and are warning
that it could be a mistake.

“Republicans believe the Democratic leadership may come to
regret their one-party approach,” Punchbowl News reported Thursday.
“They think infighting between moderate and progressive Democrats
could, in the end, prove too much, giving the GOP an opportunity to
jump in and shape the final agreement.”

Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH), who is part of a bipartisan group of
senators engaged in discussions with the White House,
told NPR Thursday that going it alone on Covid
relief "would set the tone for the administration that would be
really problematic for the country and frankly, bad for the Biden
administration." Portman announced this week that he will not seek
reelection in 2022, citing “partisan gridlock” as a reason.

White House says it’s not looking to split Covid relief
package: White House officials pushed back Thursday on a
Politico
report that the Biden administration was looking
at splitting the Covid relief package. Such a split, according to
the report, would involve passing a narrower, bipartisan bill in
the $600 billion to $800 billion range and then adding everything
that was left out of the first bill to a planned follow-on effort
that would be passed via reconciliation, meaning that a simple
majority would suffice and Republican votes might not be
needed.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki tweeted and told reporters
at her daily briefing that the White House was not looking at that
two-step plan. “The needs of the American people are urgent from
putting food on the table, to getting vaccines out the door to
reopening schools,” she said in her tweet.
“Those aren’t partisan issues. We are engaging with a range of
voices—that’s democracy in action—we aren’t looking to split a
package in two.”

White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield and
Brian Deese, director of the National Economic Council and one of
the administration officials involved in Covid aid negotiations
with Congress, both also

tweeted to deny the report. “The needs of the American
people aren’t partial; we can’t do this piecemeal,” Deese
said.

Covid Delivers Worst Year for Economy Since 1946

The U.S. economy was 3.5% smaller at the end of December than it
was at the start of the year, the Commerce Department
announced Thursday, making 2020 the worst year for
growth since 1946, when the nation was demobilizing after World War
II.

Economic growth slowed significantly in the last three months of
the year as Covid-19 surged, with GDP growth registering just 1% in
the fourth quarter, or 4% on an annualized basis. The lackluster
results followed record growth of 7.5% in the third quarter (33.4%
on an annualized basis) and a record decline of 9.5% in the second
quarter (31.4% on an annualized basis).

The slowdown was driven in large part by the resurgent
coronavirus, which further damaged bars, restaurants and other
face-to-face businesses. In addition, billions in federal aid
expired in the fall, removing a tailwind that helped growth in the
summer. The swoon “wasn’t just Covid — it was the lack of fiscal
support,” Aneta Markowska, chief financial economist at Jefferies,

told The Washington Post.

Mixed messages: The Biden administration cited
the report as proof that the economy needs more support. “The
message is clear,” National Economic Council Director Brian Deese
said in a statement. “Without swift action, we risk a continued
economic crisis that will make it harder for Americans to return to
work and get on back their feet. The cost of inaction is too
high.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) made the same
point. “Given these economic numbers, the need to act big and bold
is urgent,” he said. “Given the fact that the GDP sunk by 3.5
percent last year, we need recovery and rescue quickly.”

But some analysts aren’t so sure. “I don’t think this is
going to convince anybody one way or the other,” Jay Bryson, chief
economist at Wells Fargo,
told Bloomberg. “People who are skeptical about
more fiscal relief are going to say ‘well, the economy’s growing.’
People who want to see more fiscal relief will say ‘yeah, but it
only grew 4% at an annualized rate.’ It’s not a game
changer.”

Jobless claims top 1 million: New
jobless claims provided another piece of evidence on the state of
the economy Thursday, coming in a bit lower than expected, with
847,000 people filing for unemployment aid last week at the state
level, the Labor Department announced Thursday. Another 427,000
applied for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, bringing the total to
nearly 1.3 million. Despite beating expectations – analysts
expected closer to 875,000 claims at the state level – the numbers
show that the job market is still struggling.

Quote of the Day

“As deeply distressing as this pandemic and economic fallout
have been, it is also an opportunity to rebuild the economy better
than it was before — making it work for everyone by increasing the
availability of fulfilling jobs and leaving no one vulnerable to
falling through the cracks.”

–
Cecilia Rouse, President Biden’s nominee to lead
the White House Council of Economic Advisers, at her confirmation
hearing Thursday before the Senate Banking Committee.

Number of the Day: $15.6 Billion

Franchises of large fast-food, hotel, auto dealerships and other
big businesses got $15.6 billion in emergency Paycheck Protection
Program loans meant for small businesses, according to government
data obtained by The Washington Post and other news organizations
following a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

The Post’s Jonathan O'Connell and Andrew Van Dam
report:

“Among fast-food chains, 4,278 Subways, 2,445 Dunkin’s and
2,217 McDonald’s received funds. Among auto dealerships, 1,478
General Motors locations and 1,115 Ford locations received funds,
according to the data… . In total, SBA identified 75,746 franchise
businesses that received loans, amounting to 1.5 percent of the 5.2
million loans issued between April 3 and Aug. 8. The $15.6 billion
they received was 3 percent of the more than $522 billion loaned
during that period. … The SBA data on franchise affiliations, which
the agency had not previously released, shows loans to franchises
saved almost 2.5 million jobs, although experts say the SBA’s
estimates of PPP job retention are
badly inflated.”

Biden Signs Executive Order Reopening Obamacare Exchanges

Saying he intended to "undo the damage Trump has done,"
President Joe Biden signed two executive orders Thursday that aim
to improve access to health care.

In one executive order, Biden directed the Department of Health
and Human Services to reopen the Healthcare.gov insurance
marketplace for 90 days, starting on February 15. The federal
marketplace serves 36 states, and the 14 states that operate their
own systems are likely to follow suit, a White House official said,
creating a national effort to boost enrollment amid the ongoing
pandemic. The federal marketplace is usually open just once a year,
and typically closes on December 15.

While about 15 million uninsured people could qualify for
subsidized coverage — with 4 million of those eligible for coverage
at no cost — experts expect to see more modest numbers. Much will
depend on outreach efforts, which were sharply reduced over the
last four years under President Trump. The White House says it will
operate a “robust” promotional program, including advertising and
partnerships with community organizations, but as Sarah Kliff and
Margot Sanger-Katz of The New York Times
reported Thursday, the administration may find
itself “hamstrung by the lack of pre-existing networks of outreach
workers.”

Biden also ordered federal agencies to review rules that may
limit access to health care, and to consider taking steps to
eliminate those rules. Specifically, the executive order cites
policies that may weaken protections for those with preexisting
conditions; rule changes such as work requirements that may
restrict access to Medicaid; and policies that undermine or make it
harder to sign up for health care through the federal marketplaces
or Medicaid.

“There is nothing new that we're doing here other than restoring
the Affordable Care Act and restoring Medicaid to the way it was
before Trump became president,” Biden said in the Oval Office.

A second executive order is directed at women’s
reproductive health. It ends limits on funding for international
nongovernmental organizations that support abortions, and rolls
back changes made during the Trump administration that denied
federal funds to organizations that provide or refer for abortions
in the U.S.

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