Yesterday, President Trump held a coronavirus briefing for the first time since April to acknowledge how the outbreak has grown in its severity. He said that, “It will probably, unfortunately, get worse before it gets better.” He conceded that there were “big fires” occurring, and he encouraged social distancing and the use of masks when social distancing is not possible.
It seems now that all of Capitol Hill is finally embracing the fact that the virus will not be slowing down any time soon and that they need to implement policies that demonstrate substantial strength in their response to the pandemic.
Earlier this week, Senate Republicans and President Trump were smoothing out some of their differences for a new relief package, which may be their last shot at meaningfully addressing the pandemic and its effect on the economy before the November elections. The beginnings of these proposals and negotiations for the upcoming bill are already fraught with tension between the two parties. This bill, which would represent the Republicans’ opening bid, is estimated to be about $1 trillion when Democrats had vowed to accept no less than $3 trillion in May.
However, conflicting interests have also emerged within the Republican party itself. Some of the issues Republicans are facing in constructing this initial proposal is that President Trump has some ideas that congressional leaders are not aligned with such as funding for education on the resumption of in-person schooling and the removal of funding for testing and contact tracing.
As they work through those conflicts, Republicans likely will include programs such as tax breaks, direct payments, and jobless aid. Majority leader Senator Mitch McConnell said yesterday that he supports more direct payments to Americans.