Keller @ Large: Why Stimulus Negotiations Have Dragged On So Long
BOSTON (CBS) - A proposed $500 billion coronavirus stimulus bill has failed in the Senate. Republicans needed 60 votes to move the measure forward but the vote failed along party lines, 51 to 44.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is still involved in negotiations with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin for a $2 trillion relief package, but Senate Republicans may not support it.
This is what happens sometimes when one side is holding all the cards and the other side just won't give in.
Pelosi has come down from her initial call for a $3 trillion stimulus, but with polls showing overwhelming public support for the new aid she's now insisting on, she has no incentive to give any more ground. Her message to Senate Republicans has been take it or leave it, and risk paying the price at the polls if they leave it.
This leaves Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in a terrible bind. He doesn't have the votes to approve a bill with key items Pelosi wants, like aid to states and cities that are bleeding red ink, but some of his most vulnerable Republican members represent those states, and failure to act could seal their doom on election day.
But McConnell hasn't been the one negotiating with Pelosi, it's been the White House and Mnuchin.
McConnell has been burned several times by President Trump backing out of a deal the Senate Leader thought he had his support for.
And with the president all over the map on the new stimulus, it seems McConnell is prepared to turn the tables on Trump, letting him try to cut a deal without a firm commitment that the Senate will pass whatever's in it.
The bottom line is that even the suffering of millions of Americans and the prospect of mass layoffs of public employees like police, firefighters and teachers hasn't been able to overcome D.C. political gridlock and the incompetence of the executive branch.
