House Speaker Pelosi is gearing up for a Phase 4 economic stimulus infrastructure bill…
US Senate majority leader wants Pelosi stop ….
Trump IS on Pelosi’s side on this…
We’ll see how this goes….
“She needs to stand down on the notion that we’re going to go along with taking advantage of the crisis to do things that are unrelated to the crisis,” McConnell said in an interview with The Washington Post, calling the speaker’s recent comments about a fourth round of virus-related legislation “premature.”
In response, Pelosi said she would carry on.
“The victims of the coronavirus pandemic cannot wait,” she said in a statement. “It is moving faster than the leader may have suspected, and even he has said that some things should wait for the next bill. I hope that we can work in a four corners manner for the common good.”
“Four corners” is a reference to the four leaders of Congress: the speaker, the Senate majority leader and the two minority leaders.
McConnell said his caution on pursuing infrastructure amid the pandemic is driven by his concerns about how Congress would pay for another wave of federal spending — and his position contrasts with President Trump’s plea for a $2 trillion infrastructure package to be part of the next congressional response.
“We do have to be mindful of how to pay for it. There has been a lot of fantasizing on both sides about massive packages,” McConnell said. “We’d all love to do it, but there is the reality of how you pay for it. We just passed a $2 trillion bill, and it would take a lot of convincing to convince me that we should do transportation in a way that’s not credibly paid for after what we just passed last week.”
Citing extraordinarily low interest rates that have reduced the cost of federal borrowing, Trump said on Tuesday that now “is the time” to push forward with infrastructure legislation in response to the severe economic downturn caused by the pandemic.
Pelosi told reporters on a Wednesday conference call that her plan is “probably in the same ballpark” as Trump’s. She outlined a proposal that would add $10 billion for health centers and housing programs on top of the $760 billion infrastructure plan House Democrats unveiled in January, which includes major transportation and water projects, among other provisions….
image…msn.com