Where's My 2nd Stimulus Check? Coronavirus Relief Talks Drag On Ahead Of Presidential Election

Hopes faded Wednesday for more coronavirus stimulus as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell pledged to push an extremely narrow package rejected by Democrats, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi held to a $2.2 trillion demand and President Donald Trump tweeted, “Go big or go home,” gutting the Republican position.

Talks between Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin continued a week after Trump tweeted he was ending the negotiations and then days later upped the White House offer to $1.8 trillion.

The White House position was at odds with Senate Republicans who have rejected the idea of an expensive relief bill. McConnell announced Tuesday the Senate would vote after the chamber returns Monday on a narrow measure he knows Democrats oppose, essentially daring them to reject relief with just days to go before the general election.

The $500 billion Senate bill covers just supplemental unemployment benefits, small businesses, schools and hospitals – a strategy Democrats have labeled piecemeal. The bill already was rejected once.

JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said Tuesday a major bill is needed, warning the U.S. economy is at risk of a double-dip recession that could devastate small businesses, predicting $20 billion in loan losses for his bank in that instance. Dimon made his comments during an earnings call.

“We really need to have an agreement, but we cannot have an agreement by just folding,” Pelosi told the Democratic caucus in a phone call, saying how the money is spent is paramount and resisting mounting pressure from moderate Democrats to take the latest offer. “I don’t think our leverage has ever been greater than it is now.”

In a letter to fellow House Democrats, Pelosi ripped the White House proposal as a means for Trump to put his name on a $1,200 check to Americans ahead of the Nov. 3 presidential election.

“A fly on the wall or wherever else it might land [a reference to the fly that landed on Vice President Mike Pence’s hair during his debate last week with Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris] in the Oval Office tells me that the president only wants his name on a check to go out before Election Day and for the market to go up,” Pelosi wrote. “The American people want us to have an agreement to protect lives, livelihoods and the life of our American Democracy. Democrats are determined to do so!”

She also called “shameful” Trump’s attitude toward the coronavirus, which has killed 216,000 Americans since March.

Both sides have agreed Americans earning less than $75,000 a year should get a second $1,200 economic stimulus check to help them through the COVID-induced recession that devastated the economy. Half of Americans whose jobs were destroyed at the outset were still on unemployment rolls amid evidence from recent government reports that job creation had slowed.

The Internal Revenue Service and Treasury Department sent more than 160 million $1,200 ($2,400 for couples) checks authorized by the CARES Act in March and has been trying to get the homeless and others whose contact information is unavailable to register to receive the funds. The deadline was extended to Nov. 21.