Pelosi, Schumer accuse GOP of blocking economic stimulus

President-elect Joe Biden joined congressional Democratic leaders on Thursday and demanded a new economic relief package to address the dramatically worsening coronavirus pandemic before the end of the year.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) flatly rejected such a proposal, while Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) implored both sides to begin negotiating as the virus appeared to be sending a new shudder through the U.S. economy.

There have been more than 100,000 new cases each day for the past nine days, including more than 150,000 on Thursday. The crush is leading a number of state and local leaders to pause or reverse reopening plans. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot issued a stay-at-home advisory for the nation’s third-largest city Thursday and asked residents to cancel Thanksgiving plans. Maryland has recently issued its own new restrictions, and other jurisdictions have signaled they could invoke similar moves. Biden campaigned on stringent policy measures to stop the spread of the coronavirus, but Trump has not weighed in at all.

After rallying earlier in the week amid optimism about a new vaccine, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 317 points, or 1 percent, amid new worries.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell on Thursday said Congress could need to provide more economic relief to help sustain growth, though he didn’t endorse a specific proposal.

“The path forward is going to be challenging for a number of reasons,” he said, speaking on a virtual panel hosted by the European Central Bank. “My sense is that we will need to do more and that Congress may need to do more as well.”

And Trump’s refusal to acknowledge Biden’s presidential win and participate in a normal transition process seemed likely to stall the federal response even more, depriving Biden and his team of some of the resources they could use to put a quick response in place.

Democrats have pushed for a stimulus package that would exceed $2 trillion since this summer, and before the election Trump said he would support something even more substantial. The president tweeted incessantly about the need for a giant economic relief bill before the Nov. 3 election but he has been silent on the matter since.

Biden discussed the matter Thursday on a phone call with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). In a joint readout following the call, the Democrats said they had talked about “the urgent need for the Congress to come together in the lame duck session on a bipartisan basis to pass a bill that provides resources to fight the COVID-19 pandemic,” including relief for families and businesses and support for state and local governments.

At a separate news conference, Pelosi and Schumer insisted that Biden’s election win constitutes a mandate for their demands for an enormous new relief bill, particularly given how coronavirus case numbers are skyrocketing.

“They’re engaged in an absurd circus right now refusing to accept reality … making it even harder to address the massive health and economic crisis that we are facing,” Pelosi said at a joint news conference with Schumer at the Capitol.

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