August 5, 2020 / Rob Berger, Senior Contributor
As negotiations over the next round of Covid-19 relief plodded along, hope emerged that a stimulus deal will be reached by the end of the week. Speaking to reporters, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that negotiators will try to reach an overall agreement by week’s end so that legislation could be passed next week:
“We are pleased to report that although we still have a lot of open issues — I just want to be very clear, we’re not at the point of being close to a deal — but we did try to agree to set a timeline that we’re going to try to reach an overall agreement, if we can get one, by the end of this week, so that the legislation could be then passed next week.”
While the message was encouraging, significant issues still remain. “We’re going to work around the clock the next few days to see if we can bridge the issues. Some issues we’ve been able to agree on, some significant issues are still open,” Mnuchin said. Negotiations will resume today.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also sounded a positive note: “We agree that we want to have an agreement. And in that case, we then say, that’s our goal — lets engineer back from there as to what we have to do to get that done.”
Senator Chuck Schumer expressed a similar view. “They made some concessions, which we appreciated; we made some concessions, which they appreciated,” he said.
