"We're apart," Pelosi warns as lawmakers negotiate coronavirus bill

Republican and Democratic leaders of the U.S. Senate sat down on Sunday to try to clinch a deal on a $1 trillion-plus bill aimed at limiting the coronavirus pandemic's toll on the U.S. economy as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the two sides are "apart." The bill, Congress's third effort to blunt the economic hit, envisages financial aid for average Americans, small businesses and critically affected industries including airlines.

The virus has killed at least 380 and sickened more than 25,000 across the United States, leading governors and mayors to shut schools, businesses and many aspects of American life. Over the past week President Donald Trump's administration has been pushing for aggressive steps to stem the economic hit, after Trump spent several weeks downplaying the virus' risks. Prominent Democrats on Sunday pushed back on the idea of propping up corporate America with the bill.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin predicted the White House and Congress would reach an agreement and Republican Senator Pat Toomey suggested there would be little opposition. "I think it'll be very hard to vote against this," Toomey told NBC's "Meet the Press."

However, it was clear there were disagreements as lawmakers including Republicans Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Democrats Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer met. "From my standpoint, we're apart," Pelosi told reporters as she arrived for the talks in McConnell's office when asked if there would be a deal.

"We need a bill that puts workers first and not corporations," said Schumer on his way into the talks, which included Mnuchin. Speaking on "Fox News Sunday," Mnuchin said the package would include loans for small businesses, direct deposits that could give an average U.S. family of four $3,000 and up to $4 trillion in liquidity for the U.S. central bank to support the economy.

The additional liquidity measures for the Federal Reserve aims to help a broad base of U.S. businesses get through next 90 to 120 days, he said. Combined with actions undertaken by the U.S. Federal Reserve and the administration, the prospective bill would have a $2 trillion net impact on a U.S. economy facing powerful headwinds spawned by the outbreak, according to White House officials.

A person familiar with the bill being drafted by Republicans pointed to provisions of the measure that could be flash points in the negotiations. Those included a $500 billion corporate "bailout fund," in addition to government loans to the airline industry, but without enough protections for workers from being fired, according to the source who asked not to be identified.

The source said funding for hospitals would be inadequate. If approved by the Senate, a bill would need to be voted on in the Democratic-led House, where it could meet resistance if it is seen as too friendly to business, before Trump could sign it into law.

Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent who is challenging former Vice President Joe Biden for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, on Sunday blasted corporate lobbyists' role in congressional negotiations over the bill, from the airline and hotel industries to retailers and gyms. "Now is not the time to allow large corporations to take advantage of this horrific crisis by ripping off U.S. taxpayers and profiteering off of the pandemic," Sanders said in a statement, saying the measure should focus on Americans' emergency health care needs especially for working families and the poor.

(Reporting By Rick Cowan, Susan Heavey, Arshad Mohammed and Andrea Shalal; Writing by Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Scott Malone, Lisa Shumaker and Daniel Wallis)

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)