Republicans face unemployment renewal 'time crunch of their own making'

(Image credit: OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images)

published 24 July 2020

Republicans have wrapped a week of coronavirus relief bill discussions seemingly no closer to an agreement.

The GOP has spent the week discussing the next CARES Act and the unemployment boost that expires at the end of the month, but haven't yet agreed with a party-wide approach to replace it. As Bloomberg's Steven Dennis writes, it's "a time crunch of their own making" that Democrats have had no problem calling out.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), usually careful to strategically time moves within the congressional calendar, announced Tuesday what appeared to be the party's unified agreement on what it wanted in the next coronavirus relief bill. It included another round of $1,200 stimulus payments, and no mention of the $600/week unemployment boost Americans had gotten since early in the pandemic. But a meeting of Senate GOP leaders and Trump administration officials signaled there wasn't much agreement between the Senate and Trump, or between the senators themselves. The disconnect is making McConnell's discussion delay look like "a significant miscalculation," Dennis writes.

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Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.

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