冠状病毒周三，随着谈判代表完全现身，救援谈判再次碰壁找不到共同点地面部队和立法者准备离开华盛顿，前往为期一个月的8月休会。
经过五天没有联系，财政部长史蒂文·姆努钦在周三给众议院议长南希·佩洛西打电话讨论前进的道路但是，议长在与参议院民主党领袖查克·舒默的联合声明中明确表示，对话未能打破棘手的僵局。
“民主党已经妥协了。我们一再向政府明确表示，如果他们增加1万亿美元，我们愿意减少1万亿美元。但是，很明显，政府仍然没有意识到美国家庭所面临的问题的严重性。”
此前，姆努钦出现在福克斯商业频道上，敦促民主党人接受1万亿美元的零敲碎打的方案，佩洛西和舒默拒绝了这一方案，称大流行危机的规模和规模要求进行全面立法。
姆努钦和白宫办公厅主任马克·梅多斯(Mark Meadows)一直在与民主党议员进行谈判。他说:“我对谈判的看法是，你要在你能达成一致的问题上达成一致，通过对美国公众有利的立法，然后总是回来提出另一项法案。”
参议院多数党领袖米奇·麦康奈尔(Mitch McConnell)一直试图将僵局归咎于舒默和佩洛西。
麦康奈尔，R-Ky:“这两个人让富裕的沿海精英的愿望清单站在每个工作的家庭在美国和他们应得的额外帮助。”，星期三说。
周三，姆努钦和民主党谈判代表为未来的谈判敞开了大门，但经过数周的谈判，双方几乎没有让步。即使是最老练的观察家也对关键谈判的破裂状态感到震惊。
无党派负责任联邦预算委员会主席、资深预算专家玛雅·麦克几尼斯(Maya几内亚)说:“我没想到他们不会达成协议。”“这真的可能是完全功能障碍的迹象。我们的立法者不能为了为美国人民做点什么而妥协，这真的很可怕。这种情况更为可怕，他们走到一起的可能性也小得多，这两种情况加在一起，让像我这样的观察家担心我们的立法者是否有能力找到共同点。”
考虑到妥协的可能性，以及议员们准备在本月休会，任何救助法案的前进道路都变得更加艰难，因为任何冠状病毒救助都可能与一项短期政府资助法案合并，该法案被称为“持续解决方案”。在最坏的情况下，任何不妥协都可能最终导致政府关门。
参议院拨款委员会主席理查·谢尔比上周四在谈到将冠状病毒援助与民事责任合并时表示:“看起来是这样的。”他补充说，在9月30日财政年度结束前通过12项常规年度政府支出法案的可能性不大。“我想这就是我们要走的路——一条CR。我们已经在这条轨道上行驶了大约一个月。除非民主党同意，就像我们在过去的两年里一起投票反对拨款以外的无关事物，否则我们不会加价。我们只会浪费大家的时间。所以我想我们要去CR了。我不会说这是不可避免的。不过，它越来越近了。”
前参议院长期预算主任和拨款人员威廉霍格兰德告诉美国广播公司新闻，他认为麦康奈尔一直希望这样。
现在是两党政策中心高级副总裁的霍格兰德对ABC新闻说:“我真的相信，在一些现任参议院工作人员的配合下，麦康奈尔一直希望在9月份将COVID方案的投票结果与共和党人名单联系起来。”“在政治上，他不希望在参议院强行投票，失去一半的党团席位。他也不想让易受攻击的共和党参议员在今年秋天获得一些他可能无法控制的强硬选票。所以，尽管我了解到一些关于重新开始谈判的声明，本周与(白宫办公厅主任)梅多斯一起度假，正如你所说的，舒默离开了，会议即将召开，毫无疑问，我们会在劳动节之后采取任何行动。
当被问及对此有何反应时，麦康奈尔的一名助手指着美国广播公司新闻(ABC News)援引共和党领导人周三的讲话，呼吁民主党人搁置他所说的“自由愿望清单”，回到谈判桌前。
参议院共和党的一名高级助手告诉美国广播公司新闻，共和党有可能在11月或12月中旬之前资助政府，但尚未做出任何最终决定。
对几内亚和霍格兰德来说，选择持续的解决方案是有风险的。
麦克吉尼斯说:“一个CR已经是一个失败的象征。”“再加上第二次未能通过一项经过深思熟虑且透明得难以置信的紧急法案，两次失败合并成一个大法案，基本上是我们本应治理的所有领域功能失调的一个重大标志。”
霍格兰德说:“如果没有第五个刺激方案的决议，我看不出7月和8月初的许多同样的问题不会再次出现在一个必须做的国会法案上。”
由于失业的美国人仍有数百万之多，暂停驱逐和公用事业关闭已经到期，小企业贷款计划也已关闭——所有这些都是由于国会的不作为——在秋季关键选举之前，政治指责可能会落在哪里，这还有待观察。
拉里·萨巴托的水晶球的执行编辑凯尔·孔迪克(Kyle Kondik)分析了弗吉尼亚大学政治中心(UVA Center for Politics)的选举，他为共和党敲响了警钟，警告说，如果人们认为国家在选举日处于混乱状态，执政党通常会受到指责。
“对我来说，共和党人干预经济的风险在政治上更高。如果事情在秋季变得非常糟糕，他们比民主党人更有可能面临后果。”
“就民主党因一项新的援助计划未获通过而受到指责而言，我只是不认为它是这样的。公众如此关注总统和执政党;因此，他们要为不作为负责。”“如果我是一名共和党人，我会努力找出联邦政府能做些什么来最好地避免经济灾难，我会努力通过立法来达到这个目的。”
但试图将大流行救助纳入一项由联邦政府资助的措施，可能是一项极其复杂的壮举，将持续到8月底和9月份——届时飓风和野火还可能带来更多财政障碍——可能导致政府关门，霍格兰德警告称这是有可能的。
霍格兰德说:“虽然我觉得难以理解的是，我们甚至可能在距离大选还有一个月的时候就考虑政府关门，但这仍然是一个风险。”“我一直认为，政府关门对双方都是一场灾难。”不过，如果这一次发生这种情况，我认为政府和参议院共和党将承担大部分责任。”
麦克几内亚人认为政府关门的可能性几乎为零。
“在某种程度上，成年人必须站出来。当我们有一种病毒已经基本上关闭了我们的经济时，我们不能关闭自己。”“还有一些我们不会跨越的界限。”
Coronavirus relief negotiations hit another wall, talks of merging aid with government funding worries experts
Coronavirusrelief talks hit a wall once again Wednesday, as negotiators appeared completelyunable to find commonground and lawmakers poised to leave Washington for the month-long August recess.
After five days with no outreach, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin called House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday to discussa way forward, but the speaker, in a joint statement with Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, made clear that the conversation failed to break the intractable logjam.
"Democrats have compromised. Repeatedly, we have made clear to the Administration that we are willing to come down $1 trillion if they will come up $1 trillion. However, it is clear that the Administration still does not grasp the magnitude of the problems that American families are facing," the two top Democratic negotiators said.
The statement came after Mnuchin appeared on Fox Business pushing Democrats to accept a $1 trillion piecemeal package, something Pelosi and Schumer have refused, saying the size and scale of the pandemic crisis calls for sweeping legislation.
"My view on a negotiation is you agree on the things that you can agree on, pass legislation that's good for the American public, and then come back always for another bill," said Mnuchin, who, along with White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, has been negotiating with Democratic lawmakers.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who so far has not been present at the table with negotiators, continued to try to pin the blame for the impasse on Schumer and Pelosi.
"These two individuals are letting the wish lists of wealthy coastal elites stand between every working family in America and the additional help they deserve," McConnell, R-Ky. , said Wednesday.
Mnuchin and Democratic negotiators left the door open to future talks on Wednesday, but the two sides have hardly budged after weeks of negotiations. The broken state of the pivotal talks was shocking to even the most seasoned observers.
"It didn't enter my mind that they wouldn't get a deal," said longtime budget expert Maya MacGuineas, president of the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. "This really may be signs of complete dysfunction. It's truly scary that our lawmakers are not able to compromise in order to get something done for the American people. This situation is both more dire and the chance of them coming together is much less, and those two things combined make those observers like me worry about the ability of our lawmakers to find common ground."
With a compromise out of view and lawmakers poised to recess for the month, the path forward for any rescue bill became more fraught as any coronavirus relief aid could possibly be merged with a short-term government funding bill, called a continuing resolution or CR. And any intransigence then -- in a worst-case scenario -- might ultimately lead to a government shutdown.
"That's what it looks like," Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby said last Thursday of merging coronavirus aid with a CR, adding that passing the 12 regular annual government spending bills by the end of the fiscal year, Sept. 30, was probably not likely. "I think that's the road we're headed down -- a CR. We've been on that track for about a month or so. Unless the Democrats agree, like we have the last two years to all vote together against extraneous things other than appropriations, we're not going to have a markup. We'd just waste everybody's time. So I think we're headed for a CR. I wouldn't say it's inevitable. It's getting close, though."
Former long-time Senate budget director and appropriations staffer William Hoagland told ABC News that he thinks McConnell has always wanted it this way.
"I truly believe, with some collaboration from some current Senate staff, that McConnell has always wanted to move the COVID package to one vote in September tied to a CR," Hoagland, now a Bipartisan Policy Center senior vice president, told ABC News. "Politically, he did not want to force a vote in the Senate and lose maybe half of his caucus. He also did not want to have vulnerable GOP senators this fall take some tough votes he might not be able to control. So, despite what I understand was some statements about getting back to negotiating, with (White House Chief of Staff) Meadows on vacation this week and as you said, Schumer leaving, along with conventions upcoming, no question we are off until after Labor Day on any action.
Asked for a reaction, an aide to McConnell pointed ABC News to the Republican leader's remarks on Wednesday calling on Democrats to set aside what he referred to a "liberal wish list" and get back to the negotiating table.
One senior Senate GOP aide told ABC News that there is a possibility of a CR that would fund the government until sometime into November or potentially through mid-December, but that any final decisions had not yet been made.
To MacGuineas and Hoagland, the choice of a continuing resolution is risky.
"A CR is already a symbol of failure," MacGuineas said. "To combine that with a second failure of not passing an emergency bill that is well thought out and incredibly transparent, to have two failures smooshed into one big bill is basically a massive sign of dysfunction in all of the areas where we should be governing."
Hoagland said, "Without a resolution to a fifth stimulus package, I see no way that many of the same issues in July and early August won't reemerge on a must-do CR bill."
With jobless Americans still numbering in the multi-millions, a moratorium on evictions and utilities' shutoffs having expired and the small business loan program closed -- all due to inaction in Congress -- it remains to be seen where the political blame might land ahead of crucial elections in the fall.
Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball who analyzes elections for the UVA Center for Politics, sounded the alarm for Republicans, warning that that the party in power is usually the one that gets the blame if people perceive the state of the country to be in disarray on Election Day.
"To me the stakes are politically higher for Republicans to intervene in the economy. If things get really bad in the fall, they are more likely to face consequences than Democrats are," Kondik told ABC News.
"In terms of Democrats getting blamed for a new aid package not getting passed, I just don't think it works that way. The public is so focused on the president and the party in power; therefore, they're responsible for inaction," said Kondik. "If I were a Republican, I would be trying to figure out what the federal government can do to best stave off economic calamity, and I would try to pass legislation to that effect."
But trying to put pandemic aid on a measure that keeps the federal government funded, likely an exceedingly complicated feat heading into late August and September -- when hurricanes and wildfires could also present more fiscal hurdles -- risks a shutdown, something Hoagland warned was possible.
"While I find it unfathomable that we could even be thinking about a government shutdown on top of everything else one month out from an election, that still is a risk," said Hoagland. "I always think that a shutdown is a pox on both parties. If this were to occur this time around, however, I think the administration and Senate GOP would take most of the blame."
MacGuineas thought the chances of a shutdown were almost nil.
"At some point, the grown-ups have to come out. We can't shut ourselves down when we have a virus that has basically already shut down our economy," MacGuineas said. "There are still some lines we won't cross."
