White House moves past $1.5 trillion on stimulus

WASHINGTON－United States Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Wednesday was reported to have offered about $1.6 trillion in stimulus measures for the battered economy in talks with House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

The reported offer to the Democrats represents a move beyond a resistance point of $1.5 trillion－a figure last month proposed by a bipartisan group of lawmakers. White House chief of staff Mark Meadows on Wednesday said the administration of US President Donald Trump had drafted a proposal above that sticking point.

Some Republicans in recent months said they would support a much lower amount. The Republicans haven't suggested anything close to the Democrats' proposal for a $2.2 trillion COVID-19 aid package.

"Mnuchin has offered $1.6 trillion in stimulus with offsets taking it lower," a Bloomberg reporter said on Twitter.

Earlier, Mnuchin said the Trump administration would not accept the Democrats' proposal, and indicated he wanted a deal closer to $1.5 trillion.

On Wednesday, the administration had proposed including a $20 billion extension in aid for the ravaged airline industry in the new stimulus proposal to House Democrats, Meadows said.

"There's $20 billion in the most recent proposal for the airlines that would give them a six-month extension," Meadows told reporters aboard Air Force One, noting that the industry was in urgent need of support.

American Airlines and United Airlines, two of the largest US carriers, said they were beginning furloughs of over 32,000 workers on Thursday as hopes faded for a last-minute bailout from Washington. US airlines have been pleading for another $25 billion in payroll support to protect jobs for a further six months after the current package, which banned furloughs, expired on Thursday.

Meadows declined to provide the total value of the White House's latest proposal but said the figure is "certainly above the $1.5 trillion that has been articulated to date".

"As you get above $1.5 trillion, it gets extremely difficult to justify based on the facts," he cautioned, explicitly stating that $2 trillion was too much.

"If it starts with a 2, it's going to be a real problem," he said.

Speaking on a flight to Washington from the swing state of Minnesota where the Republican president had headlined a rally ahead of presidential elections in November, Meadows said he was hopeful talks would continue with the Democrats on Thursday.

Rising COVID-19 cases

Meadows also told reporters that a stopgap spending bill approved by the Republican-controlled Senate and the Democrat-led House to fund the government through December 11 had been received by the White House. Trump has signed the bill.

With the COVID-19 pandemic ravaging the country, the US had more than 7.2 million confirmed cases and 206,900 deaths by Thursday, Johns Hopkins University data shows.

A recent CNN report showed that 21 US states are still reporting increased numbers of cases, most of them in the West, with health experts warning of a potential coronavirus surge in the fall and winter.

Underscoring the pandemic's impact, data released on Wednesday showed the US economy contracted at an annual rate of 31.4 percent in the second quarter, with an uncertain path to recovery.

According to the Commerce Department's third and final estimate, US real gross domestic product is 0.3 percentage point higher than an estimate of 31.7 percent a month ago. The "advance" estimate released in late July recorded a decline of 32.9 percent.