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The four party leaders in Congress are slated to meet late Tuesday on Capitol Hill to find a way forward on more coronavirus aid and funding for the government’s 2021 budget year.
The quartet – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy – is set to gather at 4 p.m. Eastern time, according to a source familiar with the meeting.
The conference comes as lawmakers face a Friday deadline for passing another bill to keep the government open and increasing pressure to come to an agreement on more economic aid as the economy flinches under the newest wave of COVID-19 cases.
A bipartisan group of senators Monday unveiled their own proposals, a $748 billion bill with revivals or extensions of many popular CARES Act programs and a smaller $160 billion bill favored largely by Republicans that includes business liability changes and money for states and local authorities.
Some of the items in that the bipartisan group’s larger bill could end up in a final bill, which could combine the aid deal and funding language for government operations, if both can be hashed out.
On Monday, Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, said time was growing short. “I would be shocked to if we didn’t see something pretty concrete by at least Wednesday. Because we’ve got to vote on this thing by Friday and get out of here,” he told reporters.
