White House proposes $916 billion coronavirus package that includes $600 stimulus checks

U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin walks from a meeting during negotiations on a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) relief package on Capitol in Washington, U.S., March 23, 2020.

Joshua Roberts/Reuters

• US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Tuesday that shared a $916 billion stimulus proposal with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
• The proposal "includes money for state and local governments," Mnuchin said, "and robust liability protections for businesses, schools, and universities."
• Mnuchin made no mention of new stimulus checks, but the package includes $600 payments, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy told Bloomberg.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The White House has offered a new stimulus proposal that is slightly larger than the bipartisan measure currently being considered in the US Senate.

US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, in a statement issued Tuesday evening, said the $916 billion proposal includes "money for state and local governments," as well as "robust liability protection for businesses, schools, and universities." He said he had discussed the package in a phone with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Mnuchin made no mention of new stimulus checks in the statement. However, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a Republican, said the package includes $600 payments.

"It's a much better product," McCarthy told Bloomberg, comparing it to a slightly more modest proposal currently being considered by the Senate that does not include another round of stimulus checks.

Earlier in the day, The Washington Post reported that the White House was pushing Senate Republicans to include $600 checks in a stimulus package.

—Steven Mnuchin (@stevenmnuchin1) December 8, 2020

In May, House Democrats passed a $3 trillion stimulus package that included funding for a second round of $1,200 checks for every US adult.

Senate Republicans, however, have balked at the cost while insisting that any new stimulus package includes liability protections for businesses, aimed at preventing lawsuits over the spread of COVID-19 in the workplace.

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