On The Money: Democrats offer lower price tag for COVID-19 aid but stalemate persists | Jobless claims tick down but remain above 1 million | Pelosi predicts Democrats will get Trump tax returns if Biden wins

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THE BIG DEAL—Democrats offer lower price tag for COVID-19 aid but stalemate persists:

Democrats and the Trump administration made little to no progress Thursday during renewed negotiations over a COVID-19 relief package, as the two sides remain far apart on hundreds of billions of dollars in emergency aid for states, renters, the unemployed and the hungry.

Speaker Nancy PelosiNancy PelosiTrump taunts Democrats in White House speech: ‘We’re here and they’re not’ McConnell: GOP-controlled Senate a ‘firewall’ against Pelosi agenda Ex-Democrat Van Drew speaks at GOP convention MORE (D-Calif.) said she offered White House chief of staff Mark MeadowsMark Randall MeadowsOn The Money: Democrats offer lower price tag for COVID-19 aid but stalemate persists | Jobless claims tick down but remain above 1 million | Pelosi predicts Democrats will get Trump tax returns if Biden wins Overnight Health Care: Shifting CDC testing guidance sparks backlash | Democrats offer lower price tag for COVID-19 aid but stalemate persists | Trump administration to purchase 150 million rapid COVID-19 tests Democrats offer lower price tag for COVID-19 aid but stalemate persists MORE a concession by proposing a $2.2 trillion price tag for the entire package, down from the Democrats’ most recent demand of $2.4 trillion floated earlier this month.
Meadows, however, didn’t bite, Pelosi said, leaving negotiators with no progress since the stalemate began.

“We have said again and again that we’re willing to come down and meet them in the middle — that would be $2.2 trillion — and when they’re ready to do that, we’ll be ready to discuss and negotiate the particulars,” Pelosi told reporters in the Capitol, just after the call with Meadows.

“When they’re ready to do that they’ll let us know,” she added. “I did not get that impression on that call [that they are].”

The Hill’s Mike Lillis has more here.

How we got here:

Thursday’s 25-minute phone call marked the first time the negotiators have spoken since the emergency coronavirus talks broke down on Aug. 7.
The parties have wide disagreements over the amount of funding for unemployment benefits and help for state and local governments struggling to meet needs and balance budgets amid the pandemic.
House Democrats had passed a massive $3.4 trillion relief package in May, featuring funding for states, unemployment benefits, schools, food stamps, rental assistance and the Postal Service.
Late last month, Senate Republicans offered a $1.1 trillion counter-proposal, focused largely on help for small businesses, the unemployed, schools and direct payments to individuals. Yet the Senate measure was opposed not only by Democrats, but also by a number of conservative Republicans wary of soaring deficit spending.

Where things stand: Meadows and Treasury Secretary Steven MnuchinSteven Terner MnuchinOn The Money: Democrats offer lower price tag for COVID-19 aid but stalemate persists | Jobless claims tick down but remain above 1 million | Pelosi predicts Democrats will get Trump tax returns if Biden wins Democrats offer lower price tag for COVID-19 aid but stalemate persists Pelosi digs in ahead of coronavirus talks: ‘We’re not budging’ MORE — the lead GOP negotiators — have pressed for an even smaller bill that might attract the support of conservative critics. Democrats, however, have largely stood their ground, arguing that the dual crises of public health and economy demand another massive infusion of federal spending to alleviate the devastation.

Read more: The Washington Post: “Congress left town and let jobless benefits lapse. Unemployed Americans say they won’t forget it.”

LEADING THE DAY

Jobless claims tick down but remain above 1 million: New weekly claims for unemployment benefits sunk to roughly 1 million last week, the Labor Department reported Thursday, falling slightly but remaining in seven figures for the second straight week.

The number of seasonally adjusted initial claims for unemployment insurance for the week ending Aug. 22 came in at 1,006,000, according to the Labor Department, falling 98,000 from the previous week.

The non-seasonally adjusted figure, which some economists prefer given the unique nature of the recession, fell to 821,591, a decrease of 67,958 from the previous week.

What it means: Economists warn that the still-staggering number of Americans filing their first claims for jobless benefits is a sign of deep, long-term damage to the U.S. economy.

New claims for jobless benefits have lingered around the 1 million mark for much of August after months of fairly steady declines.
Despite three straight months of job gains, roughly 12 million of the 21 million Americans who lost their jobs because of the pandemic remain unemployed as of July.
More than 27 million Americans were also on some type of unemployment insurance as of the week ending Aug. 8.

I break it down here.

Pelosi predicts Democrats will get Trump tax returns if Biden wins: Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday predicted that if Joe BidenJoe BidenThe Memo: Trump reaches for optimism as weapon against Biden Five takeaways on GOP’s norm-breaking convention CNN uses new chyron to fact-check Trump’s convention speech MORE is elected president, his administration would provide House Democrats with President Trump’s tax returns.

“When we win this election, and we have a new president of the United States in January, and we have a new secretary of the Treasury, and [Ways and Means Committee Chairman] Richie Neal asks for the president’s returns, then the world will see what the president has been hiding all of this time,” Pelosi said during a press conference.

Neal, a Democrat from Massachusetts, already requested Trump’s federal tax returns from the IRS in April 2019, citing a provision of the tax code that states that the Treasury secretary “shall furnish” tax returns requested by the chairs of Congress’s tax committees.
The Trump administration rejected Neal’s request, prompting him to file a lawsuit that has yet to be resolved.

Why it matters: If the Ways and Means Committee were to receive Trump’s tax returns, it could review them in a closed session and then vote to submit a report to the full House that could make part or all of the documents public.

The Hill’s Naomi Jagoda has more here.

Fed formally adopts new approach to balance inflation, unemployment: The Federal Reserve on Thursday formally adopted a monetary policy strategy that calls for allowing inflation to run above the bank’s 2 percent target in a bid to maximize the job gains that come with economic expansions.

In a Thursday speech, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell announced that the central bank would aim to keep price and wages increases at an annual average of 2 percent instead of aiming directly at that target.
The Fed’s new strategy will likely mean the central bank will tolerate higher levels of inflation for longer stretches to balance out years of persistently low price and wage increases.

I’ll explain the Fed’s new strategy here.

The problem: Controlling inflation — the rate at which prices and wages increase — has been a vexing problem for the Fed for nearly four decades.

While rapid inflation can pose major risks, economists consider a moderate level of price and wage increases to bring broader economic growth and prosperity in the process.
Persistent levels of low inflation can also force the Fed to keep its baseline interest rate range closer to zero percent, which limits its ability to stimulate the economy during downturns.

“We have seen this adverse dynamic play out in other major economies around the world and have learned that once it sets in, it can be very difficult to overcome,” Powell said on Thursday. “We want to do what we can to prevent such a dynamic from happening here.”

GOOD TO KNOW

Cutting taxes during periods of high unemployment will produce fewer jobs than during more robust economic times, according to a new working paper from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
The S&P 500 index set a new record Thursday as the Dow Jones Industrial Average briefly erased its 2020 losses.
The economy shrank at an annualized rate of 31.7 percent in the second quarter, according to the second estimate from the Commerce Department, 1.2 percentage points better than the initial 32.9 percent estimate.
The U.S. banking industry’s largest lobbying group will run television advertisements supporting the reelection of Sen. Susan CollinsSusan Margaret CollinsOn The Money: Democrats offer lower price tag for COVID-19 aid but stalemate persists | Jobless claims tick down but remain above 1 million | Pelosi predicts Democrats will get Trump tax returns if Biden wins Bank lobbying group launches ad backing Collins reelection bid Biden agenda hinges on Senate majority MORE (Maine), one of the most vulnerable incumbent Senate Republicans.

ODDS AND ENDS

The Justice Department filed forfeiture charges Thursday against 280 cryptocurrency accounts for assisting in laundering millions of dollars stolen during two North Korean hacking incidents.
Washington, D.C., sued Instacart on Thursday, alleging that the grocery delivery company charged District residents millions in deceptive fees and avoided local sales taxes.

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