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President-elect Joe Biden delivers remarks about the economy on Nov. 16, as Vice President-elect Kamala Harris looks on. Joe Raedle/Getty Images hide caption

President-elect Joe Biden delivers remarks about the economy on Nov. 16, as Vice President-elect Kamala Harris looks on.

Multiple coronavirus vaccines appear to be on the horizon, but the U.S. economy is on shaky footing, and before those vaccines are expected to become widely available, millions of Americans could first fall off an economic cliff.

Some 12 million people are expected to lose unemployment benefits the day after Christmas, and moratoriums on evictions and student debt payments are set to expire at the end of the year.

Yet Congress has been unable to reach a compromise that would alleviate that economic hardship. Despite months of on-and-off negotiations, Republicans and Democrats haven't agreed on the terms of another COVID-19 relief bill.

Then, last week, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told the Federal Reserve it must wind down a series of pandemic lending programs. Congress had given the Treasury Department $454 billion in the spring to backstop the Fed on emergency loans. Much of that money had remained untapped, and, in theory, could have been used by the Biden administration. But by ordering the Fed to return the money, the Trump administration is essentially tying the incoming administration's hands.

The focus for immediate aid is back to legislative action. Last week, in his first economic speech since the election, President-elect Joe Biden urged lawmakers to step up.

"Right now, Congress should come together and pass a COVID relief package like the HEROES Act that the [Democratic-led] House passed six months ago," Biden said.

The sticking point is that Democrats want over $2 trillion in economic assistance. Republicans insist the economy is doing significantly better than it was when Congress passed the CARES Act in March. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has called for $500 billion in new relief.

A question for Biden and his team is whether they should be encouraging Democrats to move quickly, to deliver aid faster, even if that means accepting a smaller deal. The dilemma is testing how he's able to influence Congress before he's sworn in to office.

On Friday, Biden met with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to discuss an emergency aid package during the lame-duck session. A Biden spokesman rejected the idea that Biden is actively encouraging a smaller deal and says the president-elect "fully supports the speaker and leader in negotiations" with Republicans in Congress and in the White House.

But there's an open debate in Democratic circles about priorities for relief.

Jared Bernstein who was chief economist for Vice President Biden during the last recession and is now a transition adviser told reporters in a Q&A with the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing that typically an incoming administration would wait until it's officially in charge to put its fingerprints on policies.

"That's certainly what we did in the Obama administration where we had the Recovery Act in the field a month after President Obama took office," he said.

But Bernstein says the current environment is different.

"You hear the president-elect saying this is something that should happen now, and the reason is because the economy is at a very precarious moment," he said.

Bernstein says there are three primary factors to consider in framing a new stimulus package size, composition and speed. He singled one out.

"Composition is important, size is very important, but speed is so essential right now," he said in the SABEW interview.

It's a receptive argument for Jason Furman, who was a chair of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Obama administration.

"I think a meaningful something is a lot better than nothing, and holding out for more is a strategy to prolong suffering," he said in an interview with NPR.

"I wouldn't be surprised if there's a debate within Biden world of, '$500 billion sort of sucks but we may not be able to do better, and this means like the economy will be better under us,' " Furman imagined. "'And we don't need to take ownership for it' ... versus other people who won't want to look like they're party to a cave even before he's in office."

It would be complicated for some Democrats to look like they're giving in. But regardless, Harry Reid, who was Senate majority leader during the 2009 negotiations, says rarely does Congress pass much legislation around the holidays.

"I think it will be very difficult to get a meaningful relief bill done before Jan. 20," Reid said, referring to Inauguration Day.

Reid believes the dynamic will shift in Biden's favor once President Trump is no longer in office and McConnell will face more pressure from the public.

"I think it will put some wind under the wings of McConnell not to be the Grim Reaper," he said.

Reid thinks if anyone could work with Republicans to pass more aid, it'd probably be Biden. Reid helped Biden push through the last major stimulus bill under a Democratic administration. But back then, in 2009, Democrats controlled the Senate, whereas now control of the chamber depends on two Georgia runoffs in early January. And by then, regardless of which party wins those races, the economy could be even shakier.

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How Biden And Democrats Are Thinking About More COVID Relief - NPR

Congressional Democrats want the head of the General Services Administration to tell them why she is holding up the transition to President-elect Joe Biden. Jacquelyn Martin/AP hide caption

Congressional Democrats want the head of the General Services Administration to tell them why she is holding up the transition to President-elect Joe Biden.

Congressional Democrats, angered by the Trump administration's refusal to begin the formal transition process to President-elect Joe Biden, are demanding a briefing on the matter from the head of the General Services Administration on Tuesday.

In a letter to GSA Administrator Emily Murphy, the Democrats say they can't wait another week, as the GSA has offered. The GSA said the deputy administrator would provide a briefing to lawmakers on Nov. 30.

The lawmakers, including the chairs of the House Appropriations and House Oversight and Reform committees, wrote on Monday: "We cannot wait yet another week to obtain basic information about your refusal to make the ascertainment determination. Every additional day that is wasted is a day that the safety, health, and well-being of the American people is imperiled as the incoming Biden-Harris Administration is blocked from fully preparing for the coronavirus pandemic, our nation's dire economic crisis, and our national security."

The 1963 Presidential Transition Act requires the head of the GSA to "ascertain," or determine, the winner of the presidential election, which Murphy has refused so far to do. Her denial means that Biden cannot access government office space or receive some $9.9 million to pay salaries to his transition personnel, and his team can't officially meet with members of the Trump administration.

Democrats, along with a handful of Republicans, as well as prominent health and national security experts, say the delayed start to the transition imperils national security and will harm the incoming Biden administration's ability to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 250,000 Americans.

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Democrats Insist On Hearing From GSA Head On Delayed Transition : Biden Transition Updates - NPR

House Democrats are demanding answers and documents from a private prison company running an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Georgia thats come under fire for allegedly failing to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 and allowing women to undergo sterilizations without consent.

Reps. Bennie Thompson and Carolyn Maloney, chairs of the House Homeland Security and Oversight committees, respectively, subpoenaed LaSalle Corrections, which manages the Irwin County Detention Center, according to Politico.

A nurse alleged in September that several women held in the Irwin County center were sterilized without consent. She also alleged that immigrant detainees were put in danger of contracting COVID-19 because visiting guidelines were routinely ignored.

The House committees launched investigations in September, but LaSalle said its contract with ICE barred it from sharing documents without the agencys consent. The private firm refused to provide a copy of its contract, according to Thompson and Maloney.

Despite the seriousness of the allegations taking place at their facility, LaSalle has stonewalled our Committees since we began our investigation in September, Thompson and Maloney said in a joint statement. They have provided us no documents, refused to share their contract with ICE, and have consistently fed us conflicting information. Their claim that they need approval from ICE to communicate with Congress is baseless. By refusing to provide even the most basic information about the treatment and care provided at taxpayer expense to women detained at ICDC, LaSalle is actively obstructing the Committees efforts to examine the troubling allegations and get answers to the American people.

According to medical records of four women and interviews with attorneys, Dr. Mahendra Amin, a gynecologist linked to the facility, performed several unwanted surgeries including hysterectomies and other procedures jeopardizing immigrant womens ability to have children, the Associated Press reported. The APs review found Amin had conducted surgeries on at least eight women, but the AP did not find evidence of mass hysterectomies that nurse Dawn Wooten had alleged occurred at the center.

Immigration authorities later told AP that they stopped sending detained women to Amin.

In September, ICE Acting Director Tony Pham said: If there is any truth to these allegations, it is my commitment to make the corrections necessary to ensure we continue to prioritize the health, welfare and safety of ICE detainees.

LaSalle at the time said it strongly refutes these allegations and any implications of misconduct.

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House Democrats demand answers on alleged medical abuse, lack of COVID protections at ICE detention facility - MassLive.com

House Democrats are gearing up for what could be their final high-profile investigation of the Trump administration: getting the president to admit he lost the election.

Democrats have followed President-elect Joe BidenJoe BidenTrump says he'll leave White House if Biden declared winner of Electoral College The Memo: Biden faces tough road on pledge to heal nation US records 2,300 COVID-19 deaths as pandemic rises with holidays MOREs lead in dismissing President TrumpDonald John TrumpVenezuela judge orders prison time for 6 American oil executives Trump says he'll leave White House if Biden declared winner of Electoral College The Memo: Biden faces tough road on pledge to heal nation MOREs long-shot lawsuits contesting the election results, but their patience is wearing thin.

Nearly three weeks after the election, and two weeks after the race was called, congressional Democrats are starting to dig into their oversight toolbox and warn that Trumps post-election actions are a fundamental threat to democracy.

The chairs of the House Oversight and Appropriations committees Reps. Carolyn MaloneyCarolyn Bosher MaloneyHouse Democrats subpoena private prison operator in forced hysterectomy case Overnight Health Care: Biden team to begin getting COVID briefings | Fauci says he would 'absolutely' serve on Biden's COVID task force | Major glove factories close after thousands test positive for COVID-19 House Oversight panel asks Purdue Pharma's Sackler family to testify over opioid crisis MORE (D-N.Y.) and Nita LoweyNita Sue LoweySpending deal clears obstacle in shutdown fight GSA offers to brief Congress next week on presidential transition Biden aide: First Cabinet picks will be announced Tuesday, GSA holdup preventing background checks MORE (D-N.Y.) demanded in a letter Thursday that the head of the General Services Administration (GSA) brief lawmakers by Monday on why the agency has yet to allow the presidential transition begin through a process known as ascertainment. They also threatened to haul in the GSA administrator, along with her deputy, chief of staff and general counsel, for a public hearing.

Speaker Nancy PelosiNancy PelosiGovernors take heat for violating their own coronavirus restrictions Spending deal clears obstacle in shutdown fight Ocasio-Cortez, Cruz trade jabs over COVID-19 relief: People 'going hungry as you tweet from' vacation MORE (D-Calif.) said Democrats were trying to maintain a unifying post-election environment but that the transition delay prodded them to take action.

She emphasized that the committees were demanding only a briefing at this point rather than immediately requesting GSA officials to testify in a public hearing.

It was really trying to be unifying. Let's take our time. Let's give them a chance. And that's why we don't have a hearing. We're just having a briefing, Pelosi told reporters in the Capitol on Friday.

She also said she sees an expanded role for the House in the presidential transition if Trump digs in on his refusal to concede.

Im not one to show my hand, but, nonetheless, were ready. Were ready, Pelosi said.

Biden has been gradually upping the pressure on Trump to acknowledge defeat. A few days after the race was called by The Associated Press and all the major broadcast and cable news networks, Biden told reporters that were going to do exactly what wed be doing if he had conceded and said wed won, which we have, so theres nothing really changing.

But as more days have passed, Biden has warned that obstructing the transition process could result in more deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic and undermine democracy.

Its hard to fathom how this man thinks, Biden said this week. Im confident he knows he hasnt won and cant win, and well be sworn in on Jan. 20. Its just outrageous what hes doing.

While House Democrats are starting small for now, they arent ruling out subpoenas or even a lawsuit the same kinds of steps theyve taken with previous Trump oversight probes since winning back the chamber in the 2018 midterms.

House Democrats first oversight actions on the presidential transition come as a handful of GOP lawmakers are starting to publicly urge Trump to concede and stop alleging voter fraud unless he has evidence.

The Trump campaigns legal efforts to overturn results in closely contested states have fallen short, but in recent days, the president has also appeared to pressure state and local GOP election officials in Georgia and Michigan as he seeks to block or delay the certification process.

Sen. Mitt RomneyWillard (Mitt) Mitt RomneyBiden teams to meet with Trump administration agencies Paul Ryan calls for Trump to accept results: 'The election is over' Trump transition order follows chorus of GOP criticism MORE (R-Utah) said that it is difficult to imagine a worse, more undemocratic action by a sitting American president, while Sen. Ben SasseBen SasseTrump transition order follows chorus of GOP criticism The Memo: Trump election loss roils right Whoopi Goldberg blasts Republicans not speaking against Trump: 'This is an attempted coup' MORE (R-Neb.) said that obviously Rudy [Giuliani] and his buddies should not pressure electors to ignore their certification obligations under the statute.

And on Friday, Sen. Lamar AlexanderAndrew (Lamar) Lamar AlexanderThe Hill's 12:30 Report: Trump holds his last turkey pardon ceremony The Hill's Morning Report - Presented by the UAE Embassy in Washington, DC - Trump OKs transition; Biden taps Treasury, State experience The Memo: Trump election loss roils right MORE (R-Tenn.) called for Biden to start receiving resources for the transition.

States are expected to finish certifying their results in the coming weeks ahead of the Electoral College meeting on Dec. 14. A few weeks later, on Jan. 6, Congress formally counts and certifies the votes cast by the Electoral College.

In Thursdays letter, leaders of the House Oversight and Appropriations committees asked that GSA Administrator Emily Murphy provide an explanation of why she hadnt signed off on a document that would officially recognize Biden as president-elect and unlock funding for activities involved in the transition.

Your actions in blocking transition activities required under the law are having grave effects, including undermining the orderly transfer of power, impairing the incoming Administrations ability to respond to the coronavirus pandemic, hampering its ability to address our nations dire economic crisis, and endangering our national security, they wrote. We have been extremely patient, but we can wait no longer.

Rep. Gerry ConnollyGerald (Gerry) Edward ConnollyGSA offers to brief Congress next week on presidential transition Democrats gear up for last oversight showdown with Trump Biden campaign pushes GSA chief to approve transition MORE (D-Va.), who chairs an Oversight subcommittee and signed on to the letter, called the Trump administrations refusal to start the transition extraordinarily reckless and playing with fire.

Its not OK. And what if it's more than his just being peevish? We need to be focused on that. And we can't let that go. And we have to protect the will of the people. And if they're not going to do it, then we have to do it, Connolly said.

In a democracy, ultimately, at the end of the day, we respect we don't have to like the results of a certified election that is not in doubt, he added.

The Biden transition team is starting to take matters into its own hands without the customary resourcessuch as government funding or intelligence briefings.

Bidens team is soliciting funds from small-dollar donors, as well as major contributors, to offset the absence of government funding.

We want to be clear: the Biden-Harris transition team will continue to steadily move forward. But, without ascertainment, we need to fund the transition ourselves, and that's why we're reaching out to you today, the transition team wrote in a fundraising email to supporters on Friday.

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Democrats gear up for last oversight showdown with Trump | TheHill - The Hill

While a term like people of color might ring hollow or even confused, immigrants across generations share at the very least the experience of building a life in a foreign country. They must, in other words, disaggregate and then reorganize into an even broader movement that could build on existing, like-minded grass-roots organizations, such as those that emerged from the Bernie Sanders campaign in Nevada or immigrant labor organizations throughout New York and California, and develop a spirit of solidarity that puts less weight on questions of belonging and citizenship for these nebulously and conditionally defined groups and more on the experiences, as working-class immigrants, they share both in America and their homelands.

Too much of the messaging toward these groups is aimed at the upwardly ascendant second- and third-generation immigrants who worry about questions of representation within elite institutions. If Democrats want to combat charges of socialism, which are perhaps especially effective on immigrants who fled Communist or socialist countries, they must stop believing that an immigrant shows up in America and immediately begins worrying, say, about how many Asian or Latino actors have been cast in the latest comic book movie.

This, of course, does not mean that the Democratic Party should entirely abandon its anti-racist message. Part of the effort must include a much-needed clarification between the needs of Black Americans and Latino and Asian immigrants; that would end the confusing and harmful conflation between two groups whose interests and actions are often at odds with one another.

Nor should we succumb to the temptation to wipe away all distinctions. Some part of every immigrant will still identify with their home country, through language, food and culture. The path forward is to create coalitions that make sense, not only for the immigrants themselves but also in their relationships with both working-class Black and white Americans.

Such a strategy would require the upwardly mobile second-generation immigrants the people most likely to be tasked with broadcasting this message out toward the public to do something that might feel counterintuitive or even contradictory. But we must abandon the broad style of diversity politics that designates us as people of color. Those categories might help us navigate the academy and the workplace, but they only resonate with a small, generally wealthy portion of our population.

The late historian Noel Ignatiev argued that racism in America could be solved only when white people committed treason against the white race when they recognized that the antagonists in their lives werent Black people, but rather the wealthy class that used racism to divide workers whose interests should be aligned.

In a similar spirit, those of us who have assimilated into the professional class must commit treason against people of color and help build a coalition of working-class immigrants, from Guatemalan workers in fish processing plants and Bangladeshi cabdrivers to Chinese and Vietnamese restaurant workers and Mexican farm workers.

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People of Color Do Not Belong to the Democratic Party - The New York Times