'Poison pills' and partisan games: These three obstacles are preventing Democrats and Republicans from passing a coronavirus relief deal

Mitch McConnell’s insistence on liability protections and Democrats’ resistance to ‘piecemeal’ bills leaves Congress grasping at air on Covid-19 relief

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell emerged from the August recess with a new "targeted" proposal to provide relief for the millions of Americans struggling with the economic health care, and educational fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, which is still raging nearly nine months after arriving in the US in January.

Democrats and Republicans remain miles apart on a deal, and many obstacles are likely to prevent them from reaching one before November's presidential election.

Here are three key hurdles to a Covid-19 relief agreement.

The ‘piecemeal’ question

The majority leader, who sidelined himself for most of August from the negotiations on a Covid-19 package between Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the White House, has once again blamed Ms Pelosi for blocking previous attempts to acquiesce to the GOP's narrow vision for coronavirus relief.

"Everything Speaker Pelosi and [Senate Minority Leader Chuck] Schumer have done suggests one simple motivation: They do not want American families to see any more bipartisan aid before the polls close on President Trump's re-election," Mr McConnell said in a statement on Tuesday as senators trekked back to Washington for a crucial three-week stretch.

"They have taken Americans' health, jobs, and schools hostage for perceived partisan gain," Mr McConnell said.

But Democrats have come down from their initial price tag from as far back as May of $3trn for another round of $1,200 stimulus checks for most Americans, renewed unemployment benefits, funding for hospitals and testing, a flush of cash for states and cities, and several other auxiliary programmes.

Mr McConnell ran the other way. His bill on Tuesday is worth an estimated $500bn, down by more than half from internal GOP discussions in July and August.

Ms Pelosi and Mr Schumer have rallied their parties against previous Republican proposals -- which haven't even had consensus support within the GOP -- denouncing them as hollow and insufficient.

When juiced-up unemployment benefits and rent collection moratoriums from March's bipartisan, $2.2trn "CARES Act" expired in July, congressional Democrats refused Republicans' offer to pass a stopgap measure to renew them, arguing that any bill must include dozens of other urgent steps such as money to secure mail-in voting and billions of dollars more in aid for state and local governments.

The Democratic leaders don't want to relinquish their negotiating leverage for a larger, more comprehensive bill by allowing Republicans to move ahead with, as Mr McConnell has termed it, more "targeted" legislation -- and then call it a day.

"We're not doing short-term action, because if we do short-term action, they're not going to do anything else," Ms Pelosi previously told the New York Times.

On Tuesday, she and Mr Schumer panned the "emaciated" GOP bill as a political ploy "to help vulnerable Republican Senators by giving them a 'check the box' vote to maintain the appearance that they're not held hostage by their extreme right-wing that doesn't want to spend a nickel to help people."

2. The liability ‘poison pill’

Democrats panned the 286-page GOP proposal unveiled on Tuesday for including a handful of major provisions Republicans know are non-starters for their counterparts.

The new McConnell bill is "laden with poison pills Republicans know Democrats would never support," Ms Pelosi and Mr Schumer said in a joint statement on Tuesday.

Chief among them is a section of the bill entitled "Coronavirus Liability Relief" that seeks to shield businesses and frontline health care workers from lawsuits stemming from Covid-19 exposure.

"One of the chief impediments to the continued flow of interstate commerce as this public health crisis has unfolded is the risk of litigation," the bill states.

"Small and large businesses, schools, colleges and universities, religious, philanthropic and other non profit institutions, and local government agencies confront the risk of a tidal wave of lawsuits accusing them of exposing employees, customers, students, and worshipers to coronavirus," it maintains.

Under the GOP plan, those institutions would be shielded from lawsuits by their employees related to Covid-19 exposure for five years as long as they take "reasonable efforts" to comply with government guidance and safety standards.

Mr McConnell has said liability protections are a "red line" for the GOP.

Democrats have argued such a rollback of consumer and patient protections would exacerbate the public health crisis by letting businesses skip the necessary precautions against Covid-19 to prevent its spread.

It would also put American workers in the bind of choosing between their physical and financial wellbeing, Ms Pelosi has said.

"If you get sick, you have no recourse because we've given the employer protection," the speaker said in July of Mr McConnell's proposal.

"And if you don't go to work because you're afraid of being sick and you have that job opportunity you don't get unemployment insurance. This is so unfair."

3. The White House

Throughout the negotiating process this summer, the GOP has struggled with internal strife stemming from a Trump administration that wants to spend far beyond what penny-pinching conservatives such as Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and Rand Paul Kentucky could stomach.

When lead White House negotiators Steven Mnuchin and Larry Kudlow proposed a $1.3trn bill in July, Mr Cruz decried that as "too damn much money."

Mr Paul likened it to a concoction created by "Bernie Bros."

Illustrating just how far apart the parties are, Democrats said last week they're unwilling to go any lower than $2.2trn on any coronavirus relief legislation.

Mr Kudlow, Donald Trump's top economic adviser, touted the president's series of executive orders helping extend eviction moratoriums, unlock state money grants for a boost to unemployment benefits, and freeze student loan debt collection.

"The president has led," Mr Kudlow told reporters on Tuesday, per the White House pool. "He's doing it alone because the Congress won't do it. I think that's regrettable," he said.

Mr Kudlow did not say whether the White House preferred a stimulus package with a price tag of $1.3trn the administration offered in July or the $500bn Mr McConnell introduced on Tuesday.

One thing Democrats and Mr Trump agree on is the need for a second round of stimulus checks.

The president has floated seeking congressional approval to unlock $300bn to send around another wave of the $1,200 direct payments most Americans received from the Treasury Department this spring and summer.

"It's money that we have -- money that we built up and money that we haven't spent, and I would love to give it to the American people as a very powerful stimulus," Mr Trump said last week.