Trump could issue executive order on jobless benefits and evictions, says treasury secretary

Coronavirus stimulus package negotiations between Trump administration and Democrats break down over $2 trillion price tag

US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said the Treasury will recommend Donald Trump use executive orders to address student loans, jobless benefits and the eviction moratorium after talks with Congressional Democrats regarding a coronavirus relief bill broke down on Friday.

"We did not make any progress today ... we discussed the same issues," Mr Mnuchin said, according to CNN's Manu Raju.

Mr Mnuchin said he plans to recommend Mr Trump act on his own.

"At this point we are going to recommend to the president that over the weekend we move forward with some executive actions," Mr Mnuchin said.

White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said the congressional Democrats' "actions do not indicate" they are ready to make a deal.

Mr Trump himself tweeted: "Pelosi and Schumer only interested in Bailout Money for poorly run Democrat cities and states. Nothing to do with China Virus! Want one trillion dollars. No interest. We are going a different way!"

Congressional Democrats were pushing for $1 trillion in relief, but the Trump administration opposed.

"They said they couldn't go much above the their existing $1 trillion. And that was disappointing," Senator Chuck Schumer said. "We're hopeful that they will think about it and come back and tell us they're wiling to meet us halfway."

According to Mr Schumer, the Democrats are willing to drop from their proposed $3.4 trillion stimulus proposal down to $2 trillion, but the Trump administration was not willing to go go beyond the $1 trillion already paid out to help Americans struggling during the coronavirus.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said when Mr Trump was ready to offer the additional $1 trillion, the Democrats would be ready to negotiate again.

As of Friday, there were no further negotiations scheduled concerning the coronavirus relief package.

Mr Trump's trade adviser, Larry Kudlow, pointed to positive employment numbers for the month of July as justification for the hard stance against ratcheting up stimulus spending.

The US added 1.8m jobs in July, which Mr Kudlow believes is evidence of a recover that will allow the US to survive without further federal fund injections.

However, the moratorium on evictions recently expired and temporary rules making student loan repayments more flexible will end next month.

Mr Kudlow has also been a proponent of cutting or suspending the US payroll tax, a move that has been criticised by Democrats and social programme advocates as unhelpful to all but the wealthiest Americans and as an assault on Social Security.

Cutting the payroll tax – which is the primary funding source for Social Security – would provide relief to the wealthiest Americans, as they pay the most payroll tax. Cutting payroll wouldn't help unemployed people, as they are not currently paying the tax.