Federal coronavirus plans stalled

President Trump’s Tuesday meeting with Senate Republicans ended without any concrete plans for crafting an economic package to address the unrest caused by the coronavirus epidemic and resulted in worries that policy makers are at odds on how to deal with growing concerns that the U.S. may be headed for a recession.

During the meeting, Trump discussed his proposal to extend a temporary payroll tax cut for a period of months. The cut could amount to a substantial $40 billion per month. But Republicans have argued that a payroll tax cut would do little to help deal with economic fears as the virus continues to spread.

Lawmakers also discussed the idea of increasing infrastructure spending. Either idea would be used to flood the economy with more money—but, as of press time, no consensus on how to proceed was achieved. And House Democrats were busy crafting their own proposed package.

Nonetheless, Trump told reporters after the meeting that it had been “great,” that lawmakers were “working on a lot of different things” and that there was “tremendous unity.”

Also as of press time, there had been 26 American deaths from the virus, and it was believed that there were more than 700 people infected in the U.S.