Pelosi Says Stimulus Talks at Impasse; Trump Blames Pelosi: Report

Oct 11, 2020 at 17:57 UTCUpdated Oct 12, 2020 at 15:13 UTC.Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Sunday that talks over a new stimulus package remain at a standstill, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

Pelosi said the Trump administration's $1.8 trillion proposal still lacks adequate funding and has no plan for national testing and contact tracing, the WSJ reported.

President Trump laid responsibility for the holdup on the House Speaker: "Republicans want to do it. We're having a hard time with Nancy Pelosi," the WSJ quoted the president as saying Sunday on Fox News.But yesterday it was reported that some in the GOP were reluctant to back the president's proposal, instead voicing support for a much smaller package.

The White House proposal would expand the Affordable Care Act's provisions for people who have lost their jobs - and therefore insurance - during the pandemic.

As many in the GOP have been trying to scrap the ACA, the proposal to expand it is problematic to say the least, the WSJ said.

Why this matters in the crypto world: Bitcoin prices have been buoyed this year as investors bet that trillions of dollars of government and central bank spending around the world in response to the coronavirus-induced slowdown will inevitably result in inflation, and therefore be positive for the cryptocurrency.

With that in mind, should the two sides reach an agreement on a pandemic-relief package, the price of BTC could rise as a result.

In recent trading, BTC was trading at $11,425, up 0.43% in the last 24 hours.