Hi, I'm Dan Premack and welcome to Axios Recap, presented by Google.

Today is Monday, December 7th.

COVID hospitalizations are up, the odds of TikTok getting banned are down, and we're focused

on the stalled economic stimulus.

We're now nine months since the CARES Act became law, that big bipartisan moment when

Congress and the White House worked together to make sure that an economic recession didn't

become an economic depression.

Since then, though, crickets.

Yeah, House Democrats passed the Heroes Act in May, but they did so knowing it was

dead on arrival in the Mitch McConnell controlled Senate. And yes, Senate Republicans later introduced

some piecemeal bills, but they knew those would be rejected by Nancy Pelosi. And Pelosi

and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin spent lots of time negotiating in the summer and in the fall,

but accomplishing nothing tangible. All the while, it was obvious to almost everyone

outside the White House and halls of Congress that economic and job growth were slowing down

at the very time that lots of CARES Act provisions, like expanded unemployment insurance,

were set to expire. So here we are,

near the end of our bridge to nowhere. Leaders of both political parties acknowledge something

must get done, maybe a $900 billion compromise plan put forth last week by the so-called

problem solvers caucus in the House and a bipartisan group of senators. But it still remains

unclear if all of those words will translate into action. If 15 seconds will go deeper into the

stimulus state of play and how we got here, with Representative Josh Gotheimer, a New

Jersey Democrat and co-chair of the Problem Solvers Caucus. But first, this. We're joined now by Congressman

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