Congress to pass long-delayed relief

Top Capitol Hill negotiators sealed a deal yesterday on an almost US$1 trillion Covid-19 economic relief package, finally delivering long-overdue help to businesses and individuals and providing money to deliver vaccines to a nation eager for them.

The agreement, announced by Senate leaders, would establish a temporary US$300 per week supplemental jobless benefits and US$600 direct stimulus payments to most Americans, along with a new round of subsidies for hardhit businesses and money for schools, health care providers and renters facing eviction.

The House was expected to vote on the legislation today, said a spokeswoman for House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md. The House would pass a one-day stopgap spending bill to

Senate Majority Leader avert a government shutdown. The Senate was likely to vote today, too. Lawmakers were eager to leave Washington and close out a tumultuous year.

‘‘There will be another major rescue package for the American people,’’ Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said in announcing the agreement for a relief bill that would total almost US$900 billion. ‘‘It is packed with targeted policies to help struggling Americans who have already waited too long.’’

The final agreement is the largest spending measure yet. It combines Covid-19 relief with a US$1.4 trillion government-wide funding plan and lots of other unrelated measures on taxes, health, infrastructure and education.

While Schumer said Democrats would have wanted more, passage is nearing as coronavirus cases and deaths spike and evidence piles up that the economy is struggling.

Late-breaking decisions would limit the US$300 per week bonus jobless benefits — one half the supplemental federal unemployment benefit provided under the CARES Act in March – to 10 weeks instead of 16 weeks as before. The direct US$600 stimulus payment to most people is also half the March payment, subject to the same income limits in which an individual’s payment begins to phase out after $75,000.

President Donald Trump is supportive, particularly of the push for providing more direct payments.

‘‘GET IT DONE,’’ he said in a tweet on Sunday.

It would be the first significant legislative response to the pandemic since the US$1.8 trillion CARES Act passed virtually unanimously in March.

The legislation was held up by months of dysfunction, posturing and bad faith. But talks turned serious last week as lawmakers on both sides finally faced the deadline of acting before leaving Washington for Christmas.

A breakthrough came late Sunday in a fight over Federal Reserve emergency powers that was resolved by the Senate’s top Democrat, Chuck Schumer of New York, and conservative Republican Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania.

That led to a final round of negotiations on other issues. –AP

‘‘It (the package) is packed with targeted policies to help struggling Americans who have already waited too long.’’ Mitch McConnell