Pass pandemic relief now
With the first Americans finally getting vaccinated against the novel coronavirus, it might be tempting to believe the end of the pandemic is at hand. It is not.
It will be months before those who aren’t in the early priority groups are likely to be vaccinated. And while they ’re waiting, the current surge in cases the country is seeing will surely get worse as people spend more time indoors for the winter.
That means months more of high unemployment, of businesses shut down, of depressed tax revenues for states and local governments, forcing cuts that can hurts schools, public safety and other essential services.
Which is why Congress must overcome the impasse on a new pandemic relief package and deliver at least minimal help for the country. Now.
Why Senate Republican Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell has refused to negotiate a deal in good faith we don’t know. House Democrats have signaled a willingness to find common ground, cutting their original $3.5 trillion relief bill to $2.2 trillion. Mr. Mcconnell’s response was the ultimate in bad faith: He cut the Senate’s
counterproposal from $1 trillion to $500 billion. Apparently Mr. Mcconnell’s concept of “middle ground” is more complex than “somewhere between two numbers.”
In an effort to break the logjam, a bipartisan group of representatives and senators has come up with a $908 billion proposal that includes some critical features: about $300 billion for small businesses; $160 billion in state and local aid; an extension of unemployment insurance that is set to expire Dec. 26 for some 12 million people; a $300-a-week unemployment supplement; extension of an eviction moratorium; and rental assistance.
It’s a start, though far from what an effective aid package ought to be. The money for state and local governments falls well short of the $500 billion they say they need. The unemployment supplement is half of what the first stimulus included. There are no direct payments to households like the government sent last spring.
Yet it will help. Better for now to help people who are jobless than to cut everyone a check. Better to get money to businesses that are hanging on by a thread. Better to assure governments that at least some money is on the way to help them continue essential services. Better to do this than nothing.
And it isn’t so complicated that it needs to take weeks of negotiation. This bare-bones package could be discussed in tandem with talks this week on a government spending bill that needs to be done by Saturday under a one-week extender. Come January, with a new president and the question of which party controls the Senate resolved following two runoff elections in Georgia, all sides can revisit this.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the federal government’s top infectious-disease expert, says it could take until well into April before everyone can be vaccinated. The pandemic isn’t going away, not just yet. Congress had better not go away either, not for the holidays, without getting at least this minimal pandemic relief package done.