$2.2 trillion rescue bill gains Senate’s approval
Hurdles overcome, measure heads to House
WASHINGTON — The Senate late Wednesday passed a $2.2 trillion economic rescue package that would steer aid to businesses, workers and health-care systems engulfed by the coronavirus pandemic.
The 96-0 vote took place despite misgivings on both sides about whether it goes too far or not far enough, and it came after days of difficult negotiations as Washington confronted a national challenge unlike any it has faced before.
The 880-page measure is the largest economic relief bill in U.S. history. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., appeared somber as he announced the vote — and he released senators from Washington until April 20, though he promised to recall them if
needed.
Senate passage delivered the legislation to the Democratic-controlled House, which will most likely vote on it Friday. House members are scattered around the country, and the timetable for votes in that chamber was unclear.
House Democratic and Re- publican leaders have hoped to clear the measure for President Donald Trump’s signature by a voice vote without having to call lawmakers back to Washington.
“I will sign it immediately,” Trump said of the measure Wednesday evening, before the Senate vote.
Shortly after announcing the deal just after midnight Wednesday, Senate leaders struggled to fend off a number of last-minute snags, and they encountered a hurdle as they tried to write the bill’s fine print Wednesday night.
Republican Sens. Tim Scott of South Carolina, Rick Scott of Florida, Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina had raised concerns about the measure. They argued that the bill would create incentives for companies to lay off workers instead of retaining them on the payroll, complaining that the design of unemployment benefits would allow some workers to make more money on unemployment than at work.
An amendment filed by Sasse was ultimately defeated, and the bill moved to passage just before 10:30 p.m.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., gave an upbeat assessment of the bill early Wednesday, but the logistics of the legislation’s passage through the House remained uncertain.
Pelosi said the bipartisan agreement “takes us a long way down the road in meeting the needs of the American people.”
Working in tandem after days of feuding, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and top Democrat Charles Schumer pressed for passage of the legislation in the Republican-led body by the end of the day.
The measure amounts to a government aid plan unprecedented in its scope and size, touching on every facet of American life with the goal of salvaging and ultimately reviving a battered economy. Its cost is hundreds of billions of dollars more than Congress provides for the entire U.S. federal budget for a single year, outside of social safety net programs. Administration officials said they hoped that its effect on the economy would be exponentially greater, as much as $4 trillion.
The legislation sends direct payments of $1,200 to millions of Americans, including those earning up to $75,000, and an additional $500 per child. It would substantially expand jobless aid, providing an additional 13 weeks and a fourmonth enhancement of benefits, extending the payments for the first time to freelancers and gig workers.
The measure offers $350 billion in federally guaranteed loans to small businesses and establish a $500 billion government lending program for distressed companies reeling
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., gave an upbeat assessment of the bill early Wednesday, but the logistics of the legislation’s passage through the House remained uncertain.
from the effects of the crisis, including allowing the administration to take equity stakes in airlines to help compensate taxpayers for the aid. The measure would also send $100 billion to hospitals on the front lines of the pandemic.
“This is certainly, in terms of dollars, far and away the biggest ever done,” Trump said at the White House, where he praised Democrats for their work on the agreement. “That is a tremendous thing because a lot of this money goes to jobs, jobs, jobs — and families, families, families.”
DAYS OF NEGOTIATIONS
Struck early Wednesday, the deal is the product of a marathon set of negotiations among Senate Republicans, Democrats and Trump’s team that nearly fell apart as Democrats insisted on stronger worker protections, more funds for hospitals and state governments, and tougher oversight over new loan programs intended to bail out distressed businesses.
Anticipation of the Wednesday night vote in the Senate to approve the bill sent the markets higher for the second consecutive day, with the S&P 500 up a little more than 1%.
But investors appeared to grow jittery toward the end of trading as the group of Republican senators delayed a final vote over the jobless aid.
The last-minute snag revealed the tenuous nature of the bipartisan compromise that was at the core of the measure, which emerged from an extraordinary five-day stretch of intense negotiations over how to deliver critical financial support to businesses forced to shut their doors, as well as American families and hospitals overwhelmed by the spread of the novel coronavirus.
The virus has already killed more than 900 people and infected more than 63,000 in the United States.
And even before they approved the stimulus bill, lawmakers were already discussing the likelihood that they would soon have to consider yet another package to respond to the pandemic and the toll it was taking on the country.
The stimulus package is intended to encourage companies to keep employees on their payrolls even if their businesses have shuttered temporarily — and it increases aid to workers who are laid off anyway or who have had their hours and wages cut back.
“This is not a moment of celebration, but one of necessity,” Schumer said early Wednesday as he took careful note of the changes his party had secured in the legislation. “To all Americans, I say, ‘Help is on the way.’”
LATE OPPOSITION
The agreement came together after a final round of haggling between administration officials, led by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, and Schumer after Democrats twice blocked action on the measure as they insisted on concessions.
If approved, the measure will be the third action taken by Congress this month to address the pandemic. Trump previously signed both an $8.3 billion bill for emergency aid and a sweeping package providing paid leave, free testing and additional aid for families affected by the pandemic.
In the final measure, most Republicans agreed to Democrats’ demands for a substantial expansion of jobless benefits, including $600 extra per week on top of the usual amount provided.
On Wednesday afternoon, the four Republican senators said they were concerned the new benefits would be larger than some people’s wages, prompting employers to lay off workers and some employees to prefer staying home and collecting unemployment payments.
“If this is not a drafting error, then this is the worst idea I have seen in a long time,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. “We need to create a sustainable system.”
Mnuchin said the extra payments were calculated as a way to ensure that states could get money out quickly, adding that he did not believe it would create any perverse incentives. Most Americans, he said, “want to keep their jobs.”
Still, the Republicans’ threat to hold up the bill because of the issue prompted Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. and a Democratic presidential candidate, to issue his own warning that he, too, would seek to block the legislation, saying it is too lenient on corporations.
Sanders later said in an interview that he would “reluctantly support” the bill as written.
The hardest-fought concessions were related to the $500 billion aid fund for distressed businesses, which would include $425 billion for the Federal Reserve to leverage for loans to help broad groups of distressed companies and $75 billion for industry-specific loans to airlines and other hard-hit sectors. Democrats insisted on stricter oversight, in the form of an inspector general and a five-person panel appointed by Congress. Republicans also agreed to require companies that accepted money through the fund to halt any stock buybacks for as long as they were receiving government assistance, plus an additional year.
The agreement also includes $350 billion for lending programs for small businesses, but only those that keep their payrolls steady through the crisis. Small businesses that pledge to keep their workers would also receive cash-flow assistance structured as federally guaranteed loans. If the employer continued to pay workers for the duration of the crisis, then those loans would be forgiven.
Airlines stand to benefit from multiple provisions, according to Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa. He pointed to an additional $25 billion in grants for airlines, with the potential for
equity to benefit taxpayers. He also said that $17 billion would be available for direct loans to companies related to America’s national security.
Democrats won a provision to block Trump family businesses — or those of other senior government officials — from receiving loan money under the programs, though the president’s real estate empire could still benefit from other parts of the bill.
OTHER PROVISIONS
Senators also directly focused on those on the front lines of responding to the pandemic, allocating $100 billion to hospitals, more than $1 billion for virus-related research, and $150 billion for state and local governments to help them weather drop-offs in tax revenue and the costs of fighting the pandemic.
Buried in thousands of pages of legal text were less visible steps to mitigate the pandemic’s effects on American lives and retool large swaths of the government to function remotely for the first time.
The bill, for example, would funnel $3.5 billion to states to prop up child care facilities and would allow universities to keep paying students in federal work-study jobs even if their academic terms have been cut short.
It would allocate $100 million for additional rural broadband and $150 million for arts and humanities grants to bring cultural programming to Americans stuck at home. It would increase funding for domestic violence shelters and hotlines and set aside $425 million to deal with mental health and substance abuse disorders related to the pandemic. And $400 million would become available to protect and expand voting for the 2020 election cycle.
Under other provisions, Americans affected by the virus would be able to temporarily withdraw up to $100,000 penalty-free from their retirement accounts to use for virus-related expenses. And menstrual products would become eligible for reimbursement under flexible spending accounts.