Congress passes $900B in pandemic aid
Trump expected to sign bill with relief for small businesses, $600 checks
WASHINGTON — After weeks of negotiations, Congress on Monday night passed a $900 billion coronavirus relief package that will send more stimulus checks to many Texans, boost unemployment benefits and offer billions in aid for small businesses.
The relief package will send $600 checks to those making less than $75,000 and their children and will add $300 a week in unemployment for 11 weeks, payments that are each half as much as Congress offered in the first round of COVID stimulus last spring. It includes another bundle of forgivable paycheck protection loans, an earlier round of which provided $41 billion of assistance to more than 417,000 small businesses in Texas.
The package also includes funds for vaccine distribution, as well as increased food stamp aid and rental assistance. And it offers billions to help schools and colleges make necessary upgrades to reopen safely.
The House passed the relief package ona 359-53 vote Monday evening. Two dozen Texans, including every Democrat, voted for the bill, with nine Republicans opposing it and three not voting. The Texans who voted against it were Reps. Brian
Babin ofWoodville, Michael Burgess of Lewisville, Michael Cloud of Victoria, Mike Conaway of Midland, Louie Gohmert of Tyler, Lance Gooden of Terrell, ChipRoy ofAustin, VanTaylor of Plano and Randy Weber of Friendswood.
The Senate passed it late Monday night, and the White House has said President Donald Trump will
sign it.
“It won’t endall of the suffering, but it will ease much of the pain,” U.S. Rep. Al Green, a Houston Democrat, said as the House debated the deal. Another Houston Democrat, U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, presided over the chamber during much of the debate. “Help is on the way,” she said.
The stimulus is part of amassive spending agreement that also funds the government through September and includes a bonanza of measures unrelated to the virus, such as ending surprise medical billing, curbing youth vaping and creating a national Latino history museum. The nearly 5,600page bill is the lengthiest ever passed by Congress, according to the Associated Press.
“Even though it’s frustrating, it took us months to get here. … We finally got the kind of bipartisan cooperation we needed,” said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas.
The package also marks some key wins for Texas lawmakers, including Cornyn, whose legislation to offer $15 billion to livemusic and other arts venues was included. So was a fix sought by Rep. Joaquin Castro, a San Antonio Democrat, that will send stimulus checks to families with members of mixed immigration status.
The stimulus checks sent earlier this year were limited to those who filed taxes with Social Security numbers, meaning many U.S. citizens living with immigrants — who file with taxpayer IDs — were left out. As many as 940,000 Texans who otherwise would have been eligible for the checks, many of them citizens, didn’t get one because they either are married to a person who came to the U.S. without legal authorization or have parents who did, according to estimates by the Migration Policy Institute.
Families with at least one taxpaying U.S. citizen will get those checks now, as well as the new round of payments.
“It is a victory for hardworking families in Texas, and also just the start of what is necessary for a fair and full economic recovery,” said Castro, who chairs the Congressio-nal Hispanic Caucus. “This legislative fix is a significant improvement and a critical lifeline during this crisis.”
The bill also gives states and cities another year to spend money from previous COVID relief packages, meaning Texas no longer has to spend some $2 billion in federal funding by the end of the month.
‘Too little, too late’
While some lawmakers heralded the package as a bipartisan victory that will offer some relief during the holiday season and as vaccinations begin, others said it will do too little to help those most in need. The $600 checks for those making less than $75,000, for instance, have been ridiculed. The amount is enough to cover just more than half of an average month’s rent in Texas’ biggest cities.
“Too little, too late!” Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-San Antonio, said in a statement. “Modest help formany who are struggling, important funding for vaccine distribution — but some sorry provisions, and many omissions. Hopefully, it will at least help those most in need make it until we have a new administration.”
Others, including Roy, a Central Texas Republican, criticized the way the package came together. The text of the massive bill wasn’t released until Monday afternoon, just hours before the House vote.
“The swamp, ladies and gentlemen, in action,” Roy tweeted. “And again, a vote for this bill (and a signature on it) is a vote to perpetuate that swamp.”
There was bipartisan outrage over theway the bill was rushed to passage Monday.
“Members of Congress have not read this bill. It’s over 5000 pages, arrived at 2pm today, and we are told to expect a vote on it in 2 hours,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., tweeted. “This isn’t governance. It’s hostage-taking.”
The latest relief package, which passed with a bill to fund the government through September, also includes some major legislation not directly related to the coronavirus.
Surprise medical bills targeted
Perhaps the most significant is a measure aimed at ending surprise medical billing, a practice Texas lawmakers have long said they want to stop. Texas has one of the highest incidences of surprise bills in the United States, and health economists have reported a 27 percent likelihood of Texans getting an out-of-network bill after outpatient emergency room treatment — nearly double the national average of 14 percent. The legislation would make those bills illegal.
“This bipartisan solution is so important to the American people,” said Rep. Kevin Brady, R-The Woodlands. “This is a strong and needed package. Its benefits will be felt for years to come.”
The package also offers up billions in funding to expand broadband networks. It includes some higher education reforms lawmakers have sought for years as well, including repealing abanon in carcerated students accessing Pell grants and simplifying the federal student aid application. It also forgives federal loans for historically Black colleges and universities.
The bill also takes steps toward establishing a Smithsonian museum on the National Mall for American Latino history, art and culture, an effort championed by more than two dozen Texans in the House, aswell as Ted Cruz and Cornyn in the Senate.
Texas lawmakers were touting provisions theywere able to get into the deal, including Rep. Pete Olson, a retiring Sugar Land Republican who championed provisions that would phase out the use of hydro fluorocarbons, chemicals common in coolants that are known to contribute to climate change.
Olson also pushed for provisions thatwould offer raises to federal energy regulators and require doctors to talk to their patients on Medicare about the cost of medication they prescribe.
Green, of Houston, meanwhile, touted measures that he’s pushed that would send billions to minority lenders and financial institutions in low-income neighborhoods.
Democrats including House Speaker Nancy P el o si, meanwhile, have vowed to push formore relief after President-elect Joe Biden takes office. It’s unclear, however, whether Republicans will be willing to offer up yet more funding after Congress authorized more than $4 trillion in pandemic funding this year.
“I’m worried where congressional Democrats are wanting to go, and I’m worried evenwhere some Republicans want to go,” Cruz, a Republican, said earlier this month. “I don’t think the answer is just shoveling trillions outside the door. We can’t print enough money to get through this.”