$900B boost
CONGRESS SET TO SEND AMERICANS RELIEF AT LAST
WASHINGTON — The House passed a $900 billion pandemic relief package Monday night, and the Senate was expected to follow suit, finally acting to aid struggling Americans after months of bitter infighting and delay.
The 5,593-page legislation includes $1.4 trillion to keep the federal government up and running, and nearly $892 billion in funding to shore up an economy battered by the surging coronavirus.
The relief package, unveiled Monday afternoon, sped through the House in a matter of hours, and was passed in a 359-53 vote. A Senate vote that would send the bill to President-Trump appeared likely to follow.
Lawmakers hailed the bipartisan deal but few seemed entirely satisfied, and Democrats in particular vowed to do more as soon as Joe Biden is sworn in as president next month.
“It’s a first step, and we will need to do more ... to get more virus assistance, to crush the virus,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said.
“None of us think any of this legislation is perfect,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). “But a big, bipartisan majority of us recognize the incredible amount of good it will do when we send it on to the president’s desk.”
A key provision that families will likely feel first is the inclusion of $600 checks, which Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said could start flowing as soon as next week. The payments will go to everyone plus their kids, but will phase out at incomes above $75,000 for singles and $150,000 for couples.
People who have been struggling with unemployment will see a $300-a-week boost from the bill that will last for 11 weeks. Many lawmakers had hoped for at least 16 weeks.
A key priority that Democrats won is an extension of an eviction moratorium until after Biden takes office. Along with that comes $25 billion in rental assistance, which aims to keep people in their homes while preventing landlords from going belly up.
More broadly, the bill includes another $284 billion for the popular Paycheck Protection Program that gives smaller businesses forgivable loans to keep their doors open, as well as other business assistance. The largest pot of money is $82 billion for schools and colleges. The legislation also has $45 billion in transportation funding that is expected to be a major boon to cities like New York with struggling transit systems. Another boost for New York will be some $15 billion for cultural institutions, particularly theaters.
To help with the medical response, $63 billion was added for vaccine distribution and testing and tracing, among other health initiatives.
Left out of the bill was an extension of emergency paid family sick leave, which could immediately hit up to 87 million Americans who were eligible, although it does extend tax breaks for businesses who give the leave.
Also omitted was some $160 billion that bipartisan negotiators in the Senate had hoped to send to states and municipalities to help fill the gaping holes in their budgets.
Republican leaders opposed that measure, however, saying that states like New York would use the money to paper over preexisting bad spending habits.
Missing, too, was a COVID liability shield for businesses that the GOP said was vital to prevent a “pandemic of lawsuits,” but that Democrats warned would encourage companies to risk
workers’ lives.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Congress will plug the holes it left once Biden is in the White House.
“This bill cannot and will not be the final word,” Schumer said before the measure passed.
“This is an emergency survival package, and when we come back in January, our No. 1 job will be to fill in the gaps left by the bill.”
Still, it was not clear that Democrats would be able to do so.
The standoff over the current legislation went all the way back to May, when the House passed the Democratic-favored HEROES Act that would have pumped more than $3 trillion into the economy.
But Republicans stood firm in insisting the package come in at under $1 trillion, and at one point proposed as little as $500 billion. While Democrats managed to add many of their priorities to the bill, the price tag wound up in the GOP’s ballpark.
And Republicans have signaled they want to restrain the Biden administration, and don’t think the COVID relief bill should be considered just a down payment.
“I don’t see it that way,” Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), the second-ranking Republican in the Senate, told reporters earlier in the week. “I know that’s how they’re talking about it. I think the incoming administration is viewing it as something that they can do now and then they can come back at this next year.”