Negotiators near deal on COVID-19 relief bill
WASHINGTON >> Congressional negotiators closed in Wednesday on a $900 billion COVID-19 relief package that would deliver additional “paycheck protection” subsidies to businesses, $300 per week jobless checks, and $600 or so stimulus payments to most Americans.
The long- delayed measure was coming together as Capitol Hill combatants finally fashioned difficult compromises, often at the expense of more ambitious Democratic wishes for the legislation, to complete the second major relief package of the pandemic.
It’s the first significant legislative response to the pandemic since the landmark CARES Act in March, which delivered $1.8 trillion in aid and more generous jobless benefits and direct payments to individuals. Since then, Democrats have repeatedly called for ambitious further federal steps to provide relief and battle the pandemic, while Republicans have sought to more fully reopen the economy and to avoid padding the government’s $27 trillion debt.
But President- elect Joe Biden is eager for an aid package to prop up the economy and deliver direct aid to the jobless and hungry, even though it falls
short of what Democrats want. He called the emerging package “an important down payment” and promised more help next year.
Republicans, too, are anxious to approve some aid before going home for the year.
“We made major headway toward hammering out a bipartisan relief package,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky told reporters Wednesday morning. And during a Senate GOP lunchtime call a day earlier, party leaders stressed the impor
tance of reaching an agreement before for the upcoming Georgia Senate runoff election, according to a person who was on the private call and granted anonymity to discuss it.
The details were still being worked out, but lawmakers in both parties said leaders had agreed on a topline total of about $900 billion, with direct payments of perhaps $600 to most Americans and a $300-perweek bonus federal unemployment benefit to partially replace a $600-perweek benefit that expired
this summer. It also includes the renewal of extra weeks of state unemployment benefits for the long- term jobless. More than $300 billion in subsidies for business, including a second round of “paycheck protection” payments to especially hard-hit businesses, are locked in.
Democrat s a ck nowledged that the removal of a $160 billion- or-so aid package for state and local governments whose budgets have been thrown out of balance by the pandemic was a bitter loss.