Trump signs $2T stimulus measure
House passes bill by voice vote; president invokes defense act to force GM to build ventilators
WASHINGTON >> President Donald Trump on Friday signed a sweeping $2 trillion measure to respond to the coronavirus pandemic, but not before a late objection from a lone rank-and-file Republican forced hundreds of lawmakers to rush back to the capital even as the virus continued to spread through their ranks.
The move by Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., accomplished an extraordinary feat, uniting Trump and John Kerry, the former Democratic secretary of state and presidential candidate, in a bipartisan moment of outrage against a lawmaker who wanted to force the whole
House to take a formal rollcall vote.
House Democrats and Republicans teamed up to bring just enough lawmakers back to the Capitol to thwart
Massie’s tactic, and the measure passed on a voice vote.
It was a resounding show of support for a bill that lawmakers in both parties said was imperfect but essential to address a national public health and economic crisis.
“I want to thank Democrats and Republicans for coming together and putting America first,” Trump said Friday as he signed the legislation in the Oval Office. But by then, the spark of bipartisanship appeared to have faded. While the legislation was the product of a compromise
among Republicans, Democrats and the administration, Trump did not invite any Democrats to the White House to celebrate its enactment, as is typical.
To address the immediate need of medical equipment, Trump issued an order Friday that seeks to force General Motors to produce ventilators for coronavirus patients under the Defense Production Act.
Trump said negotiations with General Motors had been productive, “but our fight against the virus is too urgent to allow the give-and-take of the contracting process to continue to run its normal course.”
Trump, who had previously been reluctant to use the act to force businesses to contribute to the coronavirus fight, said “GM was wasting time” and that his actions will help ensure the quick production of ventilators that will save American lives.
GM is among the furthest along of U.S. companies trying to repurpose factories to build ventilators. It’s working with Ventec Life Systems, a small Seattle-area ventilator maker to increase the company’s production and GM will use its auto electronics plant in Kokomo, Indiana, to make the machines. The automaker said Friday it could build 10,000 ventilators per month starting in April with potential to make even more.
The stimulus measure signed Friday is unparalleled in its scope and size, touching on every aspect of the country in an effort to send help to desperate Americans, provide aid to hospitals combating the disease, and bolster an economy forced to slow or shut down altogether to minimize the spread of the pandemic.
In weeks, it will send direct payments of $1,200 to individuals earning up to $75,000, with smaller payments to those with incomes of up to $99,000 and an additional $500 per child. It will substantially expand jobless aid, providing an additional 13 weeks and a four-month enhancement of benefits — including an extra $600 per week — and extend it to freelancers and gig workers. The package also suspends all federal student loan payments for six months through September, and the loans will not accrue interest during that period.
For companies struggling under the strain of the crisis, the measure will provide $377 billion in federally guaranteed loans to small businesses and establish a $500 billion government lending program for distressed companies, including allowing the administration the ability to take equity stakes in airlines that received aid to help compensate taxpayers. It also sends $100 billion to hospitals on the front lines of the pandemic.
For the 116th Congress, which began in the middle of a government shutdown and emerged only weeks ago from a bitter impeachment fight, the enactment of a mammoth government aid bill capped off a remarkable flurry of bipartisan cooperation and expedited legislative work.
But in the final hours before its approval, chaos reigned on Capitol Hill, as Massie, a libertarian with a penchant for using procedural maneuvers to try to block legislation, declared that a spending measure of such proportions should not receive congressional approval without every lawmaker having to record a position.
That threatened to upend a plan by House leaders to hold a voice vote on the package, sparing most lawmakers a potentially dangerous trip back to Washington as public health officials have advised people to shelter in place and avoid large gatherings. Instead, the leaders in both parties had to summon dozens of members back to the capital — piling into cars or securing seats on nearempty red-eye flights — so that enough of them would be present in the House chamber to block Massie’s request.
Trump took to Twitter to berate the Kentucky Republican, calling him a “third rate Grandstander,” and Kerry replied that Massie “must be quarantined to prevent the spread of his massive stupidity.” That drew an appreciative retweet from the president, who said he was “Very impressed” with the Democrat’s sense of humor.
Massie’s own colleagues in both parties were even more scathing. Rep. Peter T. King, R-N.Y., said on Twitter that his colleague would have blood on his hands if lawmakers became infected.
Despite the widespread disdain for Massie, his late objection — like one raised by Senate Republicans in the hours before the measure unanimously passed that chamber Wednesday — pointed to some lingering ideological divides over the government’s role in confronting a crisis. The political backlash that followed the 2008 bailout of Wall Street and the enormous stimulus program that followed in 2009 hung over the discussions, and members of Congress are keenly aware that voters are closely watching their actions.
“They don’t want a recorded vote,” Massie told reporters of congressional leaders. “They don’t want to be on record on making the biggest mistake in history.”
In under four weeks, lawmakers have produced three substantial proposals to confront the coronavirus, agreeing to emergency government help, expansions of the social safety net and financial bailouts that would have seemed unthinkable only a few weeks ago. Trump has signed all of them.
Now that the largest of those is law, attention will turn to its effect on a battered economy, where 3.3 million filed for unemployment last week, entire industries are in peril, and many experts say a package of its size can provide a few months of ballast — if that — before more help is needed. The administration now must scramble to find ways of enforcing the vast new programs, including an array of benefits for Americans and aid to nearly every industry — as well as strict oversight and accountability measures to make sure bailedout companies do not use the government help to enrich themselves at the expense of their workers.
The law creates disclosure requirements, an inspector general and a congressionally mandated board to monitor a $425 billion bailout fund to be administered by the Federal Reserve, and bars companies that receive government infusions from doing stock buybacks for as long as they are benefiting from federal aid, in addition to a year afterward. Companies owned by Trump and members of his family are barred from receiving any of the bailout money, although the president’s real estate company could potentially benefit from other aspects of the stimulus law.
Democrats have vowed to push for a fourth round of government help that would address priorities left uncovered by the bill signed Friday, including more benefits for workers and funds for hospitals, but it was unclear whether Republicans would agree that additional aid was needed.