Congress races to strike Covid relief deal
What happened
Efforts by a bipartisan group of senators to finalize a $908 billion coronavirus relief bill ran into a new obstacle this week after the White House unveiled its own stimulus package that would send most Americans a one-time $600 check—but scrap a $300-a-week boost to unemployment benefits favored by Senate negotiators. With federal assistance for an estimated 12 million jobless Americans due to expire Dec. 26, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer endorsed the $908 billion proposal, which includes some $300 billion in aid for small businesses, $82 billion for schools, and funding for vaccine distribution efforts and would extend a federal eviction moratorium. Specifics on liability protections that would shield businesses from coronavirus lawsuits, a priority for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and aid for struggling state and local governments, a priority for Democrats, still had to be hammered out. Pelosi and Schumer rejected the White House’s proposal to cut unemployment benefits as “unacceptable.”
A new employment report found that the economic recovery was tailing off, with only 245,000 new jobs being added last month— down from 610,000 in October. There are now 9.8 million fewer jobs than before the pandemic. About 16 percent of households with children report that they don’t have enough food, and by January, an estimated 12 million Americans will owe an average of $5,850 in back rent and utilities. “I will get evicted soon,” said Nikki Cornwell, a 36-year-old mother of two from Nashville, who is $4,000 behind on rent and recently had her water shut off. “I’ve had bad moments, but never anything like this.”
What the editorials said
Spending nearly $1 trillion is “much more than needed given the imminent arrival of Covid-19 vaccines,” said The Wall Street Journal. But at least it’s down from the deficit-exploding $2.2 trillion that Pelosi initially wanted, and it’s lower than the $1.8 trillion President Trump offered before the election. Pelosi rejected that plan, figuring the lack of a deal would hurt Republicans and help Democrats win back the Senate. They didn’t, and now she has to live with a much lower “credit-card limit.”
The economic misery caused by the pandemic is almost incomprehensible, said The New York Times. Millions of families are facing eviction. The share of Americans who have lost jobs and not found new ones is higher than in any year since World War II. And from January to November, the number of small businesses in the U.S. dropped by 29 percent. Congress must stop the bleeding, which is crushing working Americans even as stocks—“owned mostly by the wealthy”—hit record highs. The Senate proposal is too small to alleviate much of this pain, but it’s “better than nothing.”
What the columnists said
McConnell’s demand that any relief package include a “liability shield” is downright “ghoulish,” said John Nichols in TheNation .com. Americans in low-wage jobs have borne the brunt of this pandemic. Yet McConnell thinks CEOs who fail to protect those same workers from catching Covid on the job should be immunized against legal action. Conveniently, those business interests also “fund Republican campaigns.”
Most Americans don’t need more stimulus, said Judge Glock in NationalReview.com. People who are still working “have the money and the will to buy things, but they can’t,” because stores, restaurants, and hotels are either shut down or considered unsafe. That’s why the savings rate jumped from 7 percent in February to 20 percent a few months later. If lawmakers really want to boost the economy, they should spray money at things that will control the virus—track and trace programs, more-expansive drug trials—rather than give “bailouts to businesses and already-comfortable families.”
This isn’t the time for liberals or conservatives to “sweat all the legislative details,” said Quin Hillyer in WashingtonExaminer.com. A group of eight moderate senators, led by Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), are crafting the $908 billion bill with input from 25 House Democrats and 25 House Republicans. The U.S. could use a reminder of what compromise looks like, especially with a new president preparing to take office and the outgoing one refusing to accept defeat. A “grand bargain” is on the table. “For the good of the nation, Congress should embrace it.”