Congress eyes new round of virus aid
WASHINGTON — Two months after House Democrats approved a $3 trillion COVID-19 aid package, Senate Republicans are poised to unveil their $1 trillion counteroffer, straining to keep spending in check as the virus outbreak spreads and societal fallout deepens.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who is expected to roll out the GOP bill as soon as next week, said Wednesday that he conferred with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin as the White House’s point man on the talks prepares to negotiate with Democrats.
But having hit “pause” in May, as McConnell put it, Republicans now face a potentially more dire situation.
They had hoped the pandemic would ease and the economic fallout would reverse. Instead, coronavirus cases are spiking, states are resuming shutdowns and parents are wondering if it’s safe to send children back to school.
“Regretfully, this is not over,” McConnell said during a visit to a hospital in Kentucky.
“There were some that hoped this would go away sooner than it has,” he said, urging residents to wear masks and social distance.
“The straight talk here that everyone needs to understand: This is not going away,” McConnell said.
This would be the fifth virus rescue bill since spring, all told an unprecedented federal intervention to counter the times.
Polling shows Americans are increasingly uneasy over President Donald Trump’s handling of the virus outbreak, and lawmakers are racing to ease the health and economic crises before they, too, face voters in November.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s sweeping $3 trillion coronavirus aid bill, once dismissed by McConnell and others as a liberal wish list, now seems not as far-fetched.
“How many times have we said, ‘We’re at a critical moment?’ ” Pelosi said Wednesday at the Capitol. “We really are at a critical moment now.”
Both the House and Senate have similar funding priorities — to help schools reopen, provide unemployment benefits for jobless Americans and ramp up health care testing, treatments and a vaccine — but they differ broadly in size and scope.
House Democrats provide $100 billion for school reopenings in an education stabilization fund that Senate Democrats say could swell to $430 billion to include more money for child care, colleges and other educational needs.
Senate Republicans are floating some $50 billion to $75 billion in education funds, but talks are still ongoing.
The White House this week assured more education dollars would flow as Trump pushes to reopen schools.
“We want schools to be open, and they will be open,” Trump told reporters Wednesday.
The two sides are also divided over how much aid to send to cash-strapped states and cities pleading for money and out-ofwork Americans at a time of record-setting unemployment.
Republicans want to discontinue the $600 weekly unemployment boost that expires at the end of the month.
In its place, Republicans are eyeing a return-to-work stipend as well as tax breaks for employers who upgrade workplaces with safety measures to prevent the spread of the virus.
Democrats want to keep the $600 jobless benefit boost, and Pelosi’s bill would send nearly $1 trillion to states and cities to shore up budgets and avoid layoffs of municipal workers.