Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
$900B relief package gaining ground
Lawmakers pushing for agreement by week’s end as pandemic toll rises
WASHINGTON — Congressional leaders said Wednesday that they are nearing agreement on a roughly $900 billion economic relief package that would include a second round of stimulus checks and could be completed by the end of this week.
The package emerging is expected to include hundreds of billions of dollars in aid for ailing small businesses and jobless Americans; tens of billions of dollars in aid for other critical needs, such as vaccine distribution and schools; and a one-time check of between $600 and $700 for millions of Americans below a certain income threshold.
The relief bill is likely to be coupled with several other major legislative efforts — from legislation to fund federal agencies to a bipartisan effort to rein in surprise medical billing — that lawmakers could then pass into law in a matter of days.
Lawmakers are racing to pass a deal in part because of widespread signs of economic deterioration in the face of the resurgent pandemic, as well as the imminent expiration
of several critical federal aid programs by the end of the year. Nearly 8 million Americans have fallen into poverty since this summer, according to a new report, in part because emergency benefit programs expired. More Americans are filing for unemployment benefits, and the pace of hiring has slowed.
Also, Congress must pass a new spending bill by midnight Friday to avoid a shutdown of the federal government. Aides said lawmakers could pass another short-term extension of government funding to buy negotiators more time to strike a deal.
Tensions over the new package flared in the final stages of negotiations, with Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Joe Manchin III, D-W.Va., engaging in what several aides described as a heated exchange during an internal conference call Wednesday afternoon.
Sanders pushed for the package to include more robust stimulus checks. Manchin has said unemployment benefits are more essential to approve and helped spearhead a bipartisan compromise that Sanders has derided as insufficient. Because lawmakers are trying to move the bill quickly, Sanders’ opposition could be enough to blow up the whole deal, infuriating members who are trying to rush it into law.
Asked about the exchange, Sanders said he had been candid in the private call with his belief that Democrats had given in too easily to Republican demands.
“The heat was exactly what I told you: I don’t understand how Democrats accepted — when you had [Treasury Secretary Steven] Mnuchin talking about $1.8 trillion and this large Heroes bill,” he said, citing House Democrats’ more than $3 trillion relief package from the summer. “I don’t know how Democrats started accepting a framework of only $900 billion.”
These changing political dynamics have also opened the door for a potential agreement. Congressional Democrats had sought a much larger stimulus package before the election. Many, however, have now softened their position after President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in hope of securing some immediate relief.
Leadership negotiations were also revived by bipartisan legislation released earlier this week, spearheaded by a team including Manchin and Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Mitt Romney, R-Utah. The final bill is expected to closely mirror their initial proposal.
As the bills began to take shape, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., hosted hours of meetings Tuesday with the three other most senior congressional leaders — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. Negotiators have described those talks as productive.
“We made major headway toward hammering out a bipartisan relief package,” McConnell told reporters Wednesday morning. And during a Senate GOP lunchtime call a day earlier, party leaders stressed the importance of reaching an agreement before the coming Georgia Senate runoff election, according to a person who was on the private call and granted anonymity to discuss it.
“The stimulus package is encouraging. It looks like it’s very, very close,” Biden said Wednesday in Wilmington, Del. “It’s a down payment. An important down payment that’s going to have to be done. … It’s very important to get done.”
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., told reporters Wednesday afternoon that he is hoping for a deal “later today or early tomorrow morning.”
Even if negotiators reach a deal, clearing it through Congress by the Friday midnight deadline could be difficult. The House could vote as soon as today, waiving its usual threeday rule for the review of legislation. The Senate would then have to secure unanimous consent among its 100 members to skip procedural hurdles and move to a final vote before the deadline. An objection from Sanders or any other senator could cause a brief government shutdown unless lawmakers agree to another short-term funding bill.
PAYCHECK PROGRAM
The emerging stimulus package is expected to include a new round of funding for the Paycheck Protection Program, which faced significant controversy for giving government aid to large corporations, as well as targeted relief for other ailing business sectors. It will also include $300 per week in supplemental federal benefits for more than 10 million jobless Americans, according to John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2-ranking Republican senator.
Democrats also secured $25 billion to establish a new program to provide emergency rental assistance, funding that could be used to cover past and future rent payments, as well as other related expenses, Schumer told Senate Democrats on a video call Wednesday, according to a Democratic official familiar with his remarks.
Some key parts of the bill have shifted in the past few days. The initial $908 billion bipartisan proposal, released earlier this week by the group of moderates, would have not authorized another round of stimulus checks. Negotiators had tried to keep the bill’s price tag below $1 trillion to maintain Republican support for the effort. The bill would, however, have included money for state and local governments.
But state and local relief funding appeared to fall out of the deal Wednesday because lawmakers were unable to reach a compromise on coronavirus-related liability protections for corporations.
Slashing aid for states and cities from the emerging deal would free up close to $160 billion that could be reapportioned for the direct payments. Using this pool of money, lawmakers have attempted to finance stimulus checks that are roughly half the size of the $1,200 checks approved in March, or $600 per person. Discussions were ongoing on Capitol Hill about the exact size of the payments. Some of the $160 billion could also be used to expand funding for vaccine distribution, people involved in the discussions said.
Democrats acknowledged that the removal of the $160 billion aid package for state and local governments whose budgets have been thrown out of balance by the pandemic was a bitter loss.
“It’s heartbreaking for us,” said Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, whose state has big fiscal problems.
Pelosi has insisted for months that state and local aid would be in any final bill, but as time is running out, she is unwilling to hold the rest of the package hostage over the demand.
The potential inclusion of stimulus checks came after a push from Sanders and Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who threatened must-pass government spending legislation to ensure a vote on a second round of stimulus checks.
President Donald Trump has also pushed for another round of stimulus checks to be included in the final package, as have some left-leaning lawmakers in the House. Mnuchin had proposed including $600 stimulus checks in the package last week, but Democrats opposed the measure then because the White House also wanted to slash unemployment aid.
“I would say that that’s progress. It’s not where I would like it to be,” Hawley told reporters of the bill under development Wednesday.
Sanders also praised the inclusion of $600 checks as a “good start” but added: “I’m going to continue to fight for more.”
The addition of the stimulus checks is expected to also come in part by reducing the amount of unemployment aid. Congressional leaders have told other lawmakers that they are planning on reducing the length of unemployment benefits by one month from the bipartisan plan, according to two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share private remarks.
That could mean the extended benefits would expire at the end of March. Such a timeline could force the incoming Biden administration to move more quickly in its effort to pass a stimulus bill early next year.