Congress battles over next phase of aid

Democrats and Republicans remained deadlocked this week on the terms of the next economic stimulus package, even as another 6.6 million people filed for unemployment and time ran short for businesses relying on a key program to keep workers on the books. Close to $350 billion has already been allocated to the Paycheck Protection Program, which provides forgivable, low-interest loans to businesses with fewer than 500 workers as long as they keep paying employees. But about 21 million small businesses, or 70 percent of the nation’s total, have already applied, and money is running out. Republicans are insisting on a “clean bill” to provide an additional $250 billion, without additional aid programs. Democrats demand that any package include $100 billion for hospitals and $150 billion for beleaguered state governments.

Democrats are muddying the waters on a desperately needed increase to the PPP, said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial. Asked to keep afloat a simple, popular program, “what they want is more of everything else”—even tossing in a $25-a-month increase in food stamp benefits. Predictably, Democrats also want to complicate the PPP with set-asides for “small communitybased lenders,” and other rules that will slow it down. They have never seen a crisis they didn’t want to take advantage of.

This isn’t a money grab, said Paul Waldman in The Washington Post— states are in real trouble. With tax revenue falling and costs skyrocketing, they’re collectively facing a $360 billion budget shortfall. Unless the U.S. helps, the money they are spending on coronavirus will come from “schools and parks and law enforcement and road maintenance and job training.”

Whatever happens with other aid, the PPP should be not just replenished but also expanded, said Noah Smith in Bloomberg .com. Congress should take the program “to its logical conclusion” and let in big companies, too. America’s best chance to avoid a depression is to keep workers in their jobs, whether they work at a “local independent restaurant” or at Walmart.