Congress seals agreement on COVID relief, government funding

WASHINGTON (AP) – Leading Capitol Hill negotiators sealed a deal Sunday in a nearly $ 1 trillion COVID-19 economic relief package, which eventually offered long-awaited aid to businesses and individuals and it provided money to deliver vaccines to a nation that wanted them.

The deal, announced by Senate leaders, would establish additional temporary benefits of $ 300 a week for unemployment and direct stimulus payments of $ 600 to most Americans, along with a new round of grants for affected businesses and money. for schools, health care providers and eviction tenants.

The House was expected to pass legislation Monday, said a spokeswoman for House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md. The House would approve an uninterrupted one-day spending bill to prevent a government shutdown at midnight on Sunday. The Senate is likely to vote Monday as well. Lawmakers were eager to leave Washington and close out a tumultuous year.

“There will be another big bailout package for the American people,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Said in announcing the agreement on a relief bill that would add nearly $ 900 billion. “It’s full of specific policies to help struggling Americans who have already waited too long.”

Saturday afternoon saw a breakthrough in a Federal Reserve emergency power struggle that was resolved by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and Republican Conservative Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania. This led to a final round of negotiations.

The final agreement is the largest spending measure to date. It combines the relief of COVID-19 with a $ 1.4 trillion funding plan across the government and many other measures related to taxes, health, infrastructure and education.

The pace is approaching as coronavirus cases and deaths increase and evidence is accumulating that the economy is struggling.

Last-minute decisions would limit unemployment benefits from the $ 300 weekly bonus (half the federal unemployment benefit provided by the CARES Act in March) to 10 weeks instead of 16 weeks as before. Direct payment of $ 600 incentives to most people is also half the March payment, subject to the same income limits at which a person’s payment begins to disappear after $ 75,000.

President Donald Trump supports, especially the push to provide more direct payments. “DO IT,” he said in a tweet Saturday afternoon.

It would be the first significant legislative response to the pandemic since the $ 1.8 trillion CARES law passed virtually unanimously in March.

Legislation was maintained for months of dysfunction, posture and bad faith. But talks turned serious last week as lawmakers on both sides finally faced the deadline to act before leaving Washington for Christmas.

Lawmakers had wanted to approve the bill this weekend and avoid the need for an endless spending bill, but progress slowed Saturday as Toomey pushed for a provision to close the Fed’s lending facility. Democrats and the White House said it was worded too broadly and would have tied the hands of the incoming Biden administration, but Republicans rallied in Toomey’s position.

The Fed’s emergency programs provided loans to small and medium-sized businesses and bought state and local government bonds. These bond purchases facilitated the loans of these governments, at a time when their finances were under pressure from job losses and health costs stemming from the pandemic.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said last month that those programs, along with two that bought corporate bonds, would close by the end of the year, prompting a first objection from the Fed. Under the Dodd-Frank Financial Review Act passed after the Great Recession, the Fed can only establish emergency programs with the support of the Treasury Secretary.

Toomey said emergency powers were designed to stabilize capital markets at the height of the pandemic this spring and would expire by the end of the month. Democrats said Toomey was trying to limit the Fed’s ability to boost the economy, just as President-elect Joe Biden was preparing to take office.

The virus aid deal would provide more than $ 300 billion in aid to businesses, as well as the extra $ 300 a week for unemployment and the renewal of state benefits that would otherwise expire just after Christmas. . It included direct payments of $ 600 to individuals; vaccine distribution funds; and money for tenants, schools, postal service and people in need of food aid.

The government-wide credit bill would fund the agencies until next September. This measure is likely to provide a final $ 1.4 billion quota for the Trump-US border wall with Mexico as a condition for winning his signature.