WASHINGTON (AP) – Congressional negotiators closed a $ 900 billion COVID-19 relief package Wednesday that would deliver additional “salary protection” grants to businesses, $ 300 a week from jobless checks and about $ 600 more or less stimuli to most Americans.
Such a backward measure came together when Capitol Hill fighters finally made difficult commitments, often at the expense of the most ambitious Democratic desires of the legislation, to complete the second pandemic relief package.
It is the first significant legislative response to the pandemic since the benchmark CARES Act, which delivered $ 1.8 trillion in more generous aid and benefits for unemployment and direct payments to people. Since then, Democrats have repeatedly called for ambitious federal measures to alleviate and combat the pandemic, while Republicans have tried to more fully reopen the economy and prevent the collection of $ 27 trillion in government debt.
But President-elect Joe Biden is eager for a package of aid to boost the economy and offer direct help to the unemployed and hungry, even though he doesn’t live up to what Democrats want. He described the emerging package as “a significant upfront amount” and promised more help next year.
Republicans are also eager to pass some aid before going home for the year.
“We made a lot of progress toward preparing for a bipartisan relief package,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said Wednesday morning. And during a noon call by the Senate GOP a day earlier, party leaders stressed the importance of reaching an agreement ahead of the next Georgia Senate election, according to a person who was in the private call and granted anonymity to discuss it.
Details were still being worked out, but lawmakers on both sides said leaders had agreed to a total of about $ 900 billion, with direct payments of $ 600 to most Americans and a $ 300 bonus. weekly partial care bonus dollars replace a $ 600 per week benefit that expired this summer. It also includes the renewal of additional weeks of state unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed. More than $ 300 billion in grants to companies have been blocked, including a second round of “salary protection” payments to specially affected companies.
Democrats acknowledged that removing a $ 160 billion aid package for state and local governments whose budgets have been unbalanced by the pandemic meant a bitter loss.
“It’s heartbreaking for us,” said Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, whose state has major tax problems.
The new package served as a magnet for adding other items and both parties continued to change offers.
And it was clear that another temporary spending bill would be needed to prevent a government shutdown at midnight on Friday. This is likely to happen easily.
House lawmakers returned to Washington on Wednesday hoping to vote soon on the new package, which would combine the relief of COVID-19 with a $ 1.4 trillion funding bill across the government and a lot of other business left in Congress, including the extension of overdue tax credits and the approval of other unfinished legislation.
Negotiations intensified on Tuesday after months of futility. Before the election, with Democrats at the polls, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi took a hard line in the talks. Now, McConnell is playing hard after a better-than-expected performance in the election limited GOP losses to Senate races.
McConnell successfully pushed for Democrats to abandon their much-sought-after, $ 160 billion package of local government aid, while giving up a key priority: a shield of responsibility for companies and other institutions such as universities that fear lawsuits. COVID-19. Democrats cited other benefits for states and localities in the emerging deal, such as helping traffic systems, schools and vaccine distribution.
The addition of the $ 600 direct payments came after recent support from both Trump and progressives, including Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Who remains unhappy with the overall package.
“Everything in this package is vital,” Sanders told MSNBC on Wednesday. “The problem is that it’s a much smaller package than the country needs at this time of economic despair.”
Pelosi has insisted for months that state and local aid would be in any final bill, but as time runs out, she is unwilling to hold the rest of the package hostage to the lawsuit.
A poisonous dynamic has long infected the negotiations, but the mood was business in two meetings in the Pelosi Capitol suite on Tuesday that led to an explosion of progress.
The pressure for a deal is intense. Unemployment benefits run out on December 26 for more than 10 million people. Many businesses are barely left after nine months of pandemic. And money is needed to distribute new vaccines that ultimately offer hope for returning the country to an appearance of normalcy.
The impending deal follows the efforts of a bipartisan group of grassroots lawmakers to find a middle ground between a $ 2.4 trillion House bill and a $ 500 billion GOP measure designed by McConnell.
The $ 908 bipartisan deal has served as a template for talks, although the bipartisan group, led by Mr. Joe Manchin, DW.Va., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, favored state aid and localities instead of another round of stimuli. payments. The CARES Act provided for payments of $ 1,200 per person and $ 500 per child.
“I think the work that our bipartisan group did really helped stimulate that,” Collins said.
Otherwise, with Congress preparing to close the store, lawmakers are eager to use the relief package to carry out other pending matters.
The main candidate is a 369-page water resource bill that targets $ 10 billion for 46 flood control, environmental and coastal protection projects of the Army Corps of Engineers. Another potential addition would extend favorable tax treatment for offshore subsidiary entities of U.S. corporations. Meanwhile, thousands of craft brewers, wineries and distillers face higher taxes in April if their tax cuts are not extended.
The rush at the end of the session also promises relief to victims of surprisingly abrupt surprise medical bills, a phenomenon that often occurs when providers leave insurance company networks. This measure, combined with an assortment of other health policy provisions, generates savings for federal funding of community health centers. And Senate Education Panel Chairman Lamar Alexander, R-Tennessee, is eager to simplify the insane form of aid to the federal university.
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AP Congress correspondent Lisa Mascaro contributed.