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Senate Plans Vote on $2 Trillion Stimulus Bill After Sealing Bipartisan Deal Congress Moves Toward Approving $2 Trillion Stimulus After Bipartisan Deal
(about 5 hours later)
WASHINGTON — The Senate on Wednesday moved toward a vote on a sweeping, roughly $2 trillion measure to respond to the coronavirus pandemic, after Democrats and Republicans reached a deal with the Trump administration on direct payments and jobless benefits for individuals, money for states and a huge bailout fund for businesses. WASHINGTON — The $2 trillion economic stabilization package agreed to by Congress and the Trump administration early Wednesday morning is the largest of its kind in modern American history, intended to respond to the coronavirus pandemic and provide direct payments and jobless benefits for individuals, money for states and a huge bailout fund for businesses.
The legislation, which is expected to be enacted within days, is the biggest fiscal stimulus package in modern American history, aimed at delivering support to companies forced to shut their doors, relief to Americans suffering layoffs and financial ruin, and critical aid to hospitals on the front lines of the rapidly spreading disease. The measure, whose final details were still being drafted Wednesday evening, amounts to a government aid plan unprecedented in its sheer scope and size, touching on every facet of American life with the goal of salvaging and ultimately reviving a battered economy.
The compromise was a package whose sheer size and scope would have been unthinkable only a couple of weeks ago. It touched virtually every aspect of American life, and amounted to hundreds of billions of dollars more than Congress provides for the entire United States federal budget for a single year, outside of social safety net programs. Administration officials said they hoped that its effect on a battered economy would be exponentially greater, as much as $4 trillion. Its cost is hundreds of billions of dollars more than Congress provides for the entire United States federal budget for a single year, outside of social safety net programs. Administration officials said they hoped that its effect on a battered economy would be exponentially greater, as much as $4 trillion.
“This is not a moment of celebration, but one of necessity,” Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, said as he outlined the changes his party had secured in the legislation. “To all Americans I say, ‘Help is on the way.’” The legislation would send direct payments of $1,200 to millions of Americans, including those earning up to $75,000, and an additional $500 per child. It would substantially expand jobless aid, providing an additional 13 weeks and a four-month enhancement of benefits, and would extend the payments for the first time to freelancers and gig workers.
Struck after midnight, the deal was the product of a marathon set of negotiations among Senate Republicans, Democrats and President Trump’s team that nearly fell apart as Democrats insisted on stronger worker protections and oversight over a new $500 billion fund to bail out distressed businesses. It was completed after a furious final round of haggling between Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, and Mr. Schumer after Democrats twice blocked action on the measure as they insisted on concessions. The measure would also offer $350 billion in federally guaranteed loans to small businesses and establish a $500 billion government lending program for distressed companies reeling from the impact of the crisis, including allowing the administration to take equity stakes in airlines to help compensate taxpayers for the aid. It would also send $100 billion to hospitals on the front lines of the pandemic.
“At last, we have a deal,” Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, announced on the Senate floor about 1:30 a.m. “In effect, this is a wartime level of investment into our nation.” “This is certainly, in terms of dollars, by far and away the biggest ever, ever done,” President Trump said at the White House, where he veered from his usual partisan vitriol and praised Democrats for their work on the agreement. “That is a tremendous thing because a lot of this money goes to jobs, jobs, jobs — and families, families, families.”
Lawmakers and aides were still drafting portions of the bill early Wednesday morning, and were expected to reveal the full bill before a vote that would take place sometime after the Senate reconvenes at noon. Leaders anticipated lopsided bipartisan support. Struck after midnight Wednesday, the deal is the product of a marathon set of negotiations among Senate Republicans, Democrats and Mr. Trump’s team that nearly fell apart as Democrats insisted on stronger worker protections, more funds for hospitals and state governments, and tougher oversight over new loan programs intended to bail out distressed businesses.
On a conference call Wednesday morning, Mr. McConnell told Republican senators that the timing of a vote was unclear, but that he hoped the measure could be wrapped up Wednesday, according to a person on the call who spoke on the condition of anonymity to relate the private conversation. “The Senate is going to stand together, act together and pass this relief package today,” Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, said on the Senate floor. “Struggling Americans are going to go to their mailbox and find four-figure checks to help with their bills because this Senate stepped up.”
Speaker Nancy Pelosi quickly endorsed the deal, but was weighing how best to pass it through the House while the chamber is not in session and its members are scattered across the country, some in places that have imposed travel restrictions and quarantines. She lined up five conference calls throughout the day to brief Democrats on its contents, and aides said a final vote to clear it for Mr. Trump was expected on Thursday. But, he added, “nobody thinks legislation can end this — it cannot outlaw the virus.”
Ms. Pelosi hoped to have unanimous support to move the bill through the House without a recorded vote, a practice usually reserved for minor, uncontroversial measures, which would not require lawmakers to vote in person. It would take only one House member to object, but leaders in both parties were counseling lawmakers to put disagreements aside and embrace a desperately needed stabilization plan. Anticipation of a Wednesday evening vote in the Senate to approve the bill sent the markets higher for the second consecutive day, with the S&P 500 up a little more than 1 percent. But investors appeared to grow jittery toward the end of trading as a group of Republican senators delayed a final vote over concerns that the jobless aid was so generous that it could lead to layoffs and discourage people from working.
“This bipartisan legislation takes us a long way down the road in meeting the needs of the American people,” Ms. Pelosi said in a statement Wednesday morning. The last-minute snag revealed the tenuous nature of the bipartisan compromise that was at the core of the measure, which emerged from an extraordinary five-day stretch of intense negotiations between lawmakers and White House officials over how to deliver critical financial support to businesses forced to shut their doors, American families and hospitals overwhelmed by the spread of the novel coronavirus. It has already killed more than around 900 people and infected more than 63,000 in the United States.
In the Senate, party leaders spent the morning trying to sell the final product to their members, many of whom have watched impatiently from the sidelines as the talks dragged on. The perils of the pandemic, which by Wednesday had spread within the marble halls of the Capitol to infect lawmakers themselves, prompted Republicans to put aside their usual antipathy for big government and spearhead an effort to send cash to American families, while agreeing to astonishingly large additions to the social safety net. Democrats, for their part, dropped their routine opposition to showering tax cuts and other benefits on big corporations — all in the interest of getting a deal.
The resulting measure is an attempt to sustain the workers and businesses losing income as vast sections of the American economy shut down under quarantine orders, and to help the economy rebound quickly once the pandemic abates. And even as they prepared to approve it, lawmakers were already discussing the likelihood that they would soon have to consider yet another package to respond to the pandemic and the toll it was taking on the United States.
It includes direct support for companies large and small that have lost all or most of their customers in recent weeks, and direct payments to low- and middle-income families. The package also includes measures meant to encourage companies to keep employees on their payrolls even if their businesses have shuttered temporarily — and it increases aid to workers who are laid off anyway or have had their hours and wages cut. The stimulus package was intended to encourage companies to keep employees on their payrolls even if their businesses have shuttered temporarily — and it increases aid to workers who are laid off anyway or have had their hours and wages cut back.
The president, after lobbing insults at Democrats late Monday evening for their proposals in the final stages of negotiations, called on lawmakers to approve the deal by the end of the day. Though the bill is more than double the size of the roughly $800 billion stimulus package that Congress passed in 2009 to ease the Great Recession, analysts and economists warned it may provide only a few months of financial relief given the unknown breadth of the pandemic’s reach. With lawmakers besieged by an array of lobbyists and special-interest groups, not to mention constituents and businesses desperate for relief, the package more than doubled in size since Mr. McConnell first introduced legislation on Thursday.
“Congress must approve the deal, without all of the nonsense, today,” Mr. Trump said on Twitter on Tuesday. “The longer it takes, the harder it will be to start up our economy. Our workers will be hurt!” “This is not a moment of celebration, but one of necessity,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, said early Wednesday as he took careful note of the changes his party had secured in the legislation. “To all Americans, I say, ‘Help is on the way.’”
Mr. Mnuchin, preparing to leave Capitol Hill early Wednesday, described the measure to reporters as “a terrific bill.” Yet even as lawmakers and the White House promoted the package, some states said they needed far more government aid than it planned to provide. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, whose state is battling by far the largest outbreak of the virus in the United States, said Wednesday that the billions of dollars it would send to New York was not enough to close its budget shortfall.
“I’ve spoken to the president many times today,” he said, “and he’s very pleased with this legislation and the impact that this is going to have.” “We need more federal help than this bill gives us,” he said.
The measure is the third Congress has considered this month to address the pandemic. Mr. Trump previously signed into law an $8.3 billion in emergency aid and a sweeping relief package providing paid leave, free testing and additional aid for families affected by the pandemic. Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California quickly endorsed the deal, and was weighing how best to pass it through the House while the chamber is not in session and its members are scattered across the country, some in places that have imposed travel restrictions and quarantines. She lined up five conference calls throughout the day to brief Democrats on its contents, and aides said a final vote to clear it for Mr. Trump’s signature could come as early as Thursday.
In the final measure, Republicans agreed to Democrats’ demands for a substantial expansion of jobless benefits that would extend unemployment insurance by 13 weeks and include a four-month enhancement of benefits, officials familiar with the unfinished agreement said. Democrats said it would allow workers to maintain their full salaries if forced out of work as a result of the pandemic. It would also apply to freelancers and gig workers, such as Uber drivers and others who do not have regular full- or part-time employment. The House is considering multiple options to approve the measure without bringing back the full chamber, and leaders in both parties were counseling lawmakers to put disagreements aside and embrace a desperately needed stabilization plan.
Democrats, in turn, embraced a Republican plan to provide $1,200 in direct payments for workers with incomes up to $75,000 per year before phasing out and ending altogether for those earning more than $99,000. Families would receive an additional $500 per child. The agreement came together in the early hours of Wednesday morning after a furious final round of haggling between administration officials led by Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, and Mr. Schumer after Democrats twice blocked action on the measure as they insisted on concessions.
But the hardest-fought concessions were related to the $500 billion aid fund for distressed businesses, which would include $425 billion for the Federal Reserve to leverage for loans to help broad groups of distressed companies and $75 billion for industry-specific loans to airlines and other hard-hit sectors. Democrats insisted on stricter oversight, in the form of an inspector general and a five-person panel appointed by Congress, lawmakers said. Republicans also agreed to require companies that accepted money through the fund to halt any stock buybacks for as long as they were receiving government assistance, plus an additional year. Once passed, the measure would be the third approved action taken by Congress this month to address the pandemic. Mr. Trump previously signed into law both $8.3 billion in emergency aid and a sweeping package providing paid leave, free testing and additional aid for families affected by the pandemic.
Democrats also insisted on a provision to block Trump family businesses — or those of other senior government officials — from receiving loan money under the programs, Mr. Schumer said in a letter to Democrats. But the president’s real estate empire could benefit from other parts of the bill, such as small-business loans and tax provisions. In the final measure, most Republicans agreed to Democrats’ demands for a substantial expansion of jobless benefits, including $600 extra per week on top of the usual amount provided.
The agreement would also deliver $100 billion to hospitals. Another $150 billion would go to state and local governments to help them weather drop-offs in tax revenue and the costs of fighting the pandemic. On Wednesday afternoon, four Republican senators said they were concerned the new benefits would be larger than some people’s wages, prompting employers to lay off workers and some employees to prefer staying home and collecting unemployment payments.
Senator Patrick J. Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania, said on Wednesday that the package also included $25 billion in grants for airlines, with taxpayers receiving “equity-type instruments.” There will also be $17 billion for national security direct loans, he said. “If this is not a drafting error, then this is the worst idea I have seen in a long time,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina. “We need to create a sustainable system.”
“Like all compromises, this bill is far from perfect,” Mr. Schumer said early Wednesday on the Senate floor. “But we believe the legislation has been improved significantly to warrant its quick consideration and passage.” Mr. Mnuchin said the extra payments were calculated as a way to ensure that states could get money out quickly, saying that he did not believe it would create any perverse incentives. Most Americans, he said, “want to keep their jobs.”
The agreement includes $350 billion that would establish lending programs for small businesses, but only for those that keep their payrolls steady through the crisis. Small businesses that pledged to keep their workers would also receive cash-flow assistance structured as federally guaranteed loans. If the employer continued to pay workers for the duration of the crisis, those loans would be forgiven. Still, the Republicans’ threat to hold up the bill because of the issue prompted Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont and a Democratic presidential contender, to issue his own warning that he, too, would seek to block the legislation for being too lenient on corporations. (Mr. Sanders later said in an interview that he would “reluctantly support” the bill as written.)
Even as they were preparing to debate and pass the deal, lawmakers in both chambers conceded that other legislative measures would most likely be needed in the coming weeks or months to counter the consequences of the pandemic. The hardest-fought concessions were related to the $500 billion aid fund for distressed businesses, which would include $425 billion for the Federal Reserve to leverage for loans to help broad groups of distressed companies and $75 billion for industry-specific loans to airlines and other hard-hit sectors.
Democrats insisted on stricter oversight, in the form of an inspector general and a five-person panel appointed by Congress. Republicans also agreed to require companies that accepted money through the fund to halt any stock buybacks for as long as they were receiving government assistance, plus an additional year.
The agreement also includes $350 billion for lending programs for small businesses, but only those that kept their payrolls steady through the crisis. Small businesses that pledged to keep their workers would also receive cash-flow assistance structured as federally guaranteed loans. If the employer continued to pay workers for the duration of the crisis, those loans would be forgiven.
Airlines stand to benefit from multiple provisions, according to Senator Patrick J. Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania. He pointed to an additional $25 billion in grants for them, with the potential for equity to benefit taxpayers. He also said that $17 billion is available for direct loans to companies related to America’s national security.
Democrats won a provision to block Trump family businesses — or those of other senior government officials — from receiving loan money under the programs, though the president’s real estate empire could still benefit from other parts of the bill.
Senators also directly targeted those on the front lines of responding to the pandemic, allocating $100 billion to hospitals, more than $1 billion for virus-related research, and $150 billion for state and local governments to help them weather drop-offs in tax revenue and the costs of fighting the pandemic.
Buried in thousands of pages of dense legal text were less visible steps to mitigate the pandemic’s effects on Americans lives and retool large sections of the government to function remotely for the first time.
The bill, for example, would funnel $3.5 billion to states to prop up child care facilities and allows universities to keep paying students in federal work-study jobs even if their academic terms have been cut short.
It would allocate $100 million for additional rural broadband and $150 million for arts and humanities grants to bring cultural programming to Americans stuck at home. It would increase funding for domestic violence shelters and hotlines and set aside $425 million to deal with mental health and substance abuse disorders related to the pandemic. $400 million would become available to protect and expand voting for the 2020 election cycle.
Under other provisions, Americans affected by the virus will soon be able to temporarily withdraw up to $100,000 penalty free from their retirement accounts to use for virus-related expenses. And menstrual products will become eligible for reimbursement under flexible spending accounts.
Carl Hulse and Sheryl Gay Stolberg contributed reporting.