US House Passes $892 Billion Coronavirus Relief Package

The U.S. House of Representatives approved an $892 billion coronavirus aid package on Monday aimed at tossing a lifeline into the nation's pandemic economy, paving the way for Senate approval later in the evening, reports Reuters.

The House also approved a $1.4 trillion bill in bipartisan votes to keep the U.S. government-financed for another year, which will also go to the Senate for consideration.

The relief bill, which will become law if passed by the Senate and signed by President Donald Trump, includes $600 in payments to most Americans, as well as extra payments to millions of people thrown out of work during the COVID-19 pandemic, just as a larger round of benefits is set to expire on Saturday.

The White House has said Trump will sign the bill.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat, urged lawmakers to support the virus relief bill, even though she protested that it did not provide direct assistance to the state and local governments that Democrats had requested. She said they were going to do it again next year after the Democratic President-elect Joe Biden took office.

The bill, she said, “doesn’t go all the way but it takes us down the path.”

Republican Representative Hal Rogers, who supported the package, said, “it reflects a fair compromise.”

Earlier, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, told reporters at the Capitol that passage of the legislation in the Senate would “probably be late, but we’re going to finish tonight.”

At 5,593 pages, the wide-ranging bill is likely to be the final major piece of legislation for the 116th Congress that expires on Jan. 3.

It has a net cost of roughly $350 billion for coronavirus relief, McConnell said, adding that more than $500 billion in funding comes from unspent money Congress had authorized.

The stimulus package, the first congressionally approved aid since April, comes as the pandemic is accelerating in the United States, infecting more than 214,000 people every day and slowing the economic recovery. More than 317,000 Americans have died.

The legislation also expands a small-business lending program by about $284 billion and steers money to schools, airlines, transit systems, and vaccine distribution.

The small-business loan and grant program, known as the Paycheck Protection Program, would exclude publicly traded companies from eligibility.

Amid reports that the Trump Organization received past aid, the bill contains disclosure requirements for the president, vice president, heads of Cabinet departments, lawmakers, and spouses and prohibits those individuals from receiving loans in the future.

State and local governments, which are struggling to pay for the distribution of newly approved COVID-19 vaccines, would receive $8.75 billion from Washington, with $300 million of that targeted at vaccinations in minority and high-risk populations.

SCRAPPED STICKING POINTS

The deal worked out in a rare weekend session of Congress, omits the thorniest sticking points, which included Republicans’ desire for a liability shield to protect businesses from coronavirus-related lawsuits as well as Democrats’ request for a large outlay of money for cash-strapped state and local governments.

McConnell, interviewed by Fox News, pledged to renew his drive for the protections against corporate lawsuits in whatever coronavirus aid bill the incoming Biden administration pursues in early 2021.

The measure is far less than the $3 trillion called for in a bill that passed the Democratic-controlled House in May, which the Republican-controlled Senate ignored.

Biden has urged Congress to consider further stimulus for him to sign into law when he takes office on Jan. 20. “My message to everyone out there struggling right now, help is on the way,” he said in a statement.

The bill would be the second-largest stimulus package in U.S. history, behind the roughly $2 trillion aid bill passed in March. Experts said that money played a critical role as social-distancing measures shuttered wide swaths of the economy.