There is a growing recognition across party lines that Congress will need to spend more money, and soon, to continue to prop up the American economy during the coronavirus recession, the New York Times reported. But there is little consensus on what that next aid package will look like and how quickly it will arrive before the end of summer, and there is a sense among Republicans and Democrats that the next bill will spend far less to help people and businesses than the nearly $3 trillion that Congress approved in March in a series of rapid-fire bills. Some economists say that lawmakers are risking further damage to an already fragile recovery by not moving more quickly. The unemployment rate has dropped from its April peak but was still at 11.1 percent in June. Forecasters at the Congressional Budget Office said on Thursday that they expected the economy to shrink by 5.9 percent this year, a contraction that would be more than twice as large as the one the U.S. experienced during the Great Recession in 2009. Federal Reserve officials are worried that a possible “second wave” of the pandemic would further depress economic growth in a way that would be “more severe and protracted” than the current forecast, according to minutes from their most recent meeting published on Wednesday. Real-time indicators of shopping patterns and business openings suggest that a once-brisk economic rebound stalled in June as the virus began spreading more rapidly in Texas, Florida and other states.
