U.S. Senate Republicans are preparing to bring up legislation today to replenish a program that helps small businesses slammed by the coronavirus, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin discuss a larger stimulus package, Reuters reported. Pelosi and Mnuchin, who have been negotiating intermittently since August on a fresh coronavirus aid plan, plan to speak again on Tuesday after they “continued to narrow their differences” in a nearly hour-long call yesterday, Pelosi’s spokesman, Drew Hammill, wrote on Twitter. Pelosi, the top elected U.S. Democrat, has set the end of the day today as a deadline for agreement with the White House, if a comprehensive coronavirus relief bill is to get through both chambers of Congress before Election Day on Nov. 3. President Donald Trump’s administration has proposed $1.8 trillion, while Pelosi has been pushing for a $2.2 trillion aid and stimulus package. That is in addition to the $3 trillion in coronavirus relief Congress already approved in the spring. While Pelosi said on Sunday she was optimistic a deal could be reached on a fresh package, and a spokeswoman said Monday the White House was also “cautiously optimistic,” optimism was in shorter supply in the Republican-run Senate, where many Republicans oppose passing more coronavirus aid. A senior Senate Republican, John Thune, expressed doubt Monday that there would be enough Senate Republican votes to pass a comprehensive bill as large as the White House bid of $1.8 trillion. Instead, Senate Republicans will propose on Tuesday a new round of funding just for the Paycheck Protection Program, a popular program that was launched earlier in the pandemic with bipartisan support to provide loans to small businesses. The measure is not expected to advance, because Senate Democrats have already given notice they consider such targeted efforts inadequate. McConnell said that the Senate also plans a vote on Wednesday on a $500 billion-plus Republican proposal to include unemployment benefits and aid to schools. It would provide people with $300 in federal weekly unemployment benefits, while the Democrats want to return to the $600 weekly level in a measure approved earlier this year. Democrats blocked a similar Republican proposal last month and the measure on Wednesday is also expected to fail. Read more.
In related news, Congress in March allotted $454 billion to the Treasury Department to support the central bank’s emergency lending programs, including those for struggling businesses and local governments. Of that pot, only $195 billion has been specifically committed to cover any losses the Fed might take, including through loans that companies fail to repay, the Washington Post reported. Seven months into the crisis, the remaining $259 billion still has not been committed to any of the Fed’s specific programs or for any other purpose, and it is unlikely that it will be anytime soon. The fate of this money show the surprising limits of the nearly $3 trillion in emergency aid Congress approved early in the pandemic. Federal Reserve and Treasury Department officials say there are ways the money could be repurposed to more directly reach businesses and workers but say they cannot do so without congressional approval. White House officials tried redirecting the money without congressional approval but were told by administration attorneys that they could not do so legally, according to two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal conversations. Read more.
