Senate leadership announced a bipartisan deal on an approximately $900 billion economic relief package yesterday that would deliver emergency aid to a faltering economy and a nation besieged by surging coronavirus cases, the Washington Post reported. After months of contentious negotiations and seemingly intractable partisan gridlock, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) took to the Senate floor to say that a deal had been finalized and could be quickly approved. The emerging stimulus package was expected to direct hundreds of billions of dollars in aid to jobless Americans, ailing businesses and other critical economic needs that have grown as the pandemic ravages the country and batters the economy. The House and Senate on Sunday night approved a one-day extension of government funding to allow the final bill text on the relief package to be written. President Trump signed the stopgap measure, preventing a government shutdown. The legislation includes stimulus checks for millions of Americans of up to $600 per person. The size of that benefit would be reduced for people who earned more than $75,000 in 2019 and disappear altogether for those who earned more than $99,000. The stimulus checks would provide $600 per adult and child, meaning a family of four would receive $2,400 up to a certain income. Congress would also extend federal unemployment benefits of up to $300 per week, which could start as early as Dec. 27. The income criteria for the stimulus checks is expected to reflect that of the first round of relief payments sent by the Treasury Department earlier this year. Read more.
In related news, a bipartisan legislative deal unveiled by U.S. lawmakers yesterday will grant U.S. airlines $15 billion in new payroll assistance that will allow them to return more than 32,000 furloughed workers to payrolls through March 31, Reuters reported. The support is part of $45 billion earmarked for the transportation sector in a $900 billion package for COVID-19 relief. Amtrak, the nation’s largest passenger railroad firm, is due to receive $1 billion while $14 billion will go to public transit systems and $10 billion to state highways, a senior Democratic aide said. The legislation is also expected to include significant changes to how the Federal Aviation Administration certifies new airplanes following two Boeing 737 MAX crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia that killed 346 people, three congressional aides said, but specific details were not immediately available. Read more.
