Mexican pilots have rejected a cost-saving plan put forward by their own trade union amid talks aimed at agreeing how to restructure airline Grupo Aeromexico, the ASPA union said on Thursday, Reuters reported. Battered by the coronavirus pandemic, Aeromexico filed for chapter 11 protection in a U.S. court in June, and is trying to secure a second tranche of financing. In a statement, the ASPA said the majority of its pilots had in a vote rejected the plan put forward by the union as an alternative to Aeromexico’s own proposal, but that it would keep exploring other options to aid restructuring efforts. The airline earlier this year had up to $1 billion in debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing approved, and received an initial $100 million payment in September.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) dealt a likely death blow yesterday to President Donald Trump’s bid to boost coronavirus aid to Americans, declining to schedule a swift Senate vote on a bill to raise relief checks to $2,000 from $600, Reuters reported. McConnell said on the Senate floor that a bill passed by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, which sought to meet fellow Republican Trump’s demands for bigger checks, “has no realistic path to quickly pass the Senate.” McConnell, who controls the Senate’s agenda and opposes the increase in aid, had introduced a competing bill combining the $2,000 checks with provisions unacceptable to Democrats, who could block it. With a new Congress set to be sworn in on Sunday, the action appears all but certain to kill the effort to increase the amount of the $600 checks Congress has already approved.
Unemployed people claiming federal benefits won’t see a one-week gap in their payments, despite the delay in President Donald Trump signing the program extension into law, according to the Department of Labor, Bloomberg News reported. States are implementing the provisions as quickly as possible, and the Labor Department doesn’t anticipate that claimants will miss a week of benefits due to the timing of the new law’s enactment, a spokesman for the Department said in a statement yesterday. Trump signed a bipartisan stimulus and government funding bill, which included an 11-week extension of unemployment benefits, into law on Sunday, a day after benefits expired. That prompted concern that jobless Americans would lose out on benefits for the last week of December. Trump held off signing the bill for several days as he demanded bigger stimulus payments for individuals and action on two unrelated issues involving election security and removing a liability shield for technology companies. The pandemic relief law provides a $300-a-week payment for jobless individuals and extends benefits for self-employed and gig workers through mid-March. The $300 federal payments are on top of benefits that state unemployment offices provide. The state benefits vary by income and jurisdiction, but the average state payment was $378 a week, according to Labor Department data.
The House yesterday voted to beef up stimulus checks set to go out to American households in the coming weeks from $600 to $2,000, the Washington Post reported. The chamber acted swiftly after President Trump demanded the larger payments last week, but passage of the measure is uncertain because Senate Republicans have not unified behind the idea. On Sunday, Trump signed into law a $900 billion emergency relief package that included $600 checks. His advisers had advocated for those payments, but Trump later called the check size “measly” and demanded it be increased. After he signed the law, he pledged to continue pushing for the larger payments, something many Democrats also support. Forty-four Republicans joined the vast majority of Democrats on Monday in approving the bill on a 275-to-134 vote — narrowly clearing the two-thirds threshold it needed to pass. The measure’s fate is much less certain in the Senate, which is controlled by Republicans. Approving stimulus checks of $2,000 would cost $464 billion, the Joint Committee on Taxation said Monday. That would be in addition to the $900 billion package Trump signed into law Sunday. Congressional Republicans had sought to keep the total price tag under $1 trillion, but that was before Trump began a fierce effort in the past week to make the stimulus payments larger. One reason for the growing support is the weakening economy, coupled with the spreading pandemic, which has led to more people seeking unemployment benefits and turning to food banks for help. Read more.
In related news, the Trump administration is scrambling to send one-time stimulus payments to millions of Americans starting as soon as this week, as the U.S. government races to implement a $900 billion coronavirus aid package that President Trump signed after days of delay, the Washington Post reported. The schedule corresponds with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s earlier promise to dispatch stimulus checks to families this week — a plan later thrown into turmoil after Trump initially refused to sign the stimulus package. Trump had attempted to secure last-minute changes to the bill after it passed the House and Senate, but his own party did not support some of his demands, and he relented on Sunday. The Treasury Department is able to move more swiftly than usual to deposit checks for as much as $600 into Americans’ bank accounts as a result of its earlier work this spring, when it disbursed larger sums under an earlier stimulus program. Americans who previously obtained their federal tax refunds through direct deposit were among the first to receive their payments at the time. Those receiving paper checks had a longer wait for the aid. Read more.
President Trump unexpectedly capitulated yesterday and signed the stimulus bill into law, releasing $900 billion in emergency relief funds into the economy and averting a Tuesday government shutdown, the Washington Post reported. White House officials didn’t explain why the president decided to suddenly back down and sign into law a bill he had held up for nearly a week and had referred to as a “disgrace” just days earlier. Trump signed the bill while vacationing in Florida and on a weekend when he had allowed unemployment benefits for 14 million Americans to expire. He had demanded changes to the stimulus and spending package for a week, suggesting he would refuse to sign it until these demands were met. This continued defiance caused lawmakers from both parties to panic over the weekend, worried about the implications of a government shutdown during a pandemic. It was unclear what prompted him to change his mind late Sunday, but he was under tremendous pressure from Republicans to acquiesce. The package will extend aid to millions of struggling households through stimulus checks, enhanced federal unemployment benefits, and money for small businesses, schools and child care, as well as for vaccine distribution. It also repurposes $429 billion in unused funding provided by the Cares Act for emergency lending programs run by the Federal Reserve. Read more.
President Donald Trump injected confusion into the outlook for COVID-19 relief yesterday, demanding changes to the bipartisan legislation approved by Congress less than 24 hours earlier, Bloomberg News reported. In a surprise video announcement posted on his Twitter account, Trump called the bill a “disgrace” and said it was full of “wasteful and unnecessary” items. He demanded that lawmakers increase the stimulus checks due to go out to most Americans from the “ridiculously low” amount of $600 to $2,000 — or $4,000 for a couple. “I am asking Congress to amend this bill,” Trump said. “Send me a suitable bill or else the next administration will have to deliver a COVID relief package. And maybe that administration will be me, and we will get it done.” The attack on Monday’s legislation, which included $900 billion in relief along with $1.4 trillion in government funding through next September, marked a sudden change after the administration had endorsed frantic negotiations among congressional leaders to get a deal after months of stalemate. If the president doesn’t sign the legislation by Dec. 28, government funding would lapse after midnight that day, and it would suspend benefits from the previous COVID relief bill that expire at the end of the month, including a moratorium on evictions and extended unemployment insurance — all of which were addressed in the giant package approved on Monday night. Read more.
In related news, the $27 billion cash infusion for U.S. transit agencies that Congress included in year-end legislation will help avoid draconian service cuts but still leaves them facing sharp declines in ridership and gas-tax revenue for years to come, Bloomberg News reported. The measures provide $14 billion in transportation-related aid in the nearly $900 billion COVID-19 relief bill, and $13 billion in annual appropriations in the $1.4 trillion government funding measure that were both adopted on Monday. “It buys us some more time,” said Paul P. Skoutelas, president and chief executive officer of the American Public Transportation Association, which lobbies for transit agencies. “It doesn’t solve the problem by any means.” Skoutelas said that ridership on American transit systems has dropped 60 percent this year from pre-pandemic levels. He estimated that it could take several years before ridership returns to anything remotely close to normal levels, despite promising developments with COVID-19 vaccine deployment. Read more.
To view a copy of the whole COVID-19 relief and government funding package, please click here.
President-elect Joe Biden warned the “darkest days” of the coronavirus pandemic were still to come and called on Congress to be ready early next year to produce another stimulus package, even though the most recent one took months to complete, Bloomberg News reported. “Our darkest days in the battle against COVID are ahead of us, not behind us,” he said at a year-end news conference in Wilmington, Delaware. Biden said that the country needs to support state and local governments, which have seen resources plunge during the pandemic, and also offer other economic stimulus. When pressed for what he wanted in the next round of stimulus, Biden refused to specify a dollar amount or predict the outcome. Biden said he expected Congress to provide enough money to vaccinate 300 million Americans, provide unemployment insurance, put in place eviction moratoriums, fund protective equipment for front-line health care workers and provide more direct payments.
Congress last night overwhelmingly approved a $900 billion stimulus package that would send billions of dollars to American households and businesses grappling with the economic and health toll of the pandemic, the New York Times reported. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that hundreds of dollars in direct payments could begin reaching individual Americans as early as next week. The long-sought relief package was part of a $2.3 trillion catchall package that included $1.4 trillion to fund the government through the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30. It included the extension of routine tax provisions, a tax deduction for corporate meals, the establishment of two Smithsonian museums, a ban on surprise medical bills and a restoration of Pell grants for incarcerated students, among hundreds of other measures. Though the $900 billion stimulus package is half the size of the $2.2 trillion stimulus law passed in March that provided the core of its legislative provisions, it remains one of the largest relief packages in modern American history. It will revive a supplemental unemployment benefit for millions of unemployed Americans at $300 a week for 11 weeks and provide for another round of $600 direct payments to adults and children. The legislative text is likely to be one of the longest ever, and it became available only a few hours before both chambers approved the bill. In the Senate, the bill passed 92 to 6, with Senators Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Ted Cruz of Texas, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Mike Lee of Utah, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Rick Scott of Florida, all Republicans, voting no. It will now go to President Trump for his signature. But with as many as 12 million Americans set to lose access to expanded and extended unemployment benefits days after Christmas, passage was not in doubt. A number of other pandemic relief provisions are set to expire at the end of the year, and lawmakers in both chambers agreed that the approval of the $900 billion relief package was shamefully overdue.
A wave of attempted fraud is hitting state unemployment benefits programs after they struggled to process record-high claims from layoffs during the economic turbulence triggered by the coronavirus pandemic, the Wall Street Journal reported. States across the country — including California, Louisiana, Illinois, Maryland and others — have collectively received millions of unemployment insurance requests that officials believe to be tied to fraud, with losses likely in the billions of dollars. More than $500 billion in regular and pandemic-related unemployment aid has been distributed so far in the pandemic, according to U.S. Treasury Department data. And more is coming, including a new round of enhanced benefits worth $300 a week included in a pandemic stimulus package passed by Congress. The nation’s unemployment insurance systems are run through a patchwork of state-run programs where fraud has “dramatically increased during the pandemic,” a U.S. Labor Department spokeswoman said. The department, which administers federal components of aid programs in addition to compiling data on state benefits, said thieves have targeted temporary pandemic-related programs extending unemployment aid to millions of workers. To better understand the scope of fraud, it is working with states to track denials where identities couldn’t be verified, the agency spokeswoman said.
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.
