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The House Small Business Committee will hold a hearing tomorrow at 1 p.m. ET titled "Paycheck Protection Program: Loan Forgiveness and Other Challenges." To view the witness list and additional hearing information, please click here.

Some members of the Senate Finance Committee are studying a proposal that would allow corporations to claim a bevy of federal tax credits in 2020 that they would otherwise be ineligible to receive until future years, the Washington Post reported. Powerful members of Washington’s business lobby, including the National Association of Manufacturers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, are asking lawmakers to include the tax change in the next congressional legislation being taken up to combat the virus. Under current law, corporations are generally not allowed to claim federal tax credits if the credits exceed their overall tax liability, meaning they cannot receive more from the government than they pay in. If corporations cannot claim their federal tax credits, they can roll them into future years. The proposal being discussed by several Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee would void that limit, allowing firms to “cash out” on all their credits this year. The emerging tax proposal comes amid intensifying jockeying among special interest groups and congressional lawmakers over the next round of congressional stimulus, which could be as large as $1 trillion. The White House, congressional Republicans and business groups have also pushed aggressively for a “liability shield” that would insulate firms from lawsuits from customers or employees who develop Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, but Democrats have rejected that proposal as a non-starter.

Two committees will be holding hearings today in the Senate and House of Representatives looking at key issues amid the economic fallout due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Jovita Carranza, Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will testify before the Senate Small Business Committee for a hearing at 10 a.m. ET titled "Implementation of Title I of the CARES Act." Click here for more information. 

Also today, the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Housing, Community Development and Insurance will hold a hearing at noon ET titled "The Rent Is Still Due: America's Renters, Covid-19 and an Unprecedented Eviction Crisis." To view the legislation being considered, the hearing witness list and a link to the live webcast, please click here. 

A top economic adviser to President Trump said the White House “would definitely support” another round of aid to shore up the economy as U.S. businesses begin to reopen amid the coronavirus pandemic, the Wall Street Journal reported. White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett said Tuesday the odds of a “Phase Four” stimulus package “are very, very high,” even if data on output and jobs continue to surpass expectations. On Friday, the Labor Department reported that U.S. employers added 2.5 million jobs in May and that the unemployment rate, which economists had expected to soar to 19.5 percent, instead fell to 13.3 percent. Hassett said he expects the economy to add another 3.5 million to 4 million jobs in June. Even so, he said, work remains to be done by Congress to ensure that a solid recovery takes root. “There are a lot of things that really are necessary to make sure that once we open up that we actually lift off,” Hassett said. “The odds of a Phase Four deal is something we talked with the president about last week. We even had a small group meeting this morning to talk about it. The odds of a Phase Four deal are very, very high.”

U.S. Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia said that he opposed the extension of $600 a week in unemployment benefits that workers are receiving as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, an option lawmakers are debating as they negotiate the next stimulus bill, the Wall Street Journal reported. Scalia said the enhanced payments, included in a federal stimulus package signed into law at the end of March, will have served their usefulness by the time the current program expires at the end of July. “That recognizes we’ll be in a very different place in July where the opportunity for people to return to work will be far greater,” Scalia said yesterday at a hearing before the Senate Finance Committee. He said that Friday’s jobs report from the Labor Department confirmed millions of Americans were able to return to work as states reopened their economies. “The recovery in the job market has actually happened more quickly than Congress expected in late March,” Scalia said. Extending the extra benefits is one issue Democrats and Republicans have been sparring over as they discuss policy options for the next coronavirus stimulus package. Republicans are concerned that the supplemental benefits, which give many workers more money than they were making before the crisis, will discourage people from returning to work, slowing the economic recovery. Democrats want to extend funding for the larger unemployment payments, arguing that if businesses don’t rebound quickly, the additional money will keep millions of workers afloat.

Two committees will be holding hearings on Wednesday in the Senate and House of Representatives looking at key issues amid the economic fallout due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Jovita Carranza, Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will testify before the Senate Small Business Committee for a hearing on Wednesday at 10 a.m. ET titled "Implementation of Title I of the CARES Act." Click here for more information. 

Also on Wednesday, the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Housing, Community Development and Insurance will hold a hearing at noon ET titled "The Rent Is Still Due: America's Renters, Covid-19 and an Unprecedented Eviction Crisis." To view the legislation being considered, the hearing witness list and a link to the live webcast, please click here.