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The $900 billion U.S. stimulus package doesn’t allocate direct funding for restaurants and bars, another blow to two of the hardest-hit parts of the U.S. economy, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The wide-ranging spending bill does allow small businesses to take out loans. It also directly funds several beleaguered industries, but doesn’t include restaurants and bars. With more states restricting indoor activities, these establishments are already facing a bleak future. “Independent restaurants and bars will continue to close without additional relief this winter, leaving millions more out of work,” the Independent Restaurant Coalition said in a statement. Those industries have been decimated by the pandemic that continues to rage across America. Bankruptcies and closures are surging. And while revenue has recovered somewhat from its low in April, sit-down eateries are still struggling. These declines have also hurt suppliers, including beer and spirits providers. Democrats in the House passed the Restaurants Act earlier this year that would have provided $120 billion in direct funding, but the Republican-controlled Senate declined to take up the legislation. Meanwhile, the stimulus set aside about $15 billion each for the airline and entertainment industries. Despite the lack of a bailout, the stimulus proved to be “a hard fought victory” that provides the sector an “element of hope” entering the new year, according to Sean Kennedy, executive vice president of public affairs for the National Restaurant Association. “Is this a long-term solution? No,” Kennedy said. “We’re just looking to survive the next three months.” Restaurants and bars, along with other small businesses, can apply for aid from the Paycheck Protection Program, the vehicle created by the first stimulus earlier this year. The PPP, which received $284 billion in additional funds, lets firms borrow 2.5 times monthly payroll costs, with restaurants and bars allowed to receive 3.5 times. Another critical part of the aid package, according to Kennedy, is that business expenses, such as rent, that are allowed to be deducted from federal taxes, can be paid with PPP funds. This was not the case in the first round of PPP, he said.

States and major cities across the country have imposed the most extensive restrictions on business and social gatherings since widespread lockdowns during the spring, in hopes of preventing a further surge in COVID-19 cases over the winter holidays, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Nearly 85 million Americans are expected to travel from Dec. 23 through Jan. 3, off at least 29% from last year, according to an estimate by AAA. In states across the country, small businesses and restaurants are being hit with de facto lockdowns because of occupancy limits or restrictions on dining. At the same time, big-box retailers have been permitted to stay open, in part because their large stores allow for social distancing, prompting resentment from small-business owners. In the spring, all but a handful of states issued stay-at-home orders that ground nonessential economic activity to a halt. At the time, states were short of ventilators, testing capacity and personal protective equipment for health-care workers, and lacked treatments for the new virus. Those broad orders slowed the rate of infection and bought time for hospitals to catch up. Now, as case numbers surge, most states are clamping down on activities that help the virus spread while trying to avoid a complete shutdown of the economy. Even as Pfizer Inc. and Moderna Inc. deliver the first doses of the coronavirus vaccine, officials are pleading with a weary — and sometimes defiant — public to avoid the kinds of gatherings and travel that helped drive new cases to record levels nationally after Thanksgiving.

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.

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.

Congress is barreling toward a rare weekend session as lawmakers race to wrap up a sweeping agreement to fund the government and provide badly needed coronavirus relief, The Hill reported. Leadership is homing in on a deal that would attach roughly $900 billion in coronavirus relief to a $1.4 trillion bill to fund the government until Oct. 1, 2021, in what is the last major piece of legislation Congress needs to pass before it wraps up its work for the year. But lawmakers appear poised to drive over Friday night’s funding cliff, when the government will shut down at least temporarily without new legislation. Even if talks wrap by Friday night, it’s expected to take days for Congress to pass it. “There’s still just a lot of loose ends we’re trying to tie down.... It’s a little bit of whack-a-mole, whack it here and something else pops up. There’s a lot of interaction between the moving parts of all this,” said Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.). Congress had been expected to depart for the year Friday, as lawmakers itch to get out of town for the holidays. But leadership is warning rank-and-file members to expect to be marooned in Washington through at least the weekend as talks drag on. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) warned senators to stay in town to vote on nominations, saying the chamber would be “productive.” Read more. 

A new potential roadblock to a $900 billion coronavirus economic relief bill emerged in the U.S. Congress yesterday as some Senate Republicans insisted on language ensuring that expiring Federal Reserve lending programs cannot be revived, Reuters reported. Both parties were scrambling yesterday to strike a deal on a new compromise aid package. They have set aside Democratic demands for a new funding stream for state and local governments and Republican demands that companies be shielded from coronavirus-related lawsuits. But Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) wants to ensure that the Fed and Treasury are stripped of the authority to restore pandemic lending facilities that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will allow to expire on Dec. 31, including the Main Street program for mid-size businesses and facilities for municipal bond issuers and corporate credit and asset-backed securities. Read more. 

In related news, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said that he will go to the floor today to ask for a vote on his proposal to provide a second round of $1,200 stimulus checks, The Hill reported. “Tomorrow I will go to the Senate floor to ask for an up or down vote on my bill to provide a direct payment of $1200 to working Americans, $2400 for couples, $500 for kids,” Hawley said in a tweet. He’s also teamed up with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to try to get it passed by the end of the year as part of a sweeping agreement, which is still being negotiated, to fund the government and provide long-stalled coronavirus relief. Under the Senate rules any one senator can ask for a vote, but any one senator can object. Read more. 

After months of stalemate, congressional leaders yesterday were on the verge of cementing a roughly $900 billion stimulus deal to deliver emergency aid to individuals and companies devastated by the toll of the worsening pandemic, racing to finish the details and stave off a government shutdown on Friday, the New York Times reported. The measure, which has been under discussion for months as the coronavirus has ravaged the economy, is expected to provide a new round of direct payments to millions of Americans as well as additional unemployment benefits, food assistance and rental aid. It would prop up sputtering businesses with federally backed loans and provide funding for schools, hospitals and the distribution of a just-approved vaccine. While the agreement was not yet final, Republicans and Democrats alike signaled that they were ready to coalesce around the main elements. It was unclear when a final agreement would be reached, as lawmakers and staff haggled over what House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) referred to as “just the fine details we’ve got to get done.” The measure, which builds off a $748 billion bill proposed by a bipartisan group of moderates this week, is expected to include $25 billion to establish a program that would provide emergency rental assistance to families affected by the pandemic, as well as billions for vaccine development and distribution, broadband and schools across the country. Negotiators were still discussing the possible inclusion of House legislation that provides funds to distribute to states and cities and to fully cover the costs of emergency work during the pandemic. They were also still haggling over an expansion and extension of unemployment benefits and how long they would last. The agreement is expected to revive lapsed enhanced unemployment benefits at about $300 a week, half of the original benefit approved in March, which lapsed over the summer. In addition to the jobless aid, the plan would provide a one-time direct payment to Americans, expected to be about $600 per person, also half the amount provided under the March stimulus law.

Top congressional leaders said they were coming closer to reaching an agreement on another coronavirus relief package, broadcasting progress after months of fitful efforts to approve more aid, the Wall Street Journal reported. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) met repeatedly yesterday, the group’s first meeting in weeks. Lawmakers are hurrying to craft another aid package this week, before the holidays and the expiration of several key aid provisions. The talks were held one day after a bipartisan group of rank-and-file lawmakers largely wrapped up their work on a compromise coronavirus relief proposal. That agreement included an extension of unemployment insurance and funding for schools, vaccine distribution and small businesses, among other provisions. But the bipartisan coalition came up short in its efforts to reach a broad deal on the thorniest issue: liability protections for businesses and other entities operating during the pandemic. Instead, lawmakers released a $748 billion bill bundling together many of the less-controversial proposals but excluding liability protections backed by Republicans and $160 billion in state and local aid sought by Democrats.

Warren Buffett urged Congress to extend the Paycheck Protection Program to help the millions of small businesses that have become “collateral damage” in the fight against COVID-19, Bloomberg News reported. “We need another injection to complete the job,” Buffett, chairman and chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., said in a CNBC interview yesterday. “Congress is debating that right now, and I hope very much that they extend the PPP.” Buffett argued that small businesses need more stimulus now to help them weather the rest of the coronavirus shutdowns. He was joined in the interview by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. CEO David Solomon, who argued that small businesses need more help even as the pandemic’s finish line is visible, with vaccines beginning to be distributed. “The steps that the Fed and Treasury took to put liquidity into the market have certainly helped large businesses,” Solomon said. “But small businesses don’t have that access.”

Most small business owners in the U.S. believe the worst of the coronavirus pandemic is still ahead of them, with half saying their operations would permanently close within a year unless the business environment improves, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said yesterday, Reuters reported. A new U.S. Chamber-MetLife poll of small businesses taken from Oct. 30-Nov. 10 showed that 74 percent of the owners said that they need further government assistance to weather the pandemic. That percentage rises to 81 percent for minority-owned businesses. The quarterly poll found that the 62 percent of small business owners fear that the worst is still to come with COVID-19’s economic impact. Only 40 percent said they believe their small businesses can operate indefinitely during the current business environment.