5 policy disagreements holding up the Senate coronavirus stimulus
The US Senate is still at odds over its multitrillion-dollar bill meant to help Americans, small businesses, and corporations deal with the economic fallout from Covid-19. Senate Democrats blocked the bill on Sunday, wanting more limits on bailouts to corporations and more extensive measures expanding the safety net for individuals.
The bill is known as the “phase three” bill in Congress’s coronavirus response. The phase one bill, signed on March 6, offered $8.3 billion to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, vaccine development, and other public health measures. The phase two bill, signed on March 18, cost on the order of $104 billion, expanded paid sick leave for a subset of workers, offered free coronavirus testing to Americans, and gave modest boosts to unemployment insurance and food stamps.
The “phase three” bill, also called the CARES (“Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security“) Act, is more on the order of $1.8 trillion, or 18 times the last bill. It’s a sprawling stimulus measure including roughly $300 billion in direct cash checks to American households, $350 billion in loans to small businesses to cover interruption in business, and $500 billion in other relief to businesses, largely through loan guarantees.
The bill also dramatically expands unemployment insurance. Independent contractors and the self-employed, typically not eligible for unemployment insurance, will be temporarily eligible for special “Pandemic Unemployment Assistance”; the federal government will take on a greater share of states’ unemployment payments; “work-sharing” programs where unemployment insurance pays companies to reduce workers’ hours rather than lay them off are expanded; and unemployment checks are increased by $600 a week across the board, a huge spike given the median weekly pay in the US is $936.
However, the bill is not on President Trump’s desk for signing yet. There are still a number of sticking points for Senate Democrats, who blocked the bill on Sunday. Here are the problems Democrats still have with the measure, per leaked talking points:
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https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/3/23/21190764/senate-cloture-vote-coronavirus-fails