Pelosi unveils $3T virus bill, warns inaction costs more
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi unveiled a more than $3 trillion coronavirus aid package Tuesday, a sweeping effort with $1 trillion for states and cities, “hazard pay” for essential workers and a new round of cash payments to individuals.
The House is expected to vote on the package as soon as Friday. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said there is no “urgency.” The Senate will wait until after Memorial Day to consider options.
“We must think big, for the people, now,” Pelosi said from the speaker’s office at the Capitol.
“Not acting is the most expensive course,” she said.
Lines drawn, the latest pandemic response from Congress will test the House and Senate — and President Donald Trump — as Washington navigates the extraordinary crisis with the nation’s health and economic security at stake.
The
Democrats’ Heroes Act is built around nearly $1 trillion for states,
cities and tribal governments to avert layoffs, focused chiefly on $375
billion for smaller suburban and rural municipalities largely left out
of earlier bills.
The bill will offer a fresh round of $1,200
direct cash aid to individuals, increased to up to $6,000 per household,
and launches a $175 billion housing assistance fund to help pay rents
and mortgages. There is $75 billion more for virus testing.
It
would continue, through January, the $600-per-week boost to unemployment
benefits. It adds a 15% increase for food stamps, new subsidies for
laid-off workers to pay health insurance premiums under a COBRA law and a
special “Obamacare” sign-up period. For businesses, it provides an
employee retention tax credit.
There’s $200 billion in “hazard pay” for essential workers on the front lines of the crisis.
Pelosi
drew on U.S. history — and poetry — to suggest “no man is an island” as
she called on Americans to respond to the crisis with a strategy of
science, virus testing and empathy.
“There
are those who said, ‘Let’s just pause,’” she said. “Hunger doesn’t take
a pause. Rent doesn’t take a pause. Bills don’t take a pause.”
But the 1,800-page package is heading straight into a Senate roadblock.
Republicans
are wary of another round of aid and McConnell declared the Democratic
proposal a grab bag of “pet priorities.” He said Tuesday it is not
something that “deals with reality.”
House Republicans also took a
pass. “I can’t believe that that would be real,” said Rep. Andy Biggs,
R-Ariz., leader of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, said in an
interview.
This would be the fifth coronavirus package. It’s a
starkly partisan offering with no real input from Republicans, who
prefer to assess the impact of earlier expenditures before approving
more.
But the political peril of doing nothing during an election
year could prove challenging for Congress and the White House. As states
experience flareups of virus outbreaks, and more than 30 million
Americans remain unemployed in the shutdown, the near-term health and
economic outlook remains daunting.
The Senate Democratic leader,
Chuck Schumer of New York, warned that Trump and Republicans risk the
same path as Herbert Hoover, the former president roundly criticized for
failing to act to stem the Great Depression.
“What is it going to
take for Mitch McConnell to wake up and see the American people need
help, and they need it now?” Schumer said.
The latest package extends some provisions from previous aid packages, and adds new ones.
There
is $25 billion for the U.S. Postal Service. There is help for the 2020
Census, including the bureau’s request to delay deadlines for turning
over apportionment and redistricting data. For the November election,
the bill provides $3.6 billion to help local officials prepare for the
challenges of voting during the pandemic.
The popular Payroll
Protection Program, which has been boosted in past bills, would see
another $10 billion to ensure under-served businesses and nonprofit
organizations have access to grants through a disaster loan program.
For
hospitals and other health care providers, there’s another $100 billion
infusion to help cover costs and additional help for hospitals serving
low-income communities.
There’s another $600 million in funding to
tackle the issue of rapid spread of the virus in state and federal
prisons, along with $600 million in help to local police departments for
salaries and equipment
McConnell said he is working with the
White House on next steps. His priority is to ensure any new package
includes liability protections for health care providers and businesses
that are reopening. Trump is expected to meet Tuesday with a group of
Senate Republicans.
“I don’t think we have yet felt the urgency of acting immediately,” McConnell told reporters earlier this week at the Capitol.
As
states weigh the health risks of re-opening, McConnell said Tuesday the
nation needs to find a “middle ground between total lockdown and total
normalcy.”
Top GOP senators flatly rejected the House bill. “What
Nancy Pelosi is proposing will never pass the Senate,” said Sen. John
Barrasso of Wyoming, the third-ranking Republican.
The Senate recently reopened its side of the Capitol while the House remains largely shuttered due to the health concerns.
Senators
have been in session since last week, voting on Trump’s nominees for
judicial and executive branch positions and other issues. The Senate
majority, the 53-member Senate Republican conference, is meeting for its
regular luncheons most days, spread out three to a table for social
distance. Democrats are convening by phone. Many senators, but not all,
are wearing masks.
At least a dozen Capitol police officers and
other staff have tested positive for the virus, and at least one
senator, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, is in isolation at home after
exposure from a staff member who tested positive. Other lawmakers have
cycled in and out of quarantine.
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Associated Press writers
Alan Fram, Matthew Daly and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar in Washington, Nick
Riccardi in Denver, Colo., and Michael Schneider in Orlando, Fla.,
contributed to this report.