| July 27, 2020 05:29 PM
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced Republicans will introduce a bill to provide a new round of coronavirus aid that would reduce an expansion of unemployment benefits and provide a new batch of stimulus checks, but to a smaller group than a prior round of help.
“Senate Republicans have authored another bold framework to help our nation,” McConnell said, describing the GOP plan as “carefully tailored to this crossroads” in the coronavirus pandemic.
McConnell said senators plan to introduce the measure Monday afternoon in segments addressing health, economic assistance, liability protection, and schools.
“They will be coming to the floor shortly to introduce their components. Together, their bills make up the HEALS Act,” McConnell said of the GOP bill, which is expected to cost roughly $1 billion.
Democratic leaders immediately rejected the Republicans’ opening offer and demanded the GOP take up a $3 trillion coronavirus aid package called the HEROES Act that House Democrats passed in May. The measure is named after front-line workers who would receive “hazard pay” in the legislation.
“Republicans should scrap their approach,” Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said. “They should use the HEROES Act — comprehensive, strong, and bold — for negotiations and start talking to Democrats in a serious way about the problems facing our nation. This is a serious, serious crisis.”
The GOP measure would boost federal unemployment benefits in a formula that would ensure the unemployed receive 75% of their salary. The formula change would provide approximately $200 per week in additional unemployment pay, which is a sharp reduction from the $600-per-week supplement authorized in a $2.3 trillion aid package passed in March.
“We have learned what we knew at the time, that when you pay people more not to work than they would get working, what do you expect? People will not work,” said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley.
The Iowa Republican said the bill will expand tax credits for items such as personal protective equipment in order to enable businesses to operate safely and provides a new round of $1,200 payments for individuals earning up to $75,000, with an additional $500 per dependent.
The measure would provide new lawsuit liability protections for schools, businesses, and healthcare facilities.
“What it will do is put safeguards in place that will prevent opportunistic lawsuits from harming the workers and institutions we are depending on to see us through this crisis,” Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, said.
Republicans also plan a new round of forgivable small-business loans at a cost of $200 billion.
Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, said the first round, passed in March, has “been a lifeline to millions of our small businesses and their employees … but [they] need a second one to survive this pandemic.”
Many businesses are still operating “at a fraction of their previous capacity” in many cases, Collins said, recounting a conversation with an innkeeper in Maine who is dealing with a 93% reduction in business in what would normally be a busy summer.
The new round of aid would go to businesses suffering from a decline in revenue of 50% or more, and only for those with 300 or fewer employees, she said.
The measure would provide $16 billion for testing, tracing, and vaccine development and $105 billion for schools to open “at least 50% of the time,” said Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, an Alabama Republican.
White House officials plan to meet with top Democrats Monday night to begin hammering out a compromise between the GOP measure and the House-passed bill.
