WASHINGTON, Dec 9 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The White House unveiled a $916
billion stimulus proposal in a final dash to break a months-long
logjam over new aid for the coronavirus-stricken US economy before President Donald Trump leaves office in January.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced the plan, which he said
includes “money for state and local governments and robust liability
protections for businesses, schools and universities.”
Those elements have been key sticking points in negotiations between
Democratic and Republican lawmakers.
The proposal comes weeks before Trump is set to hand over power to
President-elect Joe Biden and a new Congress takes office, and as the country struggles with the world’s worst Covid-19 outbreak that has caused the worst economic downturn in a century.
“I look forward to achieving bipartisan agreement so we can provide this
critical economic relief to American workers, families and businesses,”
Mnuchin said in a statement.
The new proposal is slightly larger than a $908 billion compromise unveiled
by a bipartisan group of senators last week.
Mnuchin said he presented the package to Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and had reviewed it with Trump and Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Democrats and Republicans in Congress along with the Trump administration have been negotiating for months but have been unable to agree on a successor bill to the $2.2 trillion CARES Act passed earlier this year to support the American economy.
Business shutdowns to stop the virus’s spread have led to tens of millions
of job losses, and though the country is seeing some signs of an economic
recovery, experts fear those could peter out without new aid, as Covid-19
cases hit record levels in parts of the United States.
“My view, and I think it’s a view shared by literally everybody on both
sides of the aisle, is that we can’t leave without doing a Covid bill,”
McConnell said earlier Tuesday before Mnuchin’s proposal was made public.
The CARES Act included a program of loans and grants for small businesses,
one-time payments of as much as $1,200 to all Americans, and an expansion of the unemployment safety net, which economists credited with preventing an even worse downturn.
But much of that aid has expired, and Republicans and Democrats for months have sparred over how much to spend in another bill, and what to spend it on.
Democrats had insisted on support for struggling state and local
governments, while McConnell wanted liability protections to businesses.
Looming over the negotiations is an end-of-month deadline for many of the
last CARES Act benefit programs for the unemployed.
Progressive think tank The Century Foundation estimates about 12 million
Americans will lose the jobless benefits from these programs when they expire on Dec 26. — NNN-AGENCIES
