Congress reaches final agreement on pandemic aid

“President Trump has worked hard for months to send Americans much-needed financial aid,” said White House spokesman Ben Williamson. “We look forward to Congress sending a bill to its bureau for signature soon.”

The negotiators had finalized the details for the rest of the bill on Sunday after resolving a disagreement over the Federal Reserve’s powers to issue emergency loans earlier this weekend. Senate Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) Said Sunday afternoon that all outstanding issues had been resolved.

“At last we have the two-pronged breakthrough the country needs,” Mr McConnell said on the Senate floor. “Now we need to finalize the text quickly, avoid last-minute hurdles and work together to get this legislation through both chambers.”

The House approved a 24-hour extension of government funding on Sunday evening, drawing votes on the emergency relief deal and a broader spending bill for Monday. The aid package is tied to an annual spending package of about $ 1.4 trillion, and Congress has passed a series of temporary spending bills in recent days to keep the government funded as it wrapped up negotiations.

“This agreement is far from perfect, but it will provide emergency relief to a country in the throes of a real emergency,” said Senate Leader Chuck Schumer (D., NY) on the Senate floor.

The legislation is set to add $ 300 to weekly unemployment benefits for 11 weeks and extend two other unemployment programs until they start to wind down in mid-March and end in early April. These two programs increase the pool of people eligible for unemployment benefits and extend their duration.

The direct checks are expected to be $ 600 per adult and $ 600 per child, with amounts dropping for individuals with incomes over $ 75,000 and $ 150,000 for couples. President Trump had pushed for direct controls to be included in the legislation.

According to one person familiar with the discussions, so-called mixed-status households – where some members have a Social Security number but others don’t – would be eligible for partial payments. Persons over the age of 16 are not eligible, as in the first round of incentive payments, despite advocacy from some legislators. That means households would not receive payments for students or disabled adults.

The bill will raise $ 15 billion for airline payroll, according to two people familiar with the measure. About $ 280 billion would go to the Paycheck Protection Program, most of the $ 325 billion the bill spends on small businesses. Theater operators and small stage owners would be eligible for $ 15 billion in grants.

Schools would receive $ 82 billion under the agreement and $ 10 billion would go towards daycare.

The deal would also include $ 25 billion in rental support and an extension moratorium on evictions, Mr Schumer said, as well as $ 13 billion in funds for food stamps and child nutrition benefits. And lawmakers agreed to increase the amount for fighting the virus by adding $ 30 billion towards the purchase and distribution of a vaccine, as well as for testing and detection. Lawmakers have also included $ 1.8 billion in corporate tax breaks to provide paid time off.

The White House won a tax break that President Trump has been looking for all year long: the ability for businesses to deduct restaurant meals. Some lawmakers had mocked the idea in part because it could encourage indoor dining to spread the coronavirus.

The agreement would renew a retention tax credit and make it available to PPP recipients. Renewable energy breaks, including incentives for wind power and carbon capture, would be temporarily extended, according to a person familiar with the deal.

Lower excise duties on beer, wine and spirits that were due to expire on December 31 would be extended permanently and the tax breaks for investment in low-income areas and hiring workers from disadvantaged groups would be extended by five years. It would also allow employees who have deferred payroll taxes under the executive action of the president until the end of 2021 to pay them back.

Passing the bill would end an attempt to negotiate another bipartisan relief deal that lasted much of the year. After quickly passing nearly $ 3 trillion in aid in the spring, Republicans and Democrats struggled for months to negotiate another package, with talks failing on several counts.

But the rapid spread of the virus this fall, signs of a slowing economic recovery, a deadline for government funding and the impending expiration of several existing aid measures forced lawmakers to reach an agreement before Congress takes a vacation break.

Negotiations accelerated last week after Congress leaders agreed to drop two provisions: funding for hard-hit state and local governments, which Democrats and some Republicans had sought, as well as liability protection for corporations and other entities operating during the pandemic, a GOP priority.

Mr. Schumer made it clear that the Democrats would again push for direct aid to state and local governments next year, when President-elect Joe Biden is in office. In addition to funding for schools and transportation companies, the current agreement extends the time limit for using $ 150 billion in aid for state and local governments approved earlier this year.

“Once this deal is signed into law, it cannot be the final word on congressional relief,” Mr Schumer said on the Senate floor. “There is more to do in the new year, with a new government taking a much more favorable stance on giving the American people the help they need.”

A final sticking point in the talks concerned the Fed’s emergency lending powers. In March, the central bank announced lending programs to keep the flow of credit to large companies and cities and states. Days later, Congress provided $ 454 billion for the Treasury Department to cover losses in Fed credit programs. Credit markets rebounded sharply, and the Fed ended up buying less than $ 30 billion in loans and other assets.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin last month refused to allow the programs to continue beyond Dec. 31, saying he did not think it was legal. An impartial congressional investigation group disputed that interpretation on Thursday.

At the last minute, Senator Patrick Toomey (R., Pa.) Had pushed for the Fed to be prevented from reviving those programs without explicit congressional approval. Democrats were concerned that Mr. Toomey’s legislation would prevent the Fed from launching other similar programs.

Under the deal, the remaining funding previously provided to the Treasury Department to avoid losses in the Fed’s credit programs would be withdrawn, and the Fed would not be able to replicate identical emergency lending programs next year without Congressional approval, according to the deal. assistants who are familiar with the legislation.

The compromise will ensure that the Fed and Biden’s government cannot restart lending programs “by creating a clone and calling it something else,” Mr Toomey told reporters on Sunday. “These programs were never meant to hang indefinitely.”

Democrats said they had retained the Fed’s crucial powers to borrow.

“The Federal Reserve retains its tools and authority in the event of a real emergency,” said Mr Schumer.

Lawmakers said the final package would also include a bipartisan agreement released earlier this month to prevent patients from receiving surprise medical bills, including from air ambulance trips. Surprising billing usually occurs when a patient is treated in a hospital on his or her insurance network by a medical professional who is not, which can lead to crippling medical costs.

—Richard Rubin, Nick Timiraos and Ken Thomas contributed to this article.

Write to Andrew Duehren at [email protected] and Kristina Peterson at [email protected]