Pelosi’s Covid 19 Relief -- Round 5
Up for a Vote in the House on Friday
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is readying a new stimulus and relief package for a vote as soon as Friday. Projected cost is $3 trillion. Here’s what may be in it:
· $1 trillion for state, tribal and local governments hard hit by a sharp reduction in tax revenues and a whopping increase in state and local programs to meet their residents’ health and economic needs during the Covid crisis.
· A second round of stimulus of $1200 per family member (up to $6000 per family)
· $200 billion for hazard pay for essential workers during the crisis.
· $175 billion for renters and homeowners struggling with rents and mortgage payments
· $100 billion for health care providers hit by an increase in the costs of Covid cases and a loss of revenues associated with most other services
· $75 billion for testing and contact tracing
· $25 billion for the Post Office
· $10 billion for EIDL small business loans
· Additional funding and eligibility for PPP small business loans/grants for non-profits
· Extension of the $600 weekly add-on to UI benefits til January 2021
· Extension of UI eligibility for gig workers and the self-employed til January 2021
· 15% increase in food stamps allotments
· Premium assistance to help pay for COBRA premiums for laid off workers
· Repeal of the $10,000 cap on deductions for state and local taxes and home mortgage
Student loan forgiveness of $10,000 and student loan deferrals up to twelve additional months after September 2020.
Senate Leader McConnell and President Trump want to wait and see how the CARES Act stimulus is working before moving to the next round of stimulus funding. McConnell wants employer protection from lawsuits when they reopen if their employees or customers become infected. Federal Reserve Chief Jerome Powell warned today that a lot more stimulus relief will be needed to avoid long lasting damage to the economy and said the worst impacts would be centered on those low and moderate income Americans. https://www.axios.com/fed-jerome-powell-coronavirus-spending-e71d88c5-09ec-4410-b08f-3d4ad6304db0.html
It appears that we are all in for a very long haul of bad economic times impacting people’s jobs, their health and their ability to participate in the every day joys of living, until a vaccine is available and distributed or a treatment is available for a virus that is morphing and creating additional havoc as we speak. This will go on for more than the next year and maybe as long as three years. President Trump was asleep at the switch and AWOL when it was developing and wants to distract us now from his Administration’s abject failures. We are nevertheless going to need his signatures on and support of these relief packages, so we need Republican Governors and Senators to be engaged. We need to support those Governors who are leading the nation in stopping the spread of the virus, protecting the health of their residents and re-opening their economies safely; the Pelosi package is central to supporting their good work. We must start doing aggressive Congressional oversight to see where the CARES Act provisions are working, where they are not working and where they need to be adjusted. Congress cannot do oversight with its eyes closed and blindfolded, as the Administration seeks to constrain their ability to see how the Congressionally approved funds are being spent.
Prepared by: Lucien Wulsin
Dated: 5.13.20