Congress faces intense pressure to negotiate an interim rescue package this week as the impact of the coronavirus pandemic accelerates across the country.
Some 17 million Americans have lost their jobs in the past month, $349 billion in funding for a small-business relief program may run out within days, and the Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. has soared past 22,000.
And yet partisan deadlock reigns in Washington. Republicans want to add more money to Small Business Administration loan programs while Democratic leaders issued a statement early Monday demanding changes to that aid, including urgent funding for states and municipalities and additional help for struggling hospitals and health-care workers.
“Eligible small businesses continue to be excluded from the Paycheck Protection Program by big banks with significant lending capacity,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer wrote. “Funding for Covid-19 SBA disaster loans and grants must be significantly increased to satisfy the hundreds of billions in oversubscribed demand.”
Before the country can reopen, more testing is needed, they said. The Democrats also insisted on a boost to food stamps.
“We all desire an end to the shutdown orders so we can get Americans back to work and back to normal,” the leaders said. “However, there is still not enough testing available to realistically allow that to happen.”
While the stock market soared last week, trimming some of its sharp year-to-date losses, the economy faces fierce headwinds that have leaders in both parties proposing massive additional spending.
The nation’s governors are demanding Congress provide half a trillion dollars in economic aid, far more than even the Democrats have suggested so far, to plug revenue gaps.
Without “unrestricted” money from Washington, “states will have to confront the prospect of significant reductions to critically important services all across this country, hampering public health, the economic recovery, and -- in turn --our collective effort to get people back to work,” Governor Larry Hogan of Maryland and Andrew Cuomo of New York wrote on Saturday in a bipartisan statement for the National Governors Association.
The partisan stalemate in Congress continued over the weekend in advance of a pro-forma session in the Senate on Monday, which would be the first day that any additional aid could begin moving.