The bill that just passed the House over the weekend and again yesterday after ‘technical’ corrections were added will be voted on in the House, despite GOP objections to the paid leave portion of the bill:
DC EXAMINER – The Senate will vote on a House measure to provide more than $100 billion to respond to the coronavirus, despite objections from GOP lawmakers who oppose paid leave provisions.
“With regard to the bill that came over from the House, there was some discussion about whether to amend that with a bigger proposal, because we all know a bigger proposal is necessary,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, told reporters Tuesday. “But I’ve decided we are going to go on and vote” on the measure.
Instead of fixing this bill to meet the objections of Republicans by helping small businesses, McConnell suggests they will add that into the much larger stimulus bill they are currently working on now:
McConnell is rejecting calls to amend the legislation to aid small businesses, which may be unable to afford the paid sick leave mandated in the bill for those that employ more than 50 people.
Instead, lawmakers will write a third, much larger stimulus measure that will include aid to small businesses, likely in the form of low-interest loans.
McConnell advised Republicans who object to the bill to “gag and vote for it anyway.”
McConnell said it is important for the Senate to clear the House bill for President Trump’s signature to show the public Congress is acting to help reduce the economic destruction now being caused by the virus and near-quarantine of most of the public.
The measure would provide expanded unemployment insurance and 10 days of paid sick leave for some workers.
I believe Trump signed off on the House bill and its changes yesterday before it went to the Senate.
So just to keep up with the math here, Congress allocated 8 billion earlier this month when Trump said he was only asking for 2 billion. Now we have the 100 billion dollar bill passing the House and making its way through the Senate now. We’ll soon have the 850 billion dollar stimulus bill, of which a significant portion will go back into people’s wallets. That’s pretty darn close to a trillion right there in just a couple of weeks.