Wed 25 March 2020:
The Senate and White House have reached agreement on a $2 trillion stimulus package for the US economy and millions of Americans ravaged by the coronavirus crisis, top lawmakers said early Wednesday.
“At last, we have a deal,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said, hailing the massive “wartime level of investment into our nation” reached after five days of arduous and tense negotiations.
“We have a bipartisan agreement on the largest rescue package in American history,” top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer said shortly after McConnell spoke.
“So many people are being put out of work through no fault of their own. They don’t know what their future is going to be like, how are they going to pay the bills,” Schumer added.
“Well, we come to their rescue.”
The Senate and House of Representatives still need to pass the legislation before sending it to President Donald Trump for his signature.
McConnell said the Senate will vote on the measure later Wednesday.
The deal aims to buttress the teetering economy by giving roughly $2 trillion to health facilities, businesses and ordinary Americans buckling under the strain of the coronavirus pandemic.
The measure will put cash directly into the hands of Americans hard hit by the crisis, provides grants to small businesses and hundreds of billions of dollars in loans for larger corporations including airlines, and expands unemployment benefits.
It will also inject some $130 billion into what Schumer calls “a Marshall Plan for hospitals” and health care infrastructure, referring to the huge American aid program to rebuild Europe after World War II.
With viral outbreaks spreading coast to coast, hospitals have been in dire need of equipment like protective gear, intensive care beds and ventilators.
US stocks had already surged Tuesday on expectations of an agreement.
On Wednesday, Tokyo’s Nikkei closed up eight percent after the stimulus deal was reached. Oil prices rallied in Asia.
McConnell and Schumer negotiated the deal with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and other White House officials amid days of bitter partisan infighting over what to put into the final package.
Mnuchin had shuttled between the Capitol offices of the Senate’s leaders as they and staffers hammered out the language of the bill.
The agreement followed multiple failed attempts to advance a Republican-led proposal, and pressure had soared to swiftly reach a compromise that provides relief for hundreds of millions of Americans.
President Donald Trump called for an immediate resolution to the stalemate.
“Congress must approve the deal, without all of the nonsense, today,” he said Tuesday on Twitter.
“The longer it takes, the harder it will be to start up our economy. Our workers will be hurt!”
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