House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday a small-business relief package Senate Republicans attempted to pass earlier in the day would never clear the House.
“It is the basis for some negotiation,” Pelosi said. “But it would never pass the House.”
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Pelosi, a California Democrat, called the GOP bill “a stunt” that was foisted on lawmakers with very little notice.
She said Democrats see an opportunity in the next funding bill to end longstanding disparities in small-business lending and seek to impose new restrictions on a massive small-business lending program signed into law last month in response to the economic slowdown.
McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, introduced a measure Thursday that would supplement the small-business relief fund with an additional $251 billion.
The money was requested by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who reported the Paycheck Protection Program is running dry as thousands of small businesses seek help staying afloat during the coronavirus outbreak.
[Read more: ‘I find that disgusting’: Kevin McCarthy slams Democratic demands in new funding bill]
Senate Democrats blocked the bill and introduced their own measure, which doubled the cost and greatly expanded the scope of the funding coverage to include hospitals, state and local governments, and food stamp increases.
“What we should have been doing and what we offered to do was to sit down and figure out what the numbers are that are needed most urgently,” Pelosi said.
The Senate next meets in a pro-forma session on Monday, but it’s not clear if the two parties will negotiate an agreement by then.
Pelosi said Democrats are also seeking to add conditions to the $251 billion in small-business funding to ensure small businesses that lack relationships with banks can still access the aid.
“With the large number of requests and first come, first serve in this process, many people who do not have banking relationships were going to be last in line,” Pelosi said.
Democrats want to fence some of the small-business funds for those underserved businesses.
Pelosi said $60 billion of the total funding for the Paycheck Protection Program should be dedicated to community development and financial institutions “that are culturally and geographically and economically poised to help those with the smallest business, alleviating some of the pressure on the bank to do some of the loans that they’re not used to doing.”
Pelosi called the small-business funding bill “an opportunity” to end longstanding disparity in lending to certain small businesses.
“It gives us a path to diminishing those disparities that put us in that situation,” Pelosi said.
Democrats are also seeking an additional $100 billion for hospitals and healthcare facilities treating the coronavirus as well as $150 billion for state and local governments that have seen tax revenues drop due to the economic slowdown.
Republicans argued the same level of funding for governments and hospitals was provided in the $2.2 trillion relief package signed into law by President Trump on March 28 and has not yet run out. The Paycheck Protection Program, Republicans said, is the only fund under threat of being depleted and needs an immediate boost in funding.
But Democrats said they won’t allow a new small-business funding measure to pass without the additional funding and policy changes.
“We thought it would be a good opportunity to not only anticipate but reimburse states and local [governments] and hospitals and other health-serving institutions for what they have already put out,” Pelosi said. “So, let’s negotiate on the timing, the amount, and the rest. We know these are [the] bare minimum that we need in terms of other than PPP.”
