Republican Sen. Tim Scott accused House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of holding funding for small businesses across the country “hostage” during a financial crisis.
“This is a serious situation, that we should not have a lapse in funding,” Scott said Sunday. “We should tell Ms. Nancy Pelosi, ‘Please give us our paychecks.’ People need their paychecks. And stop holding it hostage in order to do something else.”
Part of the $2 trillion economic relief bill passed by Congress and signed by President Trump last month is the Paycheck Protection Program, a nearly $350 billion effort allocating eight weeks of cash flow to qualifying small businesses so they can pay employees and avoid layoffs.
Funding for the program has run dry, and Congress is working this week to strike a deal to replenish it.
“People are calling every single day,” Scott said. “Hundreds are calling our offices, thousands, I’m sure, throughout this nation because they want their paychecks, and we shouldn’t stand in the way of making that happen.”
Pelosi said over the weekend, “Again, we have common ground,” and that she thinks Congress is “very close to agreement.”
Scott, a member of the Senate Financial Services Committee, has advocated for a more targeted approach to help small businesses get the amount they need to stay afloat while making sure as many businesses as possible get the funding they need.
More than 20 million people have filed for unemployment benefits over the last month as a result of lockdown orders put in place by almost every state in an attempt to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
Trump has expressed he is eager to reopen large swaths of the country as early as May 1.
Scott said the sooner that happens, the easier the country’s economic recovery from the coronavirus will be.
“The new normal may require businesses to have higher overhead expenses and lower labor costs,” Scott said. “We need to adapt to that reality, and we need to adapt very quickly.”
