Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced late Saturday that Republicans, Democrats, and the Trump administration are “very close to a resolution” on a massive coronavirus economic relief package made up of direct aid and loans that is likely to top $2 trillion.
McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said the relevant committees are now drafting the legislation ahead of a procedural vote Sunday at 3 p.m.
“I believe Senators on both sides and the Administration have been encouraged by our discussions,” McConnell said in a statement.
“Republicans and Democrats have worked together to produce a compromise that should be able to pass the Senate with an overwhelming bipartisan majority,” he said.
McConnell will meet Sunday with Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, to finalize the agreement, a source familiar with the meeting told the Washington Examiner.
“Democrats very much want to reach a bipartisan agreement to address this major health and economic crisis. There is not yet an agreement, and we still have not seen large parts of the Republican draft. We look forward to reviewing their first draft and negotiating a bipartisan compromise,” a Schumer spokesman said late Saturday evening.
Earlier Saturday, Senate Majority Whip John Thune, a South Dakota Republican, told reporters a deal was at hand, with only “loose ends” left to negotiate.
“We want to take swift, bold action that sends a clear signal to the American people and to the financial markets that we intend to get our economy back on its feet,” Thune said.
The measure is a major bipartisan compromise with a huge price tag. The bill is aimed at propping an economy that has been slowed to a halt in an effort to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
The bill will provide $350 billion in aid for small businesses, $500 billion for direct cash payments to certain workers, hundreds of billions of dollars in loans to the airlines and other big industries, and greatly expanded unemployment insurance.
The measure includes additional funding to help the medical community test for and treat those sickened by the virus.
“It will send direct relief to the American people, deliver historic assistance to small businesses so workers can keep getting paid, help secure our economic foundations and prevent layoffs, and surge more resources on to the front lines of our brave healthcare professionals’ fight to defend Americans and defeat the virus,” McConnell said.
