The relief package being negotiated by leaders in Washington will require a miracle for it to hit voters’ pockets before the general election, according to policy experts.
“It’s not going to happen,” said Aaron Klein, a fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution, a nonprofit public policy organization.
The general election is a little over three weeks away, and Adam Michel, a senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative public policy organization, said that Washington would have to act extremely fast to get relief to people by Election Day.
“If they passed it today, which obviously isn’t going to happen, the checks could probably start getting to people by Election Day,” he said.
There currently is no bill, just a number of proposals. But members in both parties support a plan that resuscitates the Payroll Protection Program for small businesses and delivers another round of stimulus checks to individuals.
However, if the past is prologue, it will take longer than three weeks for those policy initiatives to hit most beneficiaries.
The CARES Act, which is the precursor for whatever package is enacted next, was signed into law on March 27. It included stimulus checks to individuals that took the Treasury Department a little over three weeks to get out.
“It’s not going to move any faster than that,” Klein said.
Klein also noted that 5 million people have yet to receive their stimulus payments from the CARES Act.
He then underscored that the federal government’s system to administer loans, like the Payroll Protection Program, is antiquated and doesn’t move quickly.
“Imagine Blockbuster being in charge of streaming,” he said, adding, “the payment infrastructure in America has been neglected for over a decade.”
Another factor eating the clock is that lead negotiators have yet to agree on a top-line cost figure for the bill. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from California, seeks a $2.4 trillion plan while Trump backs one costing $1.8 trillion.
Whittling down to an agreed-upon number could take time. But even after all the details have been ironed out, procedural hurdles in passing a bill through the House and Senate can be time consuming.
Still, many of those procedural hurdles can be waived, according to Kevin Kuhlman, the vice president of federal government relations at the National Federation of Independent Business, an advocate for small businesses.
“If the argument that drafting [the bill] and consideration will take time, then the motivations should be to act quickly,” he said.
The quickest way to advance a bill from Congress is for members in both chambers to unanimously agree to pass it. That is unlikely to happen with the relief bill, as some Senate Republicans oppose its passage.
Chris Edwards, director of tax policy at the Cato Institute, a think tank that supports limited government, also opposes its passage and liked seeing lawmakers resist it.
“I routinely criticize both parties for spending too much, so I’m actually impressed that Senate Republicans are trying to save taxpayers money,” he said.
Edwards thinks that if Washington is successfully passed the bill, its relief, like the stimulus payments, will not hit voters before Election Day.
He also thinks that its passage will not sway voters at all.
“I’m surprised that both sides are doing this high stakes negotiation as if the election depends on it. I don’t think it will make any difference at all,” he said.
