Senate leaders have reached a deal on a new round of coronavirus aid, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced on the Senate floor Sunday.
“The leaders of the Senate and the House have finalized an agreement,” the Kentucky Republican told fellow senators. “It will be another major rescue package for the American people.”
Lawmakers plan to bundle the deal with fiscal 2021 spending and pass it tonight or tomorrow in both the House and Senate. Temporary government funding expires at midnight.
“I hope we can do this as promptly as possible,” McConnell said.
The new round of federal aid includes money for businesses, schools, day cares, and healthcare, as well as additional money for rental assistance and food stamps.
The bulk of the measure’s spending, more than $300 billion, is directed to new loans for small businesses that are coping with more economic lockdowns amid a sharp rise in coronavirus cases across the nation. The measure also includes another round of stimulus checks and $300 in weekly supplemental jobless benefits.
Lawmakers were able to reach an agreement on language written by Sen. Pat Toomey, a Pennsylvania Republican, to limit the Fed’s special lending authority in 2021. It became a tough, last-minute sticking point, with Republicans largely agreeing with Toomey that Congress needed to ensure special Fed borrowing language in an earlier virus aid package did not extend into the new year. Toomey agreed to narrow the language to not further tie the hands of the central bank under the incoming Biden administration.
