A coronavirus relief compromise is on the table. Congress should pass it

Published December 4, 2020 6:56pm ET



Rarely is it the case that Congress shouldn’t sweat all the legislative details, but Congress is facing one of those rare situations now. Rather than haggle over every last element of a coronavirus relief package, Congress should approve the $908 billion compromise package put together by a bipartisan group of legislators — and do it now.

Frankly, I think the package is about 10 times too big. My own preference would be to lift restrictions from earlier coronavirus relief laws (as Rep. Gary Palmer suggests) so that states could redirect unused funds from those earlier laws for almost any economic-development purpose, plus direct the IRS to make some tweaks to its practices, plus provide some lawsuit protections — and then, apart from that, just block-grant a little more money to the states and let them run with it.

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