New stimulus package comes down to these factors

It feels like lawmakers have made more progress the last couple of weeks then they did the last six months when it comes to agreeing on a new stimulus deal.

So far, we don’t know the official terms of the new potential stimulus deal but we do know that it might look something like this:

• $288 billion in small business aid such as Paycheck Protection Program loans
• $160 billion in state and local government relief
• $180 billion to fund a $300 per week supplemental unemployment benefit through March.
• $16 billion into vaccine distribution, testing and contact tracing
• $82 billion into education
• $45 billion into transportation.
• It would also allocate funds for rental assistance, child care and broadband.

The latest report is that while a lot of lawmakers are on board for this proposal, there still is a significant level of resistance coming from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

If you’re wondering what his issue is with the proposal, there are basically two major points that are acting as potential deal breakers.

And both of these points have been at the top of the list for McConnell since the beginning of negotiations.

The first is the federal limits on coronavirus related lawsuits against businesses. Reportedly, the current proposal places a six-month moratorium on lawsuits but Republicans such as McConnell do not feel that that is enough.

They want businesses to be completely shielded from liability for opening up their doors. They worry that many employees will file lawsuits after becoming sick with the coronavirus, placing the liability on the conditions at the place of employment.

This is a tough one because some businesses just simply don’t value employees enough to give them working conditions that are suitable for a pandemic.

On the other hand, if you allow employees to file lawsuits against their employers, fewer businesses will likely open up and it could take longer to allow the economy to fully recover.

The biggest problem to me is that I’m not sure that we even know enough to have an established sense of what a standard of care should look like for employees.

For example, are masks 100% necessary?

It’s very conceivable that experts could be called to testify about different measures and that there could be a lack of scientific consensus on some issues, especially since the consensus has changed and continues to change on different things like quarantine recommendations.

So that’s not an easy issue to solve.

The other problem is with the aid to states and local governments. This has been an issue since day one and it did appear that Republicans were finally in agreement on this amount but apparently there is still a dispute going on.

The reason is that Republicans feel like some cities and states have mismanaged their funds and budgets over the last few years and now they are using the coronavirus as an excuse to get bailed out.

I think there is definitely some truth to that but the question is which states and local governments are guilty of that? And then how badly should the citizens, who had nothing to do with that mismanagement, be “punished” by withholding funds?

These are not easy issues to grapple with so it’s understandable that it would take time to sort them out.

But the issue is that they have had months and months to sort these problems out so there really is not an excuse in my book for not figuring these things out by now.

Reportedly, the drafters of the $900 billion proposal are planning to release more details later this afternoon.

But they will not include provisions for liability and state and local aid, said Sam Runyon, a spokesman for Democratic Senator Joe Manchin.

That means that we may not see the final proposal until later this week or perhaps next week.

Ultimately, it’s looking like McConnell’s role in this stimulus bill is growing more important and influential by the day.

So he may end up being the ultimate determining factor on whether or not we see a package get passed prior to the end of the year.

H/T

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