WASHINGTON — A Trump administration request for Congress to rapidly approve $250 billion in further loans to assist distressed small companies clim
WASHINGTON — A Trump administration request for Congress to rapidly approve $250 billion in further loans to assist distressed small companies climate the coronavirus disaster stalled within the Senate on Thursday, after Republicans and Democrats clashed over what must be included within the newest spherical of presidency reduction.
The dispute was a prelude to what’s prone to be a much more difficult and consequential set of negotiations over one other sweeping spherical of federal support that lawmakers anticipate to contemplate within the coming weeks on the heels of the $2 trillion stimulus regulation enacted late final month. The White Home had requested lawmakers to maneuver within the interim to rapidly inject more cash into a brand new mortgage program created by the stimulus bundle supposed to maintain small companies afloat and permit them to keep away from shedding employees because the pandemic continues to batter the economic system.
However Democrats argued that so long as Congress was offering further support, it ought to embrace more cash that was urgently wanted for hospitals, states and cities on the entrance traces of confronting the coronavirus, in addition to further meals help for People dealing with its punishing financial toll.
Republicans balked at that effort, saying the time for negotiating such additions was later.
“My colleagues should not deal with working People as political hostages,” mentioned Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the bulk chief. With the Senate not scheduled to return till April 20, he added, lawmakers ought to have “targeted discussions on pressing topics with out turning each dialog right into a dialog about all the pieces.”
Throughout a choreographed trade on the Senate flooring, Mr. McConnell tried to push via the $250 billion in small enterprise mortgage funding throughout a procedural session, a maneuver that may have required all senators to agree. Democrats objected as promised, proposing to double that request by including $100 billion for hospitals and $150 billion for state and native governments.
Senator Benjamin L. Cardin, Democrat of Maryland, referred to as Mr. McConnell’s transfer a “political stunt.”
“There was no effort made to observe the method that we might to get this carried out, so it gained’t get carried out,” mentioned Mr. Cardin, one of many architects of the small enterprise mortgage program, which has bipartisan help.
When Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, countered with the Democrats’ proposal, Mr. McConnell blocked it, making certain that the Senate couldn’t transfer ahead on the difficulty till one other procedural session scheduled for Monday.
Republicans and the administration have mentioned that the hovering demand for the mortgage initiative, referred to as the Paycheck Safety Program, warrants a stand-alone invoice, urging that different calls for look forward to negotiations on the broader bundle that lawmakers have begun referring to as “Section 4” of their coronavirus support efforts. With many of the funds from the $2 trillion financial stimulus plan simply starting to trickle out to businesses and taxpayers throughout the nation, they argued that it was untimely to allocate billions extra {dollars} this week.
“The president has been very clear, he’s blissful to speak about different points reminiscent of hospitals and states within the subsequent invoice, however we needed to go and get cash for the small enterprise program,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin mentioned Thursday in an interview with CNBC.
The Paycheck Safety Program has had a fraught rollout, even as it has been inundated with requests from companies desperate to avoid collapse.
Democrats said they had been blindsided by Mr. McConnell’s announcement that he would quickly move to approve the small business funds, and argued that the needs of hospitals and state and local governments were just as dire.
“Yes, we know we need more money for this program,” Mr. Van Hollen said on the Senate floor. “But for goodness sake, let’s take the opportunity to make some bipartisan fixes to allow this program to work better.”
In addition to providing more money, the Democratic proposal would have placed new conditions and disclosure requirements on the administration, according to a summary released on Thursday. Some of the new small business loan funds would be reserved for small, community-based lenders.
The Department of Health and Human Services and the Federal Emergency Management Agency would also have had to report to Congress monthly on the administration’s coronavirus testing strategy, as well as the allocation of testing and supplies. And the administration would have had to submit a separate report by May 15 on the demographics of patients who had contracted Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, and its strategies for reducing health disparities related to the virus. That proposal came about after data emerged suggesting that the disease was infecting and killing black people in the United States at disproportionately high rates.
Alan Rappeport contributed reporting.