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Category: Congressional To Do

Deal Reached On $2-Trillion Relief Package

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Late last night/ early this morning, the Senate and White House negotiators reached a deal on a $2-trillion relief package. The Senate is expected to reconvene later today and approve it in short order.

While we haven’t seen the text yet, the following is from a letter that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) sent to Democrats that seeks to explain, in his words, some of the changes between the initial version and the version that was agreed to last night/this morning:

  • 4 months of more unemployment insurance instead of 3 months.
  • $55 billion increase in the Marshall Plan for our Health Care System.
  • $150 billion for a state, tribal, and local Coronavirus Relief fund.
  • $10 billion for SBA emergency grants of up to $10,000 to provide immediate relief for small business operating costs.
  • $17 billion for SBA to cover 6 months of payments for small businesses with existing SBA loans.
  • $30 billion in emergency education funding and $25 billion in emergency transit funding.
  • $30 billion for the Disaster Relief Fund to provide financial assistance to state, local, tribal, and territorial governments, as well as private nonprofits providing critical and essential services.
  • More than $10 billion for the Indian Health Services, and other tribal programs.
  • Prohibit businesses controlled by the President, Vice President, Members of Congress, and heads of Executive Departments from receiving loans or investments from Treasury programs.
  • Make rent, mortgage and utility costs eligible for SBA loan forgiveness.
  • Ban stock buybacks for the term of the government assistance plus 1 year on any company receiving a government loan from the bill.
  • Establish robust worker protections attached to all federal loans for businesses.
  • Create real-time public reporting of Treasury transactions under the Act, including terms of loans, investments or other assistance to corporations.
  • Create of Treasury Department Special Inspector General for Pandemic Recovery to provide oversight of Treasury loans and a Pandemic Response Accountability Committee to protect taxpayer dollars.
  • Add a retention tax credit for employers to encourage businesses to keep workers on payroll during the crisis.
  • Provide income tax exclusion for individuals who are receiving student loan repayment assistance from their employer.
  • Eliminated $3 billion bailout for big oil.
  • Eliminated “secret bailout” provision that would have allowed bailouts to corporations to be concealed for 6 months.
  • Saved hundreds of thousands of airline industry jobs and prohibited airlines from stock buybacks and CEO bonuses.

On the House side, Speaker Pelosi has expressed her support for having the chamber adopt the Senate measure.

Read more about the situation here in the Washington Post and here in Politico.

We will continue to provide further details as they become available.

Senate Democrats Release Outline of Student Assistance Plan

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Countering the Republican efforts to assist students that were included in the “Phase 3” bill, Senate Democrats released a summary of their own proposal on the issue.  The legislative text for the plan has not yet been released.

The summary of the plan, as prepared by the Democratic staff, is here and a press release about the proposal is here.

Again, while the legislative text is not yet available, the centerpiece of the plan is the federal repayment of student loans during the COVID-19 crisis.

Broader Higher Education Community Looks to Engage with Federal Government to Address Community-Wide Challenges

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Yesterday, the broader higher education community sent to Congress a series of recommendations and requests for assistance aimed at stabilizing the entire enterprise as it tries to cope with COVID-19.  The requests fall into a number of distinct categories:

  • One set of requests addresses the immediate financial challenges facing both students and institutions.
  • Another set of requests focuses on the unique circumstances that research universities face as they deal with trying to mitigate the impact on research.
  • The third set  focuses on tax-related provisions that could assist students, families, and institutions.

Text and Section-by-Section Summaries of “Phase 3” Now Available

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The text of the Senate Republican stimulus bill, “Phase 3,” has been released and is available here.

In addition, several chairmen of the committees that would have jurisdiction over different parts of the bill have released summaries of the parts of the bill that they would oversee.  The section-by-section summaries of parts of the bill that are most relevant to UW and other universities are provided below:

As noted previously, this is the initial proposal from the Senate Republican and it will need to be modified along the way as they begin to negotiate with Congressional Democrats, who will also have their own priorities.

 

 

Senate Republicans Release “Phase 3” Stimulus Bill

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Earlier this evening, Senate Republicans unveiled their initial version of the “Phase 3” stimulus bill in an attempt to prevent further damage to the economy.  The center piece of the package is direct payments of up to $1,200 for individuals and $2,400 for married couples, with the payments being cut off at individuals making $99,000 per year.

The proposal includes additional assistance to other sectors of the economy, such as $50 billion for the air line industry and $8 billion for the air cargo industry.

While the measure was introduced by the Senate Republican leadership, there is still disagreement within the Senate ranks.  In addition, neither the House or Senate Democrats were involved in the drafting of the proposal, meaning changes are likely along the way.

Read more about the situation here and here.