Stimulus Update: Congress Seeks More Time for Talks

Congress is going to do what it can to help the government continue its discussion on a COVID-19 relief bill. On Monday, Congress shared its plans of passing a one-week spending bill that would allow the government to continue running through Dec. 18 in hopes of passing a stimulus plan before the holidays and the end of the year. The vote on Congress’ plan will occur on Wednesday and is expected to pass. If it is not passed, government funding would expire this upcoming Saturday and put an end to any hope of a stimulus plan being agreed upon before the conclusion of 2020.

Senate and House representatives are putting together a $908 billion proposal backed by Democrats and has a decent shot of passing through. This, at least, was echoed by Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana according to CNBC. With the snags being state and local government support and business liability, he said that this new proposal has a “better chance” of making it through both parties.

On Monday evening, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell put out a tweet about the importance of this end-of-year meeting. “The Senate knows all about end-of-year drama, but this time the stakes could not be higher. Americans are struggling under the weight of this pandemic,” he began his tweet. ‘Democrats need to let Congress do our jobs and pass more relief. We have so much common ground. Let’s make law. Let’s get it done.”

The need for another stimulus plan has only intensified as talks between policymakers have stalled throughout the late summer and through the fall. With the end of year approaching, COVID-19 cases have begun to skyrocket as record-number of positives have poured in over the past few weeks. With numbers reaching a high never seen before in the pandemic, unemployment and health care are again becoming a serious issue after not fully being resolved earlier on in the pandemic. The country reached one million cases in just five days recently, a grim milestone that shows just how uncontrolled the virus is across the states. President-elect Joe Biden has already said that when he gets into office, one of his first actions will be mandating mask usage across the United States. This, of course, is something that President Donald Trump has refused to do during the pandemic and is something that many health experts have advised as being the best way of eliminating the coronavirus outside of a vaccine.