White House Stimulus Proposal: What’s in the $916 Billion Plan?

The White House has made a new stimulus check proposal, with a bill costing a total of $916 billion for various coronavirus pandemic relief programs. The package is competing with a $908 billion proposal put forth by a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the U.S. Congress. However, the White House’s package has some stark differences from the bipartisan one.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin made the $916 billion offer on behalf of President Donald Trump, knowing that lawmakers were already seriously considering the $908 billion proposal. While the two bills are similar in overall cost, their content has some major differences, which critics say are intentionally divisive, according to a report by The New York Times. After over six months of stalemate in the stimulus negotiations, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer accused the White House of trying to disrupt “good faith” negotiations within the bipartisan group.

The White House’s stimulus proposal prioritizes several of the programs that Republicans have favored throughout the negotiations so far — including liability shields and small business subsidies — as well as programs that Trump has personally supported — most notably, direct stimulus checks themselves. However, it slashes Democrats’ priorities, including programs that some Republicans had come around on in recent negotiations.

With the deadline looming and Congress’ spending bill itself still not passed, many fear that the House of Representatives and the United States Senate will not manage to pass a stimulus check bill at all. If they do, the difference between the White House’s proposal and the bipartisan one could have huge implications for the American people. Here is a look at what is in the White House’s package.

Stimulus Check

The White House’s stimulus proposal includes a second stimulus check with half the money of the original check — up to $600 for individuals, and up to $1,200 for couples. This would be another one-time payment, based on income from Americans’ last tax filing. While the cut is not overwhelmingly popular, the bipartisan proposal did not include a stimulus check at all, instead focusing on targeted programs for those hit hardest by this recession.

Unemployment

The greatest omission from the White House’s stimulus proposal is unemployment, which is slashed by nearly three quarters here. The bipartisan plan would offer federal unemployment enhancements worth $300 per week added onto state unemployment programs, much like the $600 per week offered earlier in the pandemic. Critics question why the Trump administration is prioritizing a smaller round of stimulus checks over unemployment aid.

The White House’s proposal would only extend some federal unemployment programs set to expire at the end of 2020, with no direct enhancement. It allocates $40 billion for unemployment in total, where the bipartisan bill allocates $180 billion.

Liability Shields

The White House’s offer also includes strong language about COVID-19 liability shields, protecting businesses, schools and hospitals from lawsuits for their handling of pandemic safety. Republicans have been focused on these programs since May, while Democrats have raised concerns about how these shields might put workers, students and civilians in danger with no recourse except to withdraw from public life.

Paycheck Protection Program

The offer would revive the controversial Paycheck Protection Program (PPP,) which was meant to subsidize small businesses through the pandemic and allow them to continue paying employees during stay-at-home orders. Early on, the flexible eligibility rules for this program allowed some large businesses to take advantage of it, drawing funding away from the small businesses it was intended for. It is not clear whether the White House has revised the program sufficiently to prevent exploitation in this new proposal.

State & Local Government Funding

There is bipartisan support for giving emergency funds to state and local governments, which have been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. The White House’s proposal includes money for this as well, though the amount differs from the bipartisan bill. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Tuesday: “What I recommend is we set aside liability, and set aside state and local, and pass those things that we agree on, knowing full well we’ll be back at this after the first of the year.”

Student Loans

Another major omission from the White House bill is student loan relief. The original CARES Act halted payments on federal student loans back in March, and that moratorium has now extended through the end of April of 2021. However, critics like Forbes‘ Adam S. Minsky argue that it should go longer to reflect the current timeline of the pandemic, and that more permanent forgiveness should be considered. While President-elect Joe Biden is considering such forgiveness programs when he takes office, some are still disheartened to see the issue left out of this bill altogether.

Democrat Responses

Democrats in the U.S. Congress have been generally critical of the White House’s new stimulus proposal, arguing that it is distracting from the progress on the bipartisan bill in the works. Pelosi and Schumer issued a joint statement calling the unemployment cuts “unacceptable,” and adding: “The president’s proposal must not be allowed to obstruct the bipartisan congressional talks that are underway.”

Both lawmakers also criticized McConnell for his part in these negotiations, with Pelosi saying: “He’s sabotaging good-faith bipartisan negotiations because his partisan ideological effort is not getting a good reception.” Schumer said: “Leader McConnell’s efforts to undermine good-faith, bipartisan negotiations are appalling.”

Others have condemned the White House’s proposal for its specific differences from the bipartisan bill. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said that the Republicans’ proposed liability shields are “a get-out-of-jail-free card to companies that put the lives of their workers and customers at risk.”

Congress has until the end of this week to pass a spending bill, leaving little time to work on stimulus as well. If something passes by the end of the year, that will be a victory in itself, as many analysts see it.