Lawmakers have been especially busy this year navigating a presidential impeachment trial, a global pandemic and an unending general election season. But before the 116th Congress leaves for its holiday recess in two weeks, three bills still need immediate attention: bipartisan compromise for additional coronavirus relief, a bill to fund the U.S. government and a large defense spending package.
Here’s why the bills matter and what negotiations between lawmakers are happening:
Coronavirus aid
Lawmakers have agreed for months that another coronavirus bill is needed to help Americans survive the financial fallout of pandemic, but after an initial $2 trillion passed in March, they have disagreed on how much more to spend.
Last week, a bipartisan group of senators and House members of the Problem Solvers Caucus proposed a compromise with their $908 billion relief plan. The latest proposal comes after the House passed a $3 trillion pandemic aid package — the HEROES Act — in May and a trimmed $2 trillion version of the bill in October. Each met resistance in the Senate, where Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has insisted on $500 billion in “targeted” aid.
According to The Associated Press, “the (bipartisan) proposal is expected to include the $300 per week in bonus federal unemployment payments, providing relief just as emergency aid payments at regular benefit levels are set to expire at year’s end. It would extend a freeze on evictions for people who cannot pay their rent and reauthorize the Paycheck Protection Program to give a second round of subsidies to businesses struggling through the pandemic.”
Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney told the Deseret New on Friday he was confident that Congress would find a compromise before the holiday recess.
“I think it would send a terrible message if we’re home celebrating Christmas and people’s unemployment has run out and businesses are being closed,” Romney said.
Absent from the bill is a second round of $1,200 stimulus checks, which has been a point of friction for some Democrats who say they wouldn’t vote for new legislation without the individual stimulus, the AP reported.
President-elect Joe Biden supports additional stimulus checks, but has encouraged the immediate compromise with the expectation, AP reported, to revisit additional aid after he takes office and the 117th Congress convenes its first session.
Federal government funding
Congress is also weighting an option of adding economic stimulus money to a federal government funding bill that is still being negotiated on a tight deadline in Congress.
Current legislation that funds the government only lasts through Friday, meaning Congress will need to pass a quick solution by week’s end to keep the proverbial lights on in federal government.
A new bill funding the federal government for another year — as hoped for by congressional leaders — doesn’t appear to be ready to pass Congress this week, but lawmakers are poised to punt the problem into next week with a one-week continuing resolution, The Wall Street Journal reported.
A short-term spending bill gives Congress another week to figure out the details on how to combine the large, omnibus spending package with a coronavirus relief package, something both House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and McConnell said they’d like to see happen
According to CBS News, the House will vote on a continuing resolution Wednesday.
“Negotiators reached a deal on top-line figures for the 12 government funding bills late last month, and appropriators have kicked unresolved issues up to the leadership level,” The Hill reported about Congress’ progress with the omnibus spending bill.
The Wall Street Journal reported that “Republicans and Democrats have been hashing out differences over funding for construction of the wall along the border with Mexico, detention beds for immigrants and environmental provisions, among other matters.”
Defense spending
Where lawmakers do agree is next year’s defense budget.
On Tuesday, the House will vote on the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, the annual defense spending bill that funds the Department of Defense and other similar programs, after House and Senate lawmakers reached a compromise last week.
The sticker price is $740.5 billion, Stars and Stripes reported.
“Just as Congress has done for the last 59 years in a row, we have reached a bipartisan, bicameral agreement on the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2021. This conference agreement fulfills our most important constitutional duty: to provide for the security of this nation and the men and women who lay their lives on the line to defend it,” said Chairman Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., and ranking member Jack Reed, D-R.I., of the Senate Armed Services Committee in a joint statement Thursday.
But the comprise package may be at odds with President Donald Trump, who has threatened to veto the bill — which includes a pay raise for military members — if his related and unrelated legislative demands are not met.
Trump wants the bill to include a repeal of Section 230 — a law that provides some liability protections to social media and other internet companies — which it doesn’t. He also said this past summer that he would veto a defense spending bill that forced the Army to rename bases named after Confederate leaders, which it does, Politico reported.
Imhoffe said Friday he agrees with the president “on the need for a full repeal of Section 230,” but since bipartisan lawmakers disagree, “it is impossible to add a repeal of Section 230 to the defense authorization bill.”
“The only other option would mean that for the first time in 60 years, we would not have an NDAA. Without an NDAA, our troops would not get flight pay. They wouldn’t get hazard pay or any other specialty pay that requires annual authorization for our service members overseas get what they need,” Inhofe said in a statement.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., predicted that the House would have the two-thirds vote needed to override a presidential veto, Politico reported.
According to Stars and Stripes, the bill also delays a drawdown in Afghanistan until the impacts of a troop withdraw are studied and it provides a 3% pay raise for services members and increases the monthly hazard duty stipend from $250 to $275.
The bill also requires the Defense Department to “maintain a 30-day supply of personal protective equipment sufficient for all active-duty and Reserve component service members” and for “the Pentagon to have the ability to facilitate rapid research and develop vaccines in the case of a future pandemic,” Stars and Stripes reported.