Senate Fails to Advance Scaled-back COVID-19 Stimulus Bill

A so-called “skinny” COVID-19 stimulus bill put forward by Senate Republicans was voted down Sept. 10 in the U.S. Senate, leaving the negotiations in limbo.

In a virtual party-line 52-47 vote, with Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) joining Democrats, the “Delivering Immediate Relief to America’s Families, Schools and Small Businesses Act” failed to get the 60 votes necessary in the Senate to proceed to consideration. No Democrat voted in favor of the bill.

With an estimated cost of between $500 billion to $700 billion, the targeted legislation would provide $300 per week in additional federal unemployment benefits, provide an additional $258 billion for the Paycheck Protection Program (including a second round of targeted relief for small businesses), extend liability protection from Coronavirus lawsuits and provide additional funding for the postal service, and vaccines and testing. 

The slimmed-down Senate bill does not include additional stimulus payments for individuals and families, nor does it include broader retirement relief provisions, such as legislative fixes to the CARES Act, funding relief for DC and DB plans, or additional relief from required minimum distributions among the items that have been proposed previously. 

At this point, there are no signs of a break in the stalemate, with each side blaming the other for the impasse. There’s also increasing doubt that an agreement will be reached before the November elections. 

The start of the federal government’s fiscal year on October 1 was viewed as the next big deadline that would help drive an agreement, but that appears less likely with the deadline just over two weeks away and lawmakers set to recess shortly after that in early October. It’s still possible that a broader agreement could be reached in a lame-duck session. 

As it has been for the last several weeks, the big holdup continues to be how much relief should be provided from a dollar standpoint. The House Democrats have come down to about $2.2 billion from the $3.2 trillion price tag of the HEROES Act. The Republicans continue to stick with $1 trillion as their top figure, similar to what was included in the HEALS Act legislative package that Senate leaders unveiled in July. Relief for state and local governments also continues to be a key sticking point.