President Trump signed the latest Covid-19 Aid Act Sunday night, which has provided hundreds of billions in aid to individuals and small businesses.
The $ 900 billion bill reopens the paycheck protection program, expands eligible expenses for forgiveness, enables a second drawing for companies that have already received a loan, restores deductibility of PPP-issued expenses, targets lending for the smallest businesses and offers a simplified lending process for loans under $ 150,000. He also signed the $ 1.4 trillion spending bill that aims to keep the federal government funded through September. The deadline for approval was December 28th, as Congress had only approved funding by that date.
Both measures faced a potential veto threat from President Trump, who has already vetoed a $ 740.5 billion defense bill. Legislators were ready to try to override the veto. It took two-thirds of both houses to do what they have, but overriding a veto would be seen as potentially politically unpopular to Republicans.
“I’m signing this bill to restore unemployment benefits, stop evictions, provide rental support, add money for PPP, get our airline employees back to work, add significantly more money to distribute vaccines, and more,” Trump said in a statement on December 27th. He also renewed his calls for larger checks for individuals, which was the main issue he addressed last week after calling the package and associated expense bill “a shame”.
“I told Congress that I wanted far less wasteful spending and more money for the American people in the form of $ 2,000 checks per adult and $ 600 per child,” he said in the statement.
The statement went on to indicate that both the House and Senate would vote to increase payments for economic impact. Currently, the House will vote to increase checks for individuals from $ 600 on December 28th to $ 2,000. The house, which is run by Democrats who advocate higher payouts to individuals, has already tried to vote to increase aid to $ 2,000. On December 24th, the members did not unanimously pass the measure. It is not clear when the Senate could vote on it.
The president’s move to sign the relief bill comes amid reports of dizzying loss of life and mounting concerns that renewed restrictions could cause more businesses to stall. Recent data from Johns Hopkins University shows that more than 332,000 Americans have died as a result of the coronavirus. By the end of this year, around 4 million – mostly small – US companies will be permanently closed, says Ray Greenhill, president and founder of Oxxford Information Technology, an information services company in Hagaman, NY that tracks around 32 million businesses. By the third quarter of that year, around 3.4 million small businesses had closed.
That relief bill won’t bring these companies back, but it may help keep those on the sidelines now from collapsing. With the $ 138 billion left over from the Paycheck Protection Program under the Cares Act, small businesses will receive more than $ 325 billion in new aid thanks to that law.
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