Republicans Finally Reveal the Amount of Next Stimulus
Senate Republicans finally announced on Monday the amount that each individual will receive for the next stimulus package based on their proposal. They called the White House-backed proposal as HEALS Act.
Senate Republicans have unveiled the details of their next stimulus, which is expected to come out this August. They called the next stimulus bill as Health, Economic Assistance, Liability Protection, and Schools or HEALS Act, which is the government's respond to the economic and public health crisis.
The proposed HEALS Act of the Senate Republicans will include a variety of components. The proposal includes liability protection, the second round of direct payments to the Americans, and a second round of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) to help the hardest-hit small business owners, according to a published article of CNN News.
However, the Republican-led HEALS Act has cut the amount of weekly unemployment benefit from $600 to $200. The $200 weekly unemployment benefit is perhaps the most controversial aspect of the Republican-led proposal. It is the provision in the proposed HEALS Act that was backlashed by the Democrats.
The unemployment benefit under the CARES Act is set to expire at the end of this week. This means that unemployed Americans will have to depend their weekly unemployment claims based on their respective state.
Typically, a state implements a system by providing a 70 percent wage replacement for laid-off workers.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Republican senators have authored another bold framework to help the Americans just like with the CARES Act in March. He also stressed that they need the Democratic lawmakers to do their part.
McConnell asserted that Democrats should put aside partisan stonewalling and rediscover the sense of urgency so that the CARES Act will be signed into law. He also hoped that in the next two or three weeks the Senate will get the next stimulus relief bill to the house.
However, the Democrats are already unified in their $3 trillion proposals that they passed in May. They called the bill as HEROES Act that aims to extend the CARES Act. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer described the HEALS Act of Republicans as half-hearted, half-baked, too little, and too late.
Meanwhile, it was also revealed that the original plan of the Republicans to unveil the details of the next stimulus was supposed to be last week. However, it was delayed due to disputes and holdups. This dispute has mainly stemmed from the different ideas of Republican and Democratic lawmakers in coming up with the next stimulus provisions.
Meanwhile, Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine on Monday said the proposal "would allow the hardest-hit small employers, those whose revenue has declined by 50 percent or even more, to receive a second PPP forgivable loan." Collins added that "to ensure that we are targeting assistance to employers that need help the most, we limit those second loans to small businesses with 300 or fewer employees."
Republican lawmakers are also divided within their ranks as to how they would put up together a proposal. Some Republican senators were worried about putting up another trillion on top of the relief aid they enacted last March.
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