Schumer says deal in place to boost spending for small businesses, virus testing

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday that lawmakers and the White House have reached a nearly $500 billion deal to replenish a small business lending program slammed by the coronavirus and to boost spending on hospitals and testing.

“We have a deal and I believe we’ll pass it today,” Schumer, D-N.Y., said on CNN.

The legislation would come on top of a record $2 trillion coronavirus rescue bill Congress passed late last month, which included a $349 billion small business forgivable loan program aimed at keeping workers on payroll. The small business initiative ran out of money last week amid overwhelming demand as the economy craters and millions are laid off.

However, a Senate GOP leadership aide cautioned that a deal was close but not yet completed as it awaited final sign-off from GOP leaders. The aide spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private negotiations.

A senior administration official said an agreement was “almost” done. The official also spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the talks.

Officials on both sides said the goal was still to pass the agreement at a 4 p.m. Senate session on Tuesday, although it was not certain whether that could be achieved. If the Senate does pass the bill on Tuesday, the House would probably take it up on Thursday.

Schumer said that he, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows were on the phone “well past midnight” and “we came to an agreement on just about every issue.”

“They’re still dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s but every major issue was resolved by the four of us last night,” Schumer said.

The more than $470 billion deal had been on the verge of completion for several days, but Democrats and Trump administration officials have been wrangling over final details including the design of a new $25 billion coronavirus testing program. Democrats were pushing for a national approach as Republicans sought more flexibility for states.

Schumer said that the White House had agreed to a “national strategy” and that it would be in the bill. What it would look like was not immediately clear. Officials involved said final language was still in the works to balance GOP demands for states to set their own testing standards with Democrats’ push for a national standard.

The deal will also boost spending on hospitals by $75 billion.

In the course of negotiations, funding for the small business Paycheck Protection Program grew to over $320 billion from an initial White House ask of $251 billion.

The program allows companies with fewer than 500 employees to obtain loans from banks to mostly cover payroll costs. If the firms retain employees and meet other requirements, the loans will be forgiven, paid off by taxpayers. There has been a surge in applications for these loans, and the first $349 billion was disbursed in less than two weeks when 1.6 million companies secured funding. But many others were unable to obtain loans, and the White House and congressional Republicans faced pressure to refine the program after it became known that some larger hotels and restaurant chains were able to tap the funds.

Schumer said that some $125 billion in the new money will go exclusively to “unbanked” rural and minority areas.

The deal also includes $60 billion in emergency loans and grants for a separate Small Business Administration program that is also out of money.

Democrats failed to convince Republicans to allocate more money for states and localities. But Schumer said they’d gotten a commitment from the White House that cities and states could use $150 billion allocated in the earlier $2 trillion Cares Act to offset some of the lost revenue in their budgets. That money was initially designed to deal with each state’s coronavirus response.

If this agreement is passed, it will be the fourth coronavirus-related bill pushed into law in the past two months, totaling close to $3 trillion in spending. Lawmakers have scrambled to deal with the economic wreckage caused by the pandemic, which has led more than 22 million Americans to file for unemployment benefits and many businesses to close. As soon as they finish this bill, Congress intends to begin negotiating another piece of legislation, which Democrats hope will include more money for cities and states, something President Donald Trump has said he supports.

The $25 billion for testing and contact tracing in the pending legislation would include: $11 billion for states; $1 billion for the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control; $1.8 billion for the National Institutes of Health; $1 billion for the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority; $1 billion for testing the uninsured; $22 million for the Food and Drug Administration; and $825 million for Community Health Centers, rural health centers and others, according to two officials involved in the talks who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details.