Congress is giving itself another week to work out a 2021 budget along with a long-delayed package of coronavirus emergency relief aid as disagreement continues over direct aid to state and local governments.
Lawmakers in the House and Senate have agreed to postpone a Dec. 11 deadline for government funding until Dec. 18 when the current Congress is expected to adjourn.
“It’s a sign that Congress is thinking of the appropriations bill and the emergency package together, which we think is a good sign,” said Mike Wallace, program director for community and economic development at the National League of Cities. “They definitely need to pass the appropriations and once they do that, they will probably be ready to leave for the holidays.”
Mark Ritacco, director of government affairs for the National Association of Counties, said one week delay will allow time to develop details on how the state and local aid will be delivered.
A bipartisan group of eight senators on Wednesday released further details of their $908 billion framework for emergency aid. In it, they stuck by their plan to provide $160 billion of emergency federal aid to state and local governments, despite a suggestion by the Senate Republican Majority Leader that it be postponed until early next year.
The package includes $82 billion for education, $25 billion for rental assistance, $3.42 billion for direct grants for state and local governments for vaccine tracking systems, and data modernization, $2.58 billion for vaccine distribution and infrastructure, $7 billion for state and local governments to do testing and tracing.
It also increases by 15% over four months the individual monthly Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and has $6.25 billion for state broadband deployment and broadband connectivity grants.
“It’s got a lot of specifics for a lot of things, but no specifics for state and local, except for an overall dollar figure,” Ritacco said. NACo wants the federal aid to include direct, flexible funding to counties of all sizes.
“The lack of specificity leads us to believe that more work needs to be done,” Ritacco said.
Wallace from the NLC said his organization is working with the bipartisan group of senators and House lawmakers who are calling themselves the “908 coalition.” The NLC also has sent information to McConnell to substantiate the need by local governments for additional federal aid.
The White House also is proposing $160 billion of direct aid to state and local governments as part of a $916 billion package released by Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin.
Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has signed off on the White House proposal but offered a compromise Tuesday under which liability protections sought by Republicans could be dropped from the negotiations along with state and local aid because they are the two most contentious issues.
"Republicans see no need to send huge sums of money to state and local governments whose tax revenues have gone up,” McConnell said Wednesday during a Senate floor speech. “Gone up. Negotiating 101 suggests we set those two controversial pieces aside and plow ahead with a huge pile of things that we agree on.”
McConnell’s suggestion, however, was quickly rejected Tuesday by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
“While it is progress that Leader McConnell has signed off on a $916 billion offer that is based off of the bipartisan framework, the president’s proposal must not be allowed to obstruct the bipartisan congressional talks that are underway,” Pelosi and Schumer said in a joint statement. “Members of the House and Senate have been engaged in good-faith negotiations and continue to make progress. The bipartisan talks are the best hope for a bipartisan solution.”
State and local funding have bipartisan support across the nation while liability protection does not have bipartisan, Ritacco said.
The NACo spokesman said he was glad that the White House is now publicly supporting $160 billion for state and local governments in a demonstration that it does have bipartisan support.
The additional expense of battling the pandemic is growing for local governments as the number of cases is once again on the rise. “The x-factor is the increase in cases,” Ritacco said. “It’s almost like estimating your casualties in a battle as the bullets are flying by.”
Wallace of the NLC said that local governments are being forced to make additional expenditures because of the rising COVID-19 caseloads despite the continued uncertainty of getting federal aid.
“This is probably the furthest along we’ve gotten in terms of negotiations, so it would be a shame to see Congress let it slip through their fingers when we are so close to a breakthrough,” Wallace said.
The NLC is willing to work with Treasury officials on how the $160 billion will be distributed if Congress is unable to work out all the details in advance of a passage, he added.
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who has been a leader among the bipartisan group of senators that have proposed the $908 billion package, told CNN Wednesday morning that it’s designed as “strictly an emergency relief” that will serve as a “down payment” for President-elect Joe Biden’s incoming administration.
“He becomes our president, he basically steps in there, he evaluates the situation, he puts something up if we need more to keep the economy from falling apart,” Manchin said. “Vaccines coming on, we know that. People are not going to make it from this time forward from December if this all goes for naught until February or March before we can get another package out. They are not going to make it.”
