OnPolitics: Congress can't agree on how to help you

Tuesday, September 8

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, arrive to watch the flag-draped casket of the late Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., as is carried by a joint services military honor guard from Capitol Hill on Wednesday.

OnPolitics: Is a new round of COVID relief still far away?

Senate Republicans announced a measure that doesn't include many top priorities for Democrats - who passed a massive $3 trillion bill in May.

Senate Republicans on Tuesday unveiled a coronavirus relief plan far smaller than what lawmakers on both sides of the aisle spent weeks arguing over. It's a bill that even Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says isn't perfect.

The proposal faces an uphill battle to becoming law as Democrats instantly vowed to block what they called a political ploy to help endangered Republicans in November and not meet the needs of American families and businesses.

What does it include?

•	A $300 bolster to weekly unemployment benefits - reduced from a $600 boost that expired in July - that will run through Dec. 27. The amount is what President Trump promised the federal government would provide out-of-work Americans in an executive order last month.
•	Liability protections for businesses, hospitals, churches and schools against some COVID-related personal injury claims.
•	A second round of loans under the Paycheck Protection Program for small businesses. Businesses will have to have less than 300 employees and show at least a 35% gross revenue reduction compared with last year.
•	A $10 billion loan given to the Postal Service would be forgiven and thus turned into a grant. The USPS would be required to offer a report to Congress on how the virus has increased its expenses, an issue that has drawn scrutiny.
•	Offers $105 billion through an Education Stabilization Fund for schools as students go back to classes across the country. The bill also includes a two-year tax credit for private schools and other scholarship-granting organizations.

The estimated $300-billion proposal is dubbed the Delivering Immediate Relief to America's Families, Schools and Small Businesses Act.

What else is going on?

•	What to know about Tuesday's primaries
•	Trump requested a White House reporter remove his mask. He didn't.
•	House committee to investigate Postmaster General DeJoy
•	Cohen calls Trump 'a con man' while Sarah Sanders praises the president
•	Anita Hill backs Biden despite his 'mistakes'
•	Trump slams Biden over vaccine, defends support for military