The White House and Senate leaders have finally reached an agreement in the form of a $2-trillion stimulus package for the U.S. economy to help tackle the damage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“At last, we have a deal. After days of intense discussions, the Senate has reached a bipartisan agreement on a historic relief package for this pandemic,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on the Senate floor Wednesday morning.
“It will rush new resources onto the front lines of our nation’s health care fight. And it will inject trillions of dollars of cash into the economy as fast as possible to help Americans workers, families, small businesses and industries make it through this disruption and emerge on the other side ready to soar.”
We have a bipartisan agreement to address this public health and economic crisis
It is not a moment of celebration but one of necessity
We fought to send much-needed resources to fight coronavirus and to put people and workers first
The agreement now reflects those priorities pic.twitter.com/yORkeCoMsl
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) March 25, 2020
Senate Democrats had rejected two proposals prior to striking the deal. The news should bring some relief to Americans who are at home, deeply concerned about the current state of the economy.
“This is not a moment of celebration, but one of necessity,” Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer said. “To all Americans I say, ‘Help is on the way.'”
The deal eclipses the $800 billion stimulus bill passed in 2008 during the financial crisis and comes just hours after President Donald Trump said that he is eager to get Americans back to work to avoid “thousands” of suicides.
“We have to put the country to work,” he said on Fox News. “You are going to lose a number of people to the flu, but you are going to lose more people by putting the country in a massive recession or depression. You are going to lose people. You are going to have suicides by the thousands,” he continued. “You can’t just come in and say, ‘Let’s close up the United States of America.'”
See the clip below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7dz2XXAlbw
