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Congress is putting the finishing touches on the $2 trillion-plus coronavirus economic stimulus bill and preparing to leave Washington to hunker down at home, but if history is any guide, they’ll need to fix the legislation when they get back.
Whether the next coronavirus bill will be a list of fixes to various glitches – “technical corrections” in Congress-speak – or another bill with new programs and money to deal with the virus and its effects or some combination of the two is unclear — but another bill seems inevitable.
The Senate has already passed the measure to provide relief to Americans and businesses hurt by the shutdown of of the economy to slow the coronavirus pandemic. The House is expected to vote on Friday.
“I am sure there will be a need for some technical corrections. My experience has been that any bill of this magnitude put together as quickly as this one was will inevitably have drafting and citation errors,” said Bill Hoagland, senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center and a former long-time Republican budget staffer.
“Technical corrections” are not unusual for large bills or for ones passed quickly. With the third coronavirus bill clocking in at 880 pages, dealing with complex provisions of the tax code and setting up huge new programs to backstop affected industries and small businesses, some snafus are likely.
But what’s a mere “correction” and an actual policy choice can be in the eye of the beholder which means the difference between a bill to fix typos and a Phase 4 coronavirus bill may be minimal.
On Wednesday, a group of Republican senators threatened to derail quick consideration of the latest bill because of a provision that added $600 to jobless benefit checks which the senators said could provide an incentive to not look for work for some laid off employees.
“If this is not a drafting error, then it’s the worst idea I’ve seen in a long time and I’ve seen a lot given the fact we’re in Washington,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). Democrats insisted the provision was put in place with the consent of Republican negotiators and was aimed at giving low-income workers a bigger cushion during a recession caused by the virus.
Those corrections versus policy disagreements would be hard to avoid if lawmakers tried to do later legislation just to deal with drafting mistakes, Hoagland said.
“Starting a purely technical fix bill would have difficulty not morphing into policy issues left undone or undone to the satisfaction of some in the current bill,” he said.
Ironically, the latest coronavirus bill did include one long-sought tax technical correction: the so-called retail glitch which prevented some businesses from immediately writing off expenses to improve their properties. The glitch was introduced in its own massive bill, the GOP-backed $1.5 trillion tax overhaul enacted in 2017.
There is already an expectation by lawmakers, and among Democrats even eagerness, for a Phase 4 bill.
What it would include is unclear, though House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) listed more financial aid to states, higher direct payments to individuals, a fix for troubled pension plans and more money for the District of Columbia to treat it similarly to states during a televised interview Thursday.
“State and local government is going to need much, much more infusion of cash,” she said. The pension fix was supported by President Trump Senate but Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told her “go do it in the next bill,” she said.
Both of those items are likely to give Republicans heartburn, as they have historically been unpopular with them. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told reporters Thursday he wanted to take a cautious approach to a Phase 4 bill.
“Now you have more than $2 trillion going into the economy to the areas that we know are needed and you’re sitting here talking about another bill?” he said.
“If something is needed in the future, let’s make that decision. But let’s not make that decision without allowing these bills to be put into the economy,” McCarthy said.
•Jonathan Nicholson is a Washington-based journalist who has covered economic and fiscal policy for more than 20 years.
