On Tuesday evening, a growing number of Capitol Hill sources assured Newsmax that the $2 trillion stimulus package to heal the economy’s wounds from the coronavirus would probably pass the Senate.
“I’m optimistic,” Sen. Pat Toomey, R.-Penn, told us as negotiations between Democratic and Republican senators on the final package were concluding.
Toomey, one of the Senate’s fiercest fiscal conservatives, is expected to support the final bill along with most of the other Republican lawmakers.
But the Pennsylvanian quickly added that the bill is much larger than initially planned over the weekend because the amount of Democratic input in crafting a final version is “staggering.”
“It dramatically raises unemployment benefits by at least $600 per worker,” he said, “and much of that money will be going to people who weren’t working before.”
The rules for unemployment compensation in the final bill, Toomey observes, “lowers eligibility tremendously.”
In past years, proposals such as the stimulus package were natural targets for conservatives. But given the fearsome nature of the coronavirus crisis, enactment of such a package — even with its $2 trillion price tag — is likely to be backed by nearly all of the Republican senators as a means of salvaging both the economy and the stock market.
“Fear does weird things to a person,” one Republican senator who requested anonymity, told Newsmax.
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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