Republicans pushing for more money for Payroll Protection Program loans don't want to make any changes in the CARES Act, but they do want more money to shore up an offering that is clearly succeeding, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Thursday.
"Last week, we asked for another $250 billion, because we had more than 1.6 million loans," the California Republican said on CNBC's "Squawk Box." "That's 1.6 million small businesses who got money."
Funding for the $349 billion federal relief program meant to help U.S. small businesses survive the coronavirus outbreak ran out Thursday, while many more businesses remain still waiting to get the money that would help them keep their employees and to keep companies afloat.
However, Democrats, led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, are holding the extra money back in a push for a larger bill with more spending, and McCarthy said he doesn't understand why that is happening.
"This is about keeping people employed," McCarthy said. "This is about keeping liquidity for the next couple of months as we continue to move through our current crisis."
The CARES Act was delayed because of a push from Democrats to include provisions for the Green New Deal, Planned Parenthood, changing election laws for November and more, said McCarthy, adding that there is time to debate all those things, but right now, people need money.
"Nancy Pelosi and I disagree philosophically on a lot of things, but I can't believe we could disagree on this," said McCarthy.
Also on Thursday, McCarthy said he backs President Donald Trump's call to suspend funding to the World Health Organization over its actions concerning the coronavirus pandemic.
"We now have somebody running the WHO who is the first non physician, someone who told us in January that (coronavirus) doesn't transmit between humans," McCarthy said of WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, a microbiologist.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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