Senators are still in the nation’s Capitol, as Congress works to approve funding for the long-awaited coronavirus relief package by Sunday afternoon.
Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., hit the Senate floor Saturday with a list of grievances on the $900 billion package – the latest hold-up in Congress passing the bill.
“We’ve never asked the Fed to engage in fiscal policy or social policy, or to allocate credit based on political standing,” Toomey said.
WHERE DOES CORONAVIRUS RELIEF STAND IN CONGRESS?
Toomey has requested that language be added to the latest bill that would ensure termination of three federal lending programs established in March to help credit markets function during massive U.S. economic shutdowns.
The CARES Act created a corporate bond credit facility, along with municipal and mainstream lending programs, that were originally intended to expire Dec. 31, but that Democrats want extended.
Toomey argued Saturday that extending the programs would be superfluous because they went underutilized after private credit markets quickly resumed normal functions. He added that the corporate credit facility was never used at all.
But Democrats have said Toomey’s language, which would prevent the credit lending programs from being restarted or duplicated “without congressional consent,” would undermine the Federal Reserve’s emergency lending authority.
The Pennsylvania senator said his legislation was not an attempt to curtail the Biden administration, but rather a preventative measure.
“It would completely politicize the Fed, it would be the end of the independence of the Fed,” Toomey said from the Senate floor Saturday.
He argued that extending the emergency spending authority would allow the Federal Reserve to become an extension of the administration, and to implement fiscal policies through lending stipulations, such as climate policy-based conditions.
“Fiscal and social policy is the rightful realm of the people who are accountable to the American people and that’s us, that’s Congress,” he added.
But Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) pushed back, calling them 11th hour demands, “the only significant hurdle to completing an agreement, and saying that Republicans need to make a decision.”
“What he’s proposing is not about COVID or helping the American people,” Schumer said from the floor Saturday. “It’s about tying the hands of “the next Treasury secretary and the next Fed chairman in a true emergency.
“Everybody needs to make a decision about whether we’re going to pass this much-needed relief or not. And about 11th hour demands and whether they are worth holding up the entire bill,” he added.
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House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told Congress, after the House and Senate approved another stopgap funding bill Friday, to expect a vote sometime after 1 p.m. Sunday — giving them another two-day extension to prevent a government shutdown.
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