House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on Thursday pumped the brakes on talk of a fourth or even fifth legislative package from Capitol Hill in response to the expanding coronavirus outbreak.
He predicted that the House would soon pass a $2 trillion-plus financial rescue package that cleared the Senate Wednesday evening and said it would then be time to let the money go to work.
“I’d take a deep breath,” the California Republican said on “Fox & Friends” when asked about more rounds of legislative action. “Let’s let this work…we don’t need to be crafting another bill right now. Let’s let these $2 trillion go to work for us, plus the $8 billion ahead of time and the billions of dollars that we just passed on the second bill.”
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The House is expected to take up the $2.2 trillion rescue package on Friday morning.
Before the “phase three” legislation, Congress had also cleared an $8.3 billion bill to boost federal health funding and a $105 billion bill to try to expand free COVID-19 testing and bolster some safety net programs.
The new $2.2 trillion package provides for one-time direct payments of $1,200 for many Americans, plus about $367 billion to help small businesses make payroll, $500 billion in loans for distressed corporations, and more money for hospitals, states, and localities.
White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said this week that factoring in some $4 trillion of lending authority for the Federal Reserve, the total stimulus could add up to about $6 trillion, or 30% of GDP.
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