House-passed $3T coronavirus relief bill includes $8.7B for Nevada

WASHINGTON — House Democrats passed a sweeping $3 trillion coronavirus relief bill Friday that Republicans declared to be dead-on-arrival in the Senate and facing a presidential veto.

Democrats drummed up support for their bill from states, cities and tribal governments which would see $1 trillion in new spending to help offset budget shortfalls and deficits caused by the virus.

Nevada and cities of all sizes in the state would receive $8.7 billion in aid if the package were approved by the House and Senate and signed into law, said Rep. Steven Horsford, D-Nev., a member of the House Ways and Means Committee.

“They are on the front lines of this pandemic, this crisis,” Horsford said of the need to get funds to states and local governments.

Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., said “health care workers, police officers and teachers in Clark County are in danger of losing their jobs without this relief.”

But support for the bill fell largely along party lines, and passed on a 208-199 vote. The Nevada congressional delegation voted with their respective party leaders.

Republicans in the White House, Senate and House dismissed the legislation as a “messaging bill” that had no chance of becoming law, although many of the items were included in previous packages that passed with bipartisan majorities and signed into law by President Donald Trump.

Trump, at the White House, dismissed the House bill and said another coronavirus measure would be assembled, although it would contain liability protections for businesses. He also favors a payroll tax cut, a measure opposed by Democrats.

Under the House bill, unemployment payments of an additional $600 per week would be extended until January.

It would also include another round of more generous individual checks of up to $6,000 per family to help millions of people who have suffered since the economy was shuttered due to the pandemic.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said providing testing, treatment and isolation, and helping families, was instrumental in reopening the economy safely while putting people back to work.

Pelosi was backed by Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell who urged Congress to spend while interest rates were low to help the economy rebound.

But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has pronounced the House Democrats’ dead in the upper chamber, where Republicans plan to move more cautiously to craft another relief bill after passing others that have added more than $3 trillion to the national debt.

“It’s a Democratic wish list,” McConnell said of the House legislation. “This thing even fails as a messaging bill.”

McConnell said the House bill is chock full of pet projects on solar energy, diversity studies on the marijuana industry, and assistance for mail-in voting programs in the states.

Nevada alone would receive about $40 million for election programs in the House bill, according to Horsford.

Republican aides said McConnell was not expected to bring up the bill next week, before the Senate takes a Memorial Day recess.

Contact Gary Martin at gmartin@reviewjournal.com or 202-662-7390. Follow @garymartindc on Twitter.