After days of breathless negotiations between Republicans and Democrats, Donald Trump finally promulgated a historic recovery plan on Friday. The plan must try to avoid a plunge in the US economy into a lasting recession, under the impact of the pandemic of the new coronavirus.
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" We were hit by the invisible enemy and we were hit hard ," said Donald Trump during a signing ceremony in the Oval Office. Mobilizing $ 2.2 trillion, it is the largest package of measures ever adopted in the United States. The White House tenant has once again predicted a " spectacular " economic rebound in the world's largest economy, once the fight against the virus has been won.
100 billion for hospitals
Now the world's top country in the number of officially reported coronavirus cases (over 97,000), the United States recorded a new dark record on Friday, with 345 people killed in just 24 hours. And the World Health Organization fears that the country and its nearly 330 million inhabitants, may become the next epicenter of the pandemic. " Our Nation is facing an economic and health emergency of historic scale ," declared the Democratic President of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, just before the adoption of this plan by Congress.
The plan includes sending a check for $ 1,200 to many Americans, nearly $ 400 billion in assistance to small businesses, and $ 500 billion in assistance to large companies, which will be monitored by a controller general. It also allocates some $ 100 billion to hospitals, and $ 30 billion to fund research into Covid-19 vaccines and treatments. An envelope of 25 billion is also intended for airlines, which will benefit from more than 25 billion dollars in loans and loan guarantees.
While already four members of Congress suffer from Covid-19 and a dozen are in voluntary isolation, the vote for this historic plan in the House, with a Democratic majority, was marked by several twists and turns. Coming from all over the United States, many elected officials returned to Washington specifically to vote on these measures, already approved unanimously by the Senate (96-0) on the night of Wednesday to Thursday.
Towards a fourth plan?
Initially seeking to bring in only a small number of parliamentarians, Nancy Pelosi had pleaded for the rapid adoption of this text by an oral vote, when the elected officials shout "yes" or "no". This type of vote lifts 'obligation to have a minimum number of members of the Chamber in the hemicycle (or "quorum", here fixed at 216). But knowing that an elected republican, the libertarian Thomas Massie, threatened to claim this quorum and a classic vote, many parliamentarians had made the trip, many deploring the risk of contagion that made them run, indirectly, the latter.
In a rare consensus, most of the Democrats and Republicans present finally allied to reject his request, precipitating the adoption, by oral vote, of the recovery plan. In order to respect the safety distances to prevent the spread of the virus, parliamentarians were exceptionally seated even in the visitor galleries, which overlook the hemicycle.
It is the third time in less than a month that the US Congress has adopted exponentially increasing measures to fight the pandemic. On March 5, parliamentarians urgently released $ 8.3 billion to finance the fight against the coronavirus. Then on March 18, they approved a large $ 100 billion social assistance plan. A fourth plan is on the horizon, said Nancy Pelosi. " We know this cannot be our last step, " she said on Friday. " We need to do more for our medical staff " and local governments.
