McCarthy touts small business aid included in $2.2 trillion stimulus package

close

Video

Rep. McCarthy: The relief bill makes sure small business can keep people employed

COVID-19 relief package includes payments to Americans, aid to hospitals, and loans, grants for small businesses; House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy joins ‘Sunday Morning Futures.’

Get all the latest news on coronavirus and more delivered daily to your inbox. Sign up here.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., touted on Sunday the benefits that small businesses will receive under the massive stimulus bill passed by Congress and signed by President Trump last week.

“For the small business owner, we want to make sure we're keeping people employed,” McCarthy said during an interview on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.” “And if you are a small business, 500 employees to just a gig worker yourself, you get a guaranteed loan from the government for two and a half times your payroll if you use that money to pay your employees.”

McCarthy added: “If you already laid them off, bring them back and pay them. Pay your rent, pay your utilities. And that is forgiven…. This is critical to get us through the next two months and get this economy coming back.”

CORONAVIRUS IN THE US: STATE-BY-STATE BREAKDOWN

After intense negotiations between Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Democratic leaders in the Senate, the upper chamber of Congress passed the $2.2 trillion coronavirus stimulus compromise package. The bill was quickly pushed through the House as lawmakers steamrolled an effort by a lone GOP representative to delay it and soon after signed by the president.

The package would provide one-time direct payments to Americans of $1,200 per adult making up to $75,000 a year, and $2,400 to married couples making up to $150,000, with $500 payments per child. After a $75,000 threshold for individuals, the benefit would be reduced by $5 for each $100 the taxpayer makes. A similar $150,000 threshold applies to couples, and a $112,500 threshold for heads of households.

Video

The final package also offers $349 billion in loans to small businesses -- and money spent on rent, payroll and utilities becomes grants that don't need to be paid back. Many hotels would qualify as small businesses under the plan.

The stimulus plan passed last week is the third one Congress has pushed through since the coronavirus pandemic began to take its toll on the American economy and lawmakers are not ruling out the possibility of another package if the pocketbooks of companies and everyday Americans continue to take a beating.

McCarthy, however, says he wants to see how the $2.2 trillion package works out before making any moves for another stimulus plan.

CLICK HERE FOR FULL CORONAVIRUS COVERAGE

“Before we go to start drafting the fourth package, I'd like these three packages we just put out,” he said. “Remember, it's more than $2 trillion, the largest we've ever seen to take care and get this economy moving.”

Video

The House Minority Leader added that he doesn’t want to see a fourth stimulus package put together just so House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and other Democrats can get the items they wanted included that were struck from the other bills.

“What concerns me is when I listen to Nancy Pelosi talk about a fourth package now, it's because she did not get out of things that she really wanted to change the election law,” he said. “A Green New Deal. Expand it. Make us pay for Planned Parenthood and expand what you're seeing for sanctuary cities. Those are the things why this bill was held up for a week. But those are the things that we stopped.”