“But these matters could have been settled long ago.”Emboldened in the aftermath of the November election, a bipartisan group of moderates brokered their own $748 billion compromise, pressuring congressional leaders to redouble their efforts to find a deal. Senator Patrick J. Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania, mounted a last-minute push to ensure that those programs would end and prevent the Fed and Treasury Department from setting up any similar one in the future. Democrats balked, arguing that the move would deprive the Fed of critical tools for bolstering the economy, and tie Mr. Biden’s hands as he confronts a daunting public health and economic crisis. Shortly before midnight Saturday, in talks with Mr. Schumer, Mr. Toomey agreed to narrow his language considerably, to a provision that would bar only emergency lending programs that were more or less exact copycats of the ones newly employed in 2020. Democrats also secured an extension for state and local governments to spend money allocated under the March stimulus law, ahead of a Dec. 31 deadline.

Source: New York Times December 20, 2020 22:55 UTC