An additional coronavirus-relief package has already been approved by both the Senate and President Trump. Now, it’s up to the House of Representatives to solidify the bill that will go towards small businesses, hospitals, and test expansion.
Of the $484 billion, $310 billion would be used for keeping employees on small company payrolls. The bill would also allocate $60 billion to small lenders, $75 billion to hospital relief, and $25 billion to COVID-19 test expansion.
Outside of the relief bill, the House will also be voting on establishing a committee that would have broad oversight and investigative authority to keep tabs on how the federal aid money is used.
Mississippi Congressman Trent Kelly utmostly agrees with the relief package but does not believe the creation of a new committee is useful as there is already a Committee on Oversight and Reform in place.
“One [bill] is good for America, and one [bill] is another attempt to restructure the government to fit our partisan needs of the Speaker of the House,” Kelly said. “We already have an oversight committee.”
Kelly is not the only GOP member from Mississippi in disagreement with Nancy Pelosi as the Speaker of the House was adamant about the implementation of proxy voting for members of the House.
“As we are now beginning to see the country reopen, we think that we should not have proxy voting—we need to be here [in D.C.],” Congressman Michael Guest said. “If we were going to move to some sort of remote voting, that should have been done early on.”
After speaking with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy yesterday, Pelosi backed away from the idea of voting by proxy and, instead, will have her sights set on creating the new oversight committee.
The House will vote this afternoon and should wrap up around 5 p.m. ET.
