Lessons From 2008 for Fighting the Pandemic of 2020

Congress is trying to engineer a new round of Covid-19 relief to end a months-long deadlock over how best to support struggling businesses, workers, families and local governments. With little time left in a lame-duck session that will end shortly before the holiday season, a bipartisan group of legislators has proposed a $908 billion package that would provide funding for some Democratic priorities, with a price tag Republicans may be able to stomach.

The proposal would provide $300 a week in supplemental unemployment insurance for out-of-work Americans for roughly four months, $288 billion for small businesses, $160 billion for state and local governments, $82 billion for education, a litigation shield for businesses, and a variety of lesser funding for transit and health-related initiatives, including nutrition and coronavirus testing, tracing and vaccination. The package is less than the $2.2 trillion House Democrats sought earlier this year, but it’s nearly double what Republicans previously said they were comfortable spending.