In the News

U.S. Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., one of the authors of the $2.2 trillion coronavirus stimulus package passed and signed into law Friday, doesn’t like thinking of it as a stimulus bill.

Instead, the Springfield Democrat described it during an interview with reporters Saturday as a relief and stabilization bill — a confidence boost in the face of what he now thinks of as an “economic contagion.”

He spoke just days after the federal government said 147,000 Massachusetts workers filed for unemployment claims in the first week of disruptions from the virus. That’s 4% of the state’s work force and expected to get worse.

Neal also said he expects this legislation passed Friday — the third new law passed in response to the coronavirus pandemic — will be followed by a fourth and possibly a fifth bill. Neal serves as chairman of the powerful House Committee on Ways and Means, the House’s top tax-writing body with oversight over the Internal Revenue Service and other agencies.

Friday’s bill — the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act — provides government payments of up to $1,200 to most Americans, increases jobless benefits extending unemployment and adding additional $600 per week in unemployment benefits while extending those benefits to freelancers and the self-employed like barbers and consultants and part-timers in the new “gig” economy.

The new package also includes $454 billion in guaranteed subsidized loans to larger industries and $150 billion for the nation's health care system.

"The people on the front lines are the major concerns right now," Neal said.

The bill also expands the Community Development Block Grant Program to aid municipal governments across the country. Springfield Mayor Domenic J. Sarno is one of the mayors calling for more CDBG funding.

Neal was asked what might be in the next rounds of stabilization and recovery bills.

“If I’m hunching, I would say there is another stimulus check going forward,” Neal said. “My proposal would be to expand the child and the earned income tax credit. An an infrastructure program. I think that’s what we really need to get the country back moving.”

He said question of how to pay for the bill must wait until budget discussions later in the year.

“This would be far worse if we didn’t get his money into the hands of people who need it right now. That was the consideration,” Neal said.

Neal stressed that this isn't not spending on military action nor is it a response to a human-made economic crisis like the financial collapse of 2008 when sophisticated debt instruments failed and took the economy with them.

He defended safeguards in the bill, like oversight and new inspector general who will make sure $500 billion in discretionary business bailout funds entrusted to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchen is spent properly on companies that will create and retain jobs.

And he said despite a weeklong debate, Democrats and Republicans ended up working together on the final package. Neal cited expansion of family medical leave programs Democrats had long sought.

"We had some major breakthroughs," he said.

Neal addressed concerns about how people will get their direct payments. He said the Social Security Administration and the IRS will do that work. He said low-income Americans who aren’t necessarily in those databases should get money as well, pointing to states like Michigan who will use Medicare files to identify recipients.

Neal also pointed out that the $2.2 trillion he's talking about is likely smaller than the stimulus Chairman Jerome Powell and the Federal Reserve Board is putting into the economy through monetary policy. He said the best estimates are that the Fed's purchase of debt and lowering of interest rates to free up capital man $2 trillion to $3 trillion.

Neal was uninterested Saturday in talking about making big structural changes to the U.S. health care system. When asked, he pointed out that European countries where the national government takes a much larger role in health care are seeing the same stresses the United States.

But he said some change must happen here so that more people have insurance and regular access to care.

“It’s a reminder that the emergency room is not the best way to get health care,” Neal said.