Committee Response to Senate-Passed American Rescue Plan

For Immediate Release

The Senate today approved a COVID relief bill to continue combating the pandemic and supporting the economic recovery. The amended bill includes much-needed COVID relief, but a substantial portion of it is not well targeted relative to the needs of the economy. Below is a statement from Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget:

We’ve spent trillions to fight this virus and support the economy and shouldn’t back away from borrowing more as needed. Congress should move swiftly to make sure unemployment benefits don’t expire this month and provide the resources needed to contain and end this pandemic.

The Senate-passed bill includes numerous improvements from the House bill, such as additional guardrails around the state and local aid and a more reasonable monthly unemployment supplement.

But the bill still spends hundreds of billions of dollars on cities and states that don’t need the money, households making six figures who’ve experienced no income loss, long-standing priorities with little relation to the current crisis, and a pension bailout that clearly doesn’t belong.

And while experts across the political spectrum have raised concerns about the size of the package, it could ultimately cost twice as much. If temporary provisions in the bill were extended or made permanent, we estimate the plan would add over $4 trillion to the debt over a decade.

The American people need additional support to help end and get them through this crisis. This package should be targeted toward those goals.

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For more information, please contact John Buhl, director of media relations, at buhl@crfb.org.