WASHINGTON — On Tuesday, the U.S. Senate passed a nearly $500 billion stimulus package to boost small businesses.
They're calling it the "3.5 bill."
WUSA9 spoke with Virginia Senator Tim Kaine about what it took to get this deal, how much money it includes for coronavirus testing and how the rest should be spent.
"Forty-thousand businesses were approved for loans, for a total of about $9 billion of that $350 billion total," Kaine said. "As of last Thursday night there were no more loan funds."
The new "3.5 bill" includes $370 billion in additional funds for small businesses. The Paycheck Protection Program has $250 billion reserved, and there's $60 billion for the Emergency Economic Injury Grant – the two programs that were depleted from the last bill.
For this new bill, Kaine says Congress was mindful of ways that the first wave of funding didn’t work.
"So we set aside an additional $60 billion for what we would call smaller financial institutions: credit unions, farm credit institutions, community banks and minority owned banks," says Kaine.
He says some of the bigger banks were able to facilitate the process, but smaller institutions felt left out.
"Some of the smaller financial institutions and the customers they serve didn’t feel like they were at the front of the line, they were either at the back of the line or not in line," he said.
The bill goes beyond small businesses; it also provides more funding for public health and testing.
"One-hundred billion dollars for the public health challenge: $75 billion to hospitals, health clinics, nursing homes – and $25 billion to dramatically upscale the amount of testing that’s being done," Kaine said.
The money could come at a crucial time. The FDA announced it is authorizing a new test that will allow people to do a swab at home and mail it to the lab.
The White House says there are enough tests available right now for governors to start phase one of reopening their economies.
Vice President Mike Pence added today at a press conference that governors can only move forward with reopening their economies "if they meet the other criteria of 14 days of reduced cases and sufficient hospital capacity to prepare for any eventually that may occur."
Next the bill moves to the House. They’re expected to vote Thursday. After that it will still need to go to the President’s desk to be signed before the funding is distributed.