The top Republican on the House Financial Services Committee, Patrick McHenry (NC-10), joined After the Bell on Fox Business to discuss the bipartisan Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, which is currently being considered in the House. This legislation provides critical support to workers, families, and small businesses hardest hit by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
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Watch Ranking Member McHenry’s full interview on After the Bell here, or by clicking the image above.
On assistance to small businesses in need:
“When it comes to the SBA, there’s a lot of money driven to the Small Business Administration. The goal here is to keep small business employees connected with their employer and keeping them employed. If it works as a grant, that means that employees don’t go on unemployment insurance, and if they go on unemployment over the next year or two the state will have to raise unemployment insurance. So, this is a way to save small businesses from drowning in a debt load for a crisis that they didn’t at all create. This is like a hurricane or a tsunami of sorts, so we need to get people through this thing to the other side without a severe debt load.”
On supporting this imperfect—but necessary—legislation:
“What they’ve done by making unemployment benefits overly generous outside of major metro areas is create a real disincentive against work, and I think that is deeply problematic. Also, the length of time – we have some folks that tried to leverage, a lot of Democrat leaders tried to leverage, really bad ideas into the bill over the last 5 days, which I think is bad for America. However, I’m still supportive of the bill because over half of it, I would say two thirds of it, is really sharp, targeted relief for those that are most severely affected.”
On House support of the CARES Act:
“The goal here is to have a voice vote, you saw a 96 to 0 vote out of the Senate, that doesn’t happen especially in this divided political age we’re in. In the House we should have a like-kind consensus and we should have a voice vote. Absent a voice vote, then we’ll have a number of hours by which we can go to the chamber and vote and make sure our voice is heard. Look, I spent my time on conference calls and on the phone working from home and trying to talk to my colleagues and work out the best deal possible. I think this is a good bill for America and helps us stay afloat.”
For more COVID-19 updates, view the committee’s resource page here.