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Next Up: US House to Consider Coronavirus Rescue Package

Ken Bredemeier

   Passage of the $2 trillion U.S. coronavirus rescue package is nearing
   the finish line, with the House of Representatives set to act Friday,
   followed quickly by President Donald Trump signing it into law.

   "I anticipate -- I feel certain -- that we will have a strong
   bipartisan vote," Speaker Nancy Pelosi, leader of the
   Democrat-controlled House, said Thursday.

   Republican Congressman Thomas Massie of the southern state of Kentucky
   said he will object to passage of the stimulus by a voice vote without
   a roll call of each lawmaker's vote. But Pelosi said she plans to move
   ahead anyway with the voice vote. Massie said he objects to how much
   the rescue effort will add to the U.S. debt, which already totals more
   than $23 trillion.

   Pelosi said she thinks some minority Republicans will object to
   approval of the massive funding measure, the biggest in U.S. history,
   but one that is designed to flood the U.S. economy with cash to
   overcome the significant downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

   She said the Democratic lawmakers who negotiated the pact with the
   majority Republican leaders in the Senate and the White House "didn't
   get everything we wanted" in the measure, but that they "won the day."

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