Tester, Daines, support $2.2 trillion covid-19 relief measure

Montana’s Senators both touted a massive $2.2 trillion spending bill designed to provide economic relief for individuals and businesses suffering huge losses from the covid-19 virus outbreak.

In separate telephone calls Wednesday, both Sen. Jon Tester, a Democrat, and Sen. Steve Daines, a Republican, talked about the benefits of the measure.

The covid-19 virus has the potential to completely wreck Montana’s tourism economy as summer approaches. Already main streets across the state are empty as restaurants, bars and other businesses that cater to tourists are closed.

It also threatens the agricultural sector as well. Farm families can’t afford to get sick with planting season just a few weeks away.

The bill passed the Senate Thursday and features direct payments of $1,200 per individual or $2,400 per couple for people making incomes of $75,000 or less. It also allows for laid-off workers to receive an additional $600 a week for four months, on top of the benefits their state unemployment agencies pay.

Unemployment claims nationwide skyrocketed to 3.3 million and in Montana, more than 13,000 since governments closed down virtually every business save for construction and grocery stores to stem the spread of the virus.

Montana currently has 71 cases and no deaths from the disease.

“The goal is to keep small businesses afloat,” Tester said in a call with reporters.

Daines concurred.

“It was nobody’s fault,” he said. “We’re all in this together.”

Daines said there’s open worry that the virus infection rate may dip down in the summer months, but re-emerge in the fall.

“It’s likely we’ll have a second wave,” he said. “We can’t afford to go through this again.”

To that end, the bill provides relief not only to workers, but billions in loans and grants to businesses. Some loans don’t have to be paid back if the business continues to pay its employees.

Daines said there’s also aggressive spending for medical research, testing and to develop a vaccine using the “best minds and best technologies to get drugs to the marketplace.”

Nationwide more than 1,000 people have died, with more than 68,000 cases reported.

The bill also bolsters loan programs for farmers.

“We’ve got to make sure that the food supply and those that produce it are protected,” Daines said.

Both senators lamented that the spending package would add to an already burgeoning national debt, but the time to act was now, they said.

The bill hadn’t passed the House by late Thursday.