While citizens and small businesses wait for Congress to finalize the next round of fiscal stimulus in response to the economic crisis created by COVID-19, congressional leaders and the Trump Administration remain at loggerheads, at least by press time. Weekly unemployment numbers continue to show millions of Americans remain out of work and that does not seem to be spurring a sense of urgency on Capitol Hill. In fact, Congress has essentially recessed until September 14 unless they can come to agreement before then.
Legislation From Both Sides
House Democrats passed legislation in May that largely amounted to their wish list for a stimulus package, which topped out at more than $3 trillion in new spending. That legislation included extending the $600 a week pandemic unemployment insurance that some c-store retailers say has made it hard to find new workers. Also included were new stimulus checks for those making up to $99,000 a year, billions of dollars to prop up state and local governments, a grant program for essential workers and billions more in spending on other priorities that some argue were not directly related to the pandemic.
Senate Republicans have argued that time was needed to allow the funding and programs initiated by the CARES Act to take hold. Many programs and states have billions of dollars in unspent funds allocated by that law, they argue. In late July, Senate Republicans released their version of a next round of stimulus legislation, which is significantly more modest than the House Democrat version. Coming in at a bit more than $1 trillion, the Senate package is centered around liability protections for businesses from frivolous lawsuits, an extension of the pandemic unemployment insurance at a significantly lower amount, a revamp of the paycheck protection program and a new round of stimulus checks. Several Senate Republicans remain opposed to any significant new spending, arguing that the U.S. needs to get its spending under control.
Stuck in Limbo
After nearly two weeks of negotiations, both sides of the aisle are not closer to agreeing on the largest points of division between the two parties—unemployment insurance extension and funds for state and local governments. These key points have prevented a quick conclusion to the debate, even though significant agreement on things like stimulus checks and tax incentives exists.
Frustrated by lack of action from Capitol Hill, the president took some matters into his own hands on August 8 by issuing four executive orders. While there remains considerable debate over the legality and/or implementation of some of these orders, they are:
- A payroll tax deferral for employees until the end of the year
- An extension of pandemic unemployment insurance through the end of the year at $400 per week with a 25% contribution from participating states
- An attempt to extend a federal prohibition on evictions
- An extension of the deferments on federal student loan payments until the end of the year.
The Trump Administration had expressed a willingness to support short-term legislation on these items, but congressional Democrats rejected that offer, preferring to avoid a piecemeal approach to the stimulus.
A Battle Worth Waging
Despite the stall in meaningful discussions in Washington, NACS is working to include our industry priorities in a package if and when Congress finally comes to agreement. Our main priorities through this process are liability protections for essential businesses and federal tax benefits for essential workers who have remained on the job.
NACS is working to include our industry priorities in a package if and when Congress finally comes to agreement.
NACS has been a leading voice for liability relief for essential businesses that have taken precautions to protect their employees and guests from the spread of the virus. Convenience stores and other essential businesses face the threat of unfounded lawsuits alleging that someone contracted COVID-19 on their premises—the costs of which would be crippling to fight. For this reason, NACS organized a coalition of essential industry associations this spring to advocate for legislation that would protect businesses who have acted in good faith from legal claims related to COVID-19. This position has been supported by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who stated publicly that the Senate will only consider a fourth package if it has liability relief in it. As part of Senate Republicans’ proposal, he and Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) introduced the SAFE TO WORK Act, which provides liability protections for all businesses that made reasonable efforts to comply with government guidance. The legislation does not seek to protect bad actors that failed to take reasonable efforts to comply and acted with gross negligence or committed intentional misconduct.
For liability to make it into the next stimulus package, members of Congress from both sides of the aisle will have to give it a stamp of approval. While issues of tort reform have historically been partisan, NACS has been working to build bipartisan support for limited and reasonable liability relief specific to the coronavirus. This is why NACS activated the convenience store industry using our grassroots portal. To date, our members have sent more than 4,000 letters to their legislators and 140 tweets that have the potential of reaching 18,000 people using the hashtag #ProtectConvenience.
NACS has been a leading voice for liability relief for essential businesses that have taken precautions to protect their employees and guests from the spread of the virus.
Our second priority has been federal tax benefits for essential workers who have remained on the job during the pandemic. Convenience stores have remained open even while much of retail was forced to close by government orders. C-store workers have continued to ensure that those who needed to get to work had the food, fuel and essentials they needed to help the country stay afloat. Many convenience store operators provided an increase in hourly pay or implemented bonus programs to recognize the sacrifices these essential workers were making by showing up to work every day. Unfortunately, while certainly meaning well, Congress created a disincentive for some Americans to work when it provided pandemic unemployment insurance, making it often more profitable to collect unemployment than to continue to work. The NACS government relations team has worked with Democrats and Republicans to build support for legislation that would exempt wages earned by frontline workers in essential businesses from federal income and payroll taxes for at least some period during the crisis. This would have been a more effective way for the federal government to appropriately recognize the work done by essential workers in a way that would directly and immediately impact their paychecks.
In addition to these priority items, NACS has also advocated for tax incentives to help cover the cost of measures businesses have taken to protect employees and customers, the ability for PPP loan recipients to continue to deduct normal businesses expenses, clarity on things like mask mandates and a number of other items aimed at helping our industry weather this crisis.
NACS will continue to advocate on the industry’s behalf so it can continue to recover from the economic crisis.