McSally says COVID-19 relief bill will benefit Arizona workers, businesses

PHOENIX – The Senate agreed on a bill that will give relief to Arizona workers and businesses late Tuesday night.

“This is largely what we’d proposed on Sunday,” U.S. Sen. Martha McSally of Arizona told KTAR News 92.3 FM’s The Mike Broomhead Show on Wednesday.

“There’s a couple of changes here and there, but for the most part, the bi-partisan foundation of getting relief out to Arizona families, small businesses, health care workers, hospitals, tribes that are being impacted by the coronavirus is still the guts of this bill.”

The Senate agreed to the bill and was planning to vote on it Wednesday.

McSally said they’re hoping to have it on President Donald Trump’s desk by Thursday. Once it’s signed, the bill includes two key benefits.

The package would give one-time direct payments to Arizonans — $1,200 per adult making up to $75,000 a year, and $2,400 to a married couple making up to $150,000, with $500 payments per child.

For example, a couple who made less than $150,000 last year with two children will receive a check or direct deposit of $3,400.

Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin thinks it will take up to 3 weeks for those checks to go out, but McSally said they’re pushing for it to be as fast as possible.

The second portion of the bill is business assistance.

For small businesses, it’s called a loan, but McSally said if the money is used for payroll and overhead and employees are kept on the books, then the money is forgivable.

“We would rather have them connected to your small business and you stay together as a family through this,” McSally said.

“When we get out of this, we want you to be able to turn the key and have that connection with your employees instead of having them in the unemployment line.”

The loans for small businesses would be executed through specific banks. McSally said the treasury is working to get guidelines out so more banks can assist with getting cash into small businesses.

Medium and large businesses will use a program that McSally likened to the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) in 2008.

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