More help for restaurants

The U.S. House has approved a bill with $42 billion for restaurants and $13 billion for a hard-hit industries program that would help small businesses that weren’t eligible for restaurant aid.

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National News

April 13, 2022 - 4:14 PM

WASHINGTON — Restaurants and other businesses that have survived more than two years of COVID-19 restrictions could see an infusion of federal dollars in the coming months, as long as U.S. lawmakers reach final agreement on a multibillion-dollar package.

The U.S. House has approved a bill with $42 billion for restaurants and $13 billion for a hard-hit industries program that would help small businesses that weren’t eligible for restaurant aid.

That legislation, however, only got the backing of six House Republicans, signaling it doesn’t have the support necessary in the evenly divided U.S. Senate to make it to President Joe Biden’s desk.

That’s where Maryland Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin and Mississippi GOP Sen. Roger Wicker stepped in with their own bill to provide $40 billion to restaurants and $8 billion to various small businesses.

“We’re looking at any way to move this as soon as we possibly can, because it’s pretty desperate,” Cardin said during a brief interview.

Aside from the $2 billion gap in funding for restaurants, the biggest differences between the bills is how to provide money for non-restaurant businesses and how to pay for the legislation.

The House bill would create one pot of $13 billion for businesses with 200 or fewer employees that experienced a pandemic-related revenue loss of 40 percent or more. Businesses would be eligible for up to $1 million each.

The Senate bill from Cardin and Wicker would create separate pots of money for various businesses.

Two billion dollars would be available for gyms that lost more than 25% of their revenue; $2 billion would be divided up to live event venues that lost more than 25% of their revenue; $2 billion would be allocated to buses and ferries, including charter buses, commuter buses, school buses and passenger ferries; $1.415 billion would be doled out to very small businesses located near land border crossings that were closed during the pandemic; and $500 million would go to minor league sports teams that lost at least 50% of their revenue.

An additional $75 million would go to small businesses in Alaska that were completely cut off from the rest of the country during the pandemic after borders closed. And there would be $10 million for small businesses in similar communities in Minnesota and Washington states.

“Congress took action to provide much needed relief to restaurants and other businesses during the height of the pandemic, but the initial program left thousands of eligible restaurants and their employees without any assistance,” Wicker said in a statement. “As our economy recovers from a difficult two years, it is important to replenish this fund as a matter of fairness.”

The restaurant funding would go to the Restaurant Revitalization Fund that Democrats established last year in their $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package.

Democratic lawmakers originally approved $28.6 billion, but more than $76 billion in requests quickly outpaced the amount of money the Small Business Administration had to send struggling restaurants. About two-thirds of restaurants that applied to the program didn’t receive funding.

That led several organizations to call on Congress to provide more aid to help restaurants cover bills from payroll, operating expenses and construction costs for outdoor seating areas.

Mike Whatley, vice president of State Affairs and Grassroots Advocacy at the National Restaurant Association, said some restaurants getting aid while others didn’t “created an uneven playing field.”

“These restaurants did nothing wrong. They applied, they filled out their paperwork, they were qualified and then ultimately the aid didn’t come,” Whatley said.

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