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SD Delegation Gives Update On Federal Rescue Packages

South Dakota’s congressional delegation is reacting to the bipartisan rescue packages passed to respond to the coronavirus pandemic.
 
Congress is working on a third package that includes cash payments to individual Americans.

Moments after voting on a second stimulus package on the Senate floor, South Dakota US Senator John Thune says the senate is studying a third and even larger relief package.
 
Thune says the one approved Wednesday ensures any American who needs a coronavirus test will get one at no cost. It also gives tax credits to employers and provides direct assistance to American workers.
 
The next one, Thune says, will focus on economic impacts of the coronavirus.
 
“I’m hoping will bring some stability to people across this country who are being hurt by this, but also to the market,” Thune says. “We’re following what’s happening out there and we realize that so much of what happens in the market has to do with people having confidence in the future. I think we understand that we’ve got a role to play in helping to restore that confidence.”
 
Despite the second package and movement on a third, the markets continue to plunge.
 
It’s estimated the third legislative package will total around $1 trillion dollars.
 
South Dakota US Representative Dusty Johnson says Congress has acted quickly and in a strong bi-partisan manner. He says he suspects that will happen with the third package of economic relief as well.
 
“I will admit to some irritation that we focus so much on Wall Street and so much on the big industries of cruise ships and airlines and oil and gas people,” Johnson says. “I’ve been far more interested and far more active in the last two weeks of talking to my colleagues about what about everybody else?”
 
Johnson says well represented industries in DC get taken care of… Johnson says he’s focused on helping small and medium businesses, ag producers and retirees who are back bone of country and South Dakota.

U.S. Senator Mike Rounds says the Senate is working quickly on a third relief package for American consumers and small businesses.

That package could end up totaling one trillion dollars.

Rounds says the Senate is considering one-time payments to individuals based on the number of people in a family. He says there will be a limit based on total income.

“So, it’s not going to go to millionaires or anything like that,” Rounds says. “But, it would go to a whole lot of folks that probably need assistance right now. The amounts are absolutely being discussed. We don’t’ have a solid number what they’re going to look like yet. We’re going to have to negotiate that out with our Democrat colleagues. I really hesitate to spin one particular number. I know we are talking about based on the number people that there are in the families. That seems to be a consistent message out there.”

Rounds says there is already talk in Congress for a possible fourth relief package.