//Congress’s Covid-19 rescue plan was bigger than the New Deal. It’s about to end.

Congress’s Covid-19 rescue plan was bigger than the New Deal. It’s about to end.

The CARES Act, the massive economic rescue legislation which sent stimulus checks to people whose jobs were lost because of the coronavirus pandemic, was passed by the House and Senate on March 27. | Win McNamee/Getty Images

The CARES Act is vital, historic legislation expiring before its time.

The CARES Act, the $2 trillion economic rescue legislation signed by President Trump on March 27 and scheduled to end on July 31, was perhaps the most pleasant legislative surprise I’ve seen in my decade of covering American politics.

The bill authorized hundreds of billions in spending on expanded unemployment benefits and stimulus checks to support the millions of workers who lost their jobs once pandemic lockdowns began. The result was that the lowest-income Americans barely saw their spending fall once federal support kicked in. Despite the crisis, poverty did not increase, and might even have