WASHINGTON -- The stimulus package that President Joe Biden signed into law in March was intended to stabilize state and city finances drained by the coronavirus crisis, providing $350 billion to alleviate the pandemic's effect, with few restrictions on how the money could be used.
Three months after its passage, cash is starting to flow -- $194 billion so far, according to the Treasury Department -- and officials are devoting funds to a range of efforts, including keeping public service workers on the payroll, helping the fishing industry, improving broadband access and aiding the homeless.
The decisions are taking on greater national urgency as the Biden administration negotiates with Republicans in Congress over a bipartisan infrastructure package. Some Republican lawmakers want money from previous relief packages to be repurposed to pay for infrastructure, arguing that many states are in far better financial shape than expected and that the money should be put to better use.
The administration, sensitive to those concerns, has begun bending the program's rules to allow the money to be spent even more broadly. In June, Biden prodded local governments to consider using the cash to address the recent rise in violent crime, which his aides regard as a serious political hazard heading into the 2022 midterm elections.
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For the most part, local officials have been focused on undoing the damage of the past year and a half.
Maine officials are looking to spend $16 billion to bolster the fishing industry, which is facing a combination of lobster shortages and hungry consumers, flush with money after more than a year in lockdown. Alaska already is pouring cash into its fishing sector.
In North Carolina, the concerns are more terrestrial: The governor wants to direct $45 million in relief funds to the motor sports sector, which took a hit when the pandemic halted NASCAR.
In conservative-leaning states like Wyoming that did not incur major budget deficits during the coronavirus, officials have been freed to spend much of their cash on infrastructure improvements, especially rural broadband.
Local officials, especially Democrats, have tried to leverage at least some of the windfall to address chronic social and economic problems that the coronavirus exacerbated.
After a series of community meetings in Detroit, Mayor Mike Duggan and the City Council opted for a plan that divided the city's $826 million payout roughly in half, with about $400 million going to recoup covid-19 losses, and $426 million to an array of job-creation programs, grants for home repairs and funding to revitalize blighted neighborhoods.
In Philadelphia, officials are considering using $18 million of the new aid to test a "universal basic income" pilot program to help poor people. That is among the uses specifically suggested in the administration's guidance. Several other big cities, including Chicago, are considering similar plans.
The Cherokee Nation, which is receiving $1.8 billion of the $20 billion set aside for tribal governments, is replicating the law's signature initiative -- direct cash payments to citizens -- by sending $2,000 checks to around 400,000 members of the tribe in multiple states.
The $350 billion program has led to legal battles, with officials in many Republican-led states fighting one of the few restrictions placed on use of the money, a prohibition against deploying it to subsidize tax cuts, and partisan clashes erupting over which projects should have been given priority.
And the cash has spawned partisan conflict. Not a single Republican in either house of Congress voted for the bill.
In general, Republican governors and agency officials have tilted toward financing economic development and infrastructure improvements, particularly for upgrading broadband in rural areas, rather than funding social programs.
When the administration updates the guidance for the funding this summer, they are likely to loosen the restrictions on internet-related projects at the behest of Republican state officials, a senior White House official said.