Tag: $1.9 trillion package

It’s the Economic Stimulus We Need Now

By: Michelle Naranjo

There is an inexorable connection between the physical health of a nation, and the well-being of its economy. In advance of his inauguration, President-elect Biden has announced an ambitious rescue plan with the intentions of healing both.

A $1.9 trillion package would surely have something for everyone: additional stimulus checks to individuals, state, and local governments, extended jobless, benefits, allocations to assist with reopening schools, fortified testing and tracing, and coordinated effort to deliver 100 million vaccines within the first 100 days of a Biden presidency. 

Currently, there has been suspicion and doubt that a federal reserve of vaccinations even exists. The states have been largely left to figure out procedure and distribution for themselves, resulting in a meager number who have been successfully vaccinated in numbers that cannot keep up with the pace of new infections. 

One support employee at the largest healthcare provider in one heavily infected state said that the provider’s call centers are overwhelmed with people trying to get the vaccine. One woman attempted to cancel the scheduled vaccinations of her “friends” because they were neither as “old, not as sick” as she is. 

It smacks a bit too much like a real-life “Hunger Games.” 

If Biden’s plan is able to be passed in its full form, Moody’s Analytics speculates that economic growth nearing 8% is possible, unemployment would fall to 4% by the end of 2022, and the entire population -- including undocumented workers -- would speed towards a herd immunity goal of having 245 million vaccinated by fall. 

But, of course, even with the country in dire straights while the COVID-related deaths leap over the 400,000 count, Republicans have been quick to resist Biden’s plan. 

Senator Rick Scott, R-Fla., was quick to issue a statement saying, “We cannot simply throw massive spending at this with no accountability to the current and future American taxpayer.” His biggest contention is the money that would be allocated to bailing out state and local government which saw significant loss of revenue during the last year. Aid to alleviate this burden was kept out of the December 2020 package by Republicans, much like it was partially sidelined in the earlier Heroes Act.

There will undoubtedly be concessions on the road to this next relief package. Still, the long tail of this immediate problem is that financial equity is not attempted, and containment of the virus is not sought; this winter will certainly not be our darkest. 

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Biden to the Rescue?

By Todd Lassa

President-elect Biden is ready to test the mettle of his party’s wafer-thin majorities in the House and Senate with his $1.9-trillion coronavirus American Rescue Plan. Key feature of the plan is $1,400 in stimulus payments to complement the $600 mailed out late last year, thus matching the $2,000 President Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sought. 

In campaigning for Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossof in their successful January 6 Georgia runoff races for U.S. Senate, Biden suggested that it would take their victories, which give the party a 50-50 count plus Vice President-elect Harris’ tiebreaker, to pass the additional $1,400 stimulus checks. The Trump administration 2017 tax cuts and last March’s $2.2-trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, the largest stimulus package in U.S. history, pushed the federal deficit to record levels. Now Republicans on Capitol Hill are starting to move back to their more traditional model fiscal responsibility and opposing such large deficits. 

After details of The American Rescue Plan (or TARP, which recalls the Targeted Asset Relief Program of the Bush 43 and Obama administrations in response to the 2008 credit crisis) were released, The Wall Street Journal suggested in a Friday morning story that Biden’s proposal, along with a 0.7% drop in December retail sales, were to blame for a decrease in stock market averages. But the story quoted one analyst as suggesting that the market was expecting a larger dollar amount that would better stimulate the economy as vaccinations continued across the country and the economy started opening up. 

Conversely, critics of the CARES Act and the short-term extension passed by Congress just before the New Year say the stimulus funds, when distributed to Americans who need it most, were being saved rather than spent (the objective of the payments is to help generate commerce) as they feared for their future employment. 

In addition to direct payments for individuals, Biden’s TARP proposes an additional $400 per week in unemployment insurance supplement through September, expanded paid leave and increases in the child tax credit. About half the package would be claimed by household costs. 

There is $20-billion for national vaccination centers across the U.S., open to anyone living here regardless of immigration status, with the goal of reopening public shools by May 1, within Biden’s first 100 days. Most of the rest of the remaining $950-billion or so would pay for relief to state and local governments, which have suffered severe tax revenue declines due to small business failures and higher unemployment, and to vaccine distribution, including the national centers. 

“If we invest now boldly, smartly and with unwavering focus on American workers and families, we will strengthen our economy, reduce inequity and put our nation’s long-term finances on the most sustainable course,” Biden said Thursday evening (AP). 

Deaths globally from the coronavirus pandemic topped 2 million on Friday, according to Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. death toll accounts for nearly one-fifth of that, now close to 400,000.

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