Trump pushes economy lifeline
Mnuchin: Deferring tax filings by 90 days
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump called on Congress on Tuesday to quickly approve an economic stimulus package that within weeks would include sending checks directly to Americans, as sections of the economy shut down in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.
Also Tuesday at the White House, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Trump instructed him to allow for the de- ferment of income tax payments, interest free and penalty free, for 90 days. People can defer up to $1 million, and corporations can defer up to $10 million in payments.
The Treasury secretary said that would inject $300 billion into the economy. He added that people who can file their taxes now should do so because many would get refunds.
“We want to go big,” Trump said at a news conference at the White House, adding that he had instructed Mnuchin to introduce measures that would provide more immediate economic support over the
payroll tax cut holiday that he had been promoting.
Mnuchin told Republican senators later Tuesday that the Trump administration wants Congress to infuse about $850 billion in additional stimulus to prop up the economy. Mnuchin said time was of the essence.
“We’re looking at sending checks to Americans immediately,” Mnuchin said Tuesday. “And I mean now, in the next two weeks.”
Later, at a lunch across from the Capitol, the Treasury secretary privately told Republican senators that he envisioned the direct payments covering two weeks of pay and said they could total $250 billion, according to two people familiar with the discussion who described it on condition of anonymity.
Mnuchin told the senators that additional checks are possible if the national emergency persists, the people said.
Mnuchin declined publicly to put a dollar figure on the direct payments, telling reporters only that, “it is a big number.” Earlier at the White House, he said the proposal would be targeted so it would not go to the highest earners, such as those making $1 million or more.
“This is a very unique situation in this economy,” Mnuchin said on Capitol Hill. “We have put a proposal on the table that would inject $1 trillion into the economy.”
TRUMP: STAY HOME
Meanwhile, the president again urged Americans to follow guidelines for the next two weeks, including for older residents to stay home and for all people to avoid restaurants, bars and gatherings of more than 10 people.
“By making shared sacrifices, we can protect the health of our people and our economy, and I think our economy will come back very rapidly,” Trump said. “If we do this right, our country and the world, frankly, but our country can be rolling again … very quickly.”
Trump urged Americans to work from home, and urged the nation’s cities and states to issue restrictions to promote distancing in line with new federal guidelines. He promised an increase in access to coronavirus tests, ventilators, hospital beds and telehealth services. His administration said it would coordinate responses with the states, push for construction workers to give masks to health care workers and, if needed, use the Army Corps of Engineers to build more hospital space.
As Congress considered aid, the Pentagon on Tuesday said it would provide 5 million respirator masks and 2,000 specialized ventilators to federal health authorities. And Medicare was immediately expanding coverage for telemedicine nationwide to help senior citizens with health problems stay home to avoid infection.
The Treasury secretary declined to share other details of his proposal but said the administration would work with Congress to ensure that a combination of loans, direct checks and other support for businesses and workers could be put in place quickly.
“The president wants to put money in the economy now,” he said.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., vowed Tuesday that the Senate would not recess before reaching bipartisan agreement on the stimulus legislation, which would be the third coronavirus relief bill advanced on Capitol Hill in recent weeks.
“We’re going to move here in warp speed for the Senate, which almost never does anything quickly,” McConnell said. “I think everyone on both sides of the aisle is seized with the urgency of moving on yet another bill, and we intend to do that.”
McConnell also said the Senate would move as swiftly as possible to approve a $100 billion-plus bill passed in the House last week that boosts paid sick leave, unemployment insurance and free coronavirus testing — despite concerns a number of Senate Republicans have about how the sick leave provisions in the House bill are crafted.
“My counsel to them is to gag and vote for it anyway, even if they think it has some shortcomings, and to address those shortcomings in the bill that we’re in the process of crafting,” McConnell said.
RELIEF PACKAGE
The Republican leader said he had appointed three task forces to help draft a larger relief package, working with the Trump administration and eventually with Democrats in the Senate and House, but he declined Tuesday to discuss details under consideration.
The White House’s abrupt shift to embrace direct payments to individuals was a clear reaction to sentiment in the Senate, where Republicans and Democrats alike have raced to propose direct payments.
“The aid has to be workers first,” said Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer. Schumer also said it’s time to call out the National Guard to provide security as communities reel from the crisis.
Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the second-ranking Senate Republican, said his conference was largely supportive of the move.
“We have a high level of interest in that idea,” he said. “You are not going to find unanimous consensus on any of these ideas, but I would say that that idea has a lot more resonance with our members than, say a payroll tax cut.”
“I am supportive of putting cash in the pocket of workers, families, consumers, and small businesses because it will be spent, as opposed to massive corporate bailouts that could involve stock buybacks or other kinds of expenses that fail to stimulate demand,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who marshaled the earlier package through a bipartisan vote last week, fielded a call from Mnuchin on Tuesday morning and another from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell in the afternoon, encouraged by the Fed chairman’s perspective that Congress could think big with interest rates at nearly zero.
Workers affected by the pandemic — because they are ill, quarantined, caring for family members or lack child care with schools closed — would still receive two weeks of sick
leave. But health care providers or emergency responders could be excluded by the labor secretary. And any additional leave provided would be limited to workers with children whose schools or child care have been closed.
The White House and Treasury Department are also considering an array of other proposals to help individuals and small and midsize businesses, which are facing cash flow problems. One of those ideas, according to people familiar with the discussions, would make it easier for businesses to restructure debt. Other ideas under consideration include providing more funding to hospitals and measures such as loan workouts to help homeowners avoid foreclosure.
The Treasury secretary played down speculation that U.S. markets could be closed because of the tremendous volatility, but said it was possible that hours could be shortened.
“We absolutely believe in keeping the markets open,” Mnuchin said. “Americans need to know they have access to their money.”
COMPARISONS WITH PAST
The attempt to inject a large amount of money into the economy is reminiscent of the bailouts and stimulus steps Congress took during the economic crisis more than a decade ago. This time around, with everyday life in America screeching to a halt, the intervention may need to be faster and even more extreme. In 2008, Congress passed a $700 billion package, called the Troubled Asset Relief Program, to try to rescue the financial system.
The package the White House is pursuing now would be bigger, not adjusted for inflation, but it would include things like tax cuts that the 2008 program lacked.
“I think the only comparison to this is World War II, in the sense of it being not only in our country but just a global situation where everyone is pulling out all the stops to do the best we can to protect individuals, protect families and communities,” said Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark.
The president’s declaration of resolve came a day after, for the first time, he acknowledged that the pandemic may send the economy into a recession and suggested that the nation may be dealing with the virus until “July or August.” The president and his team Tuesday cautioned Americans to prepare for a lengthy change to their daily routines as it could be more than a month before the impact of his 15-day guidelines outlined Monday could even be measured.
Trump said his coronavirus task force had considered, but was not ready to implement, any sort of domestic travel ban, but he urged Americans to forgo trips even to places not heavily affected by the virus. “Enjoy your homes, enjoy your living room,” he said.
Dr. Deborah Birx, coordinator for the federal response to the virus, on Tuesday called for the “army of millennials” to lead the charge in fighting back against the coronavirus.
Birx told ABC’s Good
Morning America that the nation needs millennials doing everything they can, including staying home from bars, to protect themselves from getting infected but also safeguarding their parents and grandparents. She said most millennials who get infected would have mild symptoms and were not as at risk as older Americans. Millennials, a term referring to people born in the 1980s to early 1990s, also tend to be good at networking and sharing information, Birx said.
For most people, the coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia.
The vast majority of people recover from the illness. According to the World Health Organization, people with mild illness recover in about two weeks, while those with more severe illness may take three weeks to six weeks to recover.
Information for this article was contributed by Alan Rappeport, Emily Cochrane and Nicholas Fandos of The New York Times; by Erica Werner, Jeff Stein, Mike DeBonis, Paul Kane and Seung Min Kim of The Washington Post; and by Lisa Mascaro, Zeke Miller, Jonathan Lemire, Kevin Freking, Darlene Superville, Jill Colvin, Andrew Taylor, Deb Riechmann, Mary Clare Jalonick, Matthew Daly, Martin Crutsinger, Colleen Long and Chris Rugaber of The Associated Press.