Trump on economic stimulus package: ‘We want to go big’
Checks could be sent directly to consumers within weeks
WASHINGTON >> President Donald Trump called on Congress on Tuesday to quickly approve a sweeping economic stimulus package that would include sending checks directly to Americans within weeks, as large sections of the economy shut down in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.
“We want to go big,” Trump said at a news conference at the White House, adding that he had instructed Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, 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. While Trump had signaled that he wanted the payroll tax to be the centerpiece of that effort, it faced bipartisan opposition in Congress, and Mnuchin said time was of the essence.
“We’re looking at sending checks to Americans immediately,” Mnuchin said at the White House.
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 the condition of anonymity.
The goal would be to get the checks out by the end of April, Mnuchin told the senators, with additional checks 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.”
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.
The administration has been negotiating with lawmakers in the House and Senate over the timeline and contents of a stimulus package.
Republicans had been reluctant to embrace a narrower relief package the House passed last week that includes paid leave, unemployment insurance, free coronavirus testing and additional food and health care aid, which Mnuchin and Speaker Nancy Pelosi have characterized as a first step to provide relief ahead of a broader stimulus plan to stabilize the economy.
But on Tuesday, Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the majority leader, said the Senate would in fact try to pass the House bill first then move onto another economic package of “much larger proportions.”
Urging the Senate to move at “warp speed for the Senate,” McConnell said he had doled out blunt advice to colleagues unhappy with the House-passed measure: “My counsel to them is to gag and vote for it anyway.”
The Republican leader said he had appointed three task forces to help draft the 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.
“What I can tell you is we are not leaving town until we have constructed and passed another bill,” McConnell said.
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 — and shown little enthusiasm for the payroll tax holiday that was previously the centerpiece of Trump’s stimulus proposal.
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.”
At the White House on Tuesday, Mnuchin said Trump instructed him to allow for the deferment 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.
The Trump administration is also supporting a request for $50 billion in economic relief for the airline industry as part of the broader package. The industry’s lobbying group publicly made the request Monday, asking for grants, loan guarantees and tax relief. The administration is also considering ways to support the cruise ship industry.
Trump said Tuesday that additional help could be in store for Boeing, the aviation company that was already facing serious problems after the grounding of its 737 Max airplanes amid technical problems that led to two crashes.
Travel restrictions are expected to be a major drag on global economic growth. Economists at Capital Economics predicted that tourism worldwide could drop 50% over the next six weeks, sapping seven-tenths of a percentage point from the world’s annual gross domestic product.
The White House proposal emerged amid a growing sense of urgency among lawmakers to step in with aggressive measures to stanch the economic pain and mounting anxiety that Congress was running out of time to do so.
With public health officials counseling significant measures to slow the spread of the coronavirus, and states and cities ordering closures of businesses, limitations on travel and other restrictions on movement, it is not clear how long lawmakers can continue gathering in Washington.
While Trump’s proposed payroll tax cut had drawn opposition from members of both parties, a growing chorus of Republicans and Democrats had begun calling instead for cash payments to Americans. Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said this week that every adult American should receive a $1,000 check from the government.
A group of Democratic senators, led by Michael Bennet of Colorado, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Sherrod Brown of Ohio, proposed sending as much as $4,500 to nearly every adult and child in the United States this year, as part of a sustained government income-support program to counter the economic slowdown.
Trump acknowledged that a payroll tax cut holiday could take time to trickle through the economy and that more immediate relief was necessary. However, he suggested that a more modest payroll tax cut could still be part of a final stimulus package.
The Senate has yet to act on the measure the House passed last week, which was the product of negotiations between Democrats and Mnuchin.
The House substantially scaled back the scope of the paid leave provisions on Monday as part of an agreed-upon package that passed quietly without a vote.
Workers affected by the pandemic would still receive two weeks of sick leave.