Relief cheques will bear Trump’s name but no delay expected

President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he does not expect delays in the mailing of coronavirus relief paper cheques to millions of Americans, despite changes US Treasury Department officials will need to make in the printing process. Even so, most of the “Economic Impact Payments” being issued under the CARES Act passed by Congress to compensate for the economic damage of the pandemic were expected to be made electronically by direct deposit to bank accounts. Republican Trump, eager to gain re-election campaign mileage from the $1,200 Economic Impact Payment cheques that will be delivered to Americans earning less than $75,000 a year, asked that the Internal Revenue Service put his name on them, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday. Neither Trump’s predecessor, Democrat Barack

Obama, nor Republican George W Bush before him put their names on stimulus cheques during their White House tenures. “I don’t know too much about it, but I understand my name is there,” Trump said at a news conference on Wednesday. “I do understand it’s not delaying anything.” Normally, cheques issued by the Treasury Department’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service do not have such identifying information on them and changes would need to be made to their printing. The cheques usually would bear signatures of the agency’s officials for tax returns and other payments. “Cheques will go out on time, as planned, starting early next week,” a Treasury official said. The electronic payments were not expected to have any notation referring to Trump, the official said.