The other day I wrote about Senate Majority Leader (a.k.a. Mr. MIA) getting ready to introduce a new stimulus package next week.
There were some thoughts that this stimulus package could be a direct counter offer to the negotiations that have been taking place between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin.
Those talks have resulted in a package valued at around $1.8 trillion and so the thinking was that Republicans would perhaps come back with some thing in the ballpark.
However, that does not appear to be the case now.
Instead, it looks like Mitch McConnell is set to introduce a second skinny proposal.
If you have been following the stimulus negotiations, you know that a while back Republicans introduced a skinny proposal that was a “dumbed down” version of what the stimulus package would be.
That package did not pass nor was it ever really expected to.
But, despite that fact an additional skinny proposal looks like it will be introduced later this week or next week.
One interesting thing about this package though is that unlike the last skinny proposal, this one will include stimulus checks based on reports.
The last skinny proposal which was valued at around $500 billion included a host of benefits like $105 billion to help schools, $31 billion for a coronavirus vaccine, $16 billion for virus testing, $15 billion to help child care providers, $300-per-week supplemental jobless benefit, $10 billion for the USPS, and $20 billion will go to farmers.
If the same type of stimulus checks that went out in the first round went out in the skinny bill that would amount to approximately $300 billion worth of expenditures.
The new skinny proposal is estimated to be right around $500 billion as well, so that would leave only around $200 billion left over and it’s not clear exactly how those funds would be distributed.
Reports are that the checks would be designed for those who have been hit the hardest so it’s not clear that the same amount of stimulus checks will go out based on this package.
Instead, it could be a much more targeted stimulus check approach which was something that was discussed a lot over the summer.
Basically, don’t be surprised to see some type of income threshold set at a pretty low level.
Ultimately, it seems like this is just yet another political move to make the public feel like lawmakers are trying to do something meaningful to help people during the pandemic.
It does not seem like this bill is going to pass even the Senate and if it does it surely will not pass the House.
This is disappointing because I thought that McConnell might actually be working on a counteroffer to the current proposal but it appears that he may not be very involved in the process and that the talks are exclusively happening between Pelosi and White House officials.
Related
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McConnell announces plan for new stimulus proposal
Daniel Gillaspia is the Founder of UponArriving.com and the credit card app, WalletFlo. He is a former attorney turned travel expert covering destinations along with TSA, airline, and hotel policies. Since 2014, his content has been featured in publications such as National Geographic, Smithsonian Magazine, and CNBC. Read my bio.