New $1,000 stimulus check proposal adds to support for direct payments

This past week US representative Lisa Blunt Rochester introduced a new proposal that would give Americans $1,000 in direct payments.

Like many other stimulus check proposals, these payments could also go to dependents and so a family of four would receive $4,000.

“Congress must act to meet the moment,” Blunt Rochester said in a statement. 

“That means direct payments which would provide direct relief.” 

This proposal did not get as much press as some of the other new proposals we have seen but we have now seen several different stimulus proposals with some containing stimulus checks:

• Lisa Blunt Rochester proposal: $1,000 stimulus checks
• Republican Senator Josh Hawley/Bernie Sanders proposal: $1,200 stimulus checks
• White House proposal: $600 stimulus checks
• $900 billion bi-partisan stimulus bill: no stimulus checks
• $500 billion Republican stimulus bill: no stimulus checks
• Proposal requiring vaccine for stimulus check

All of these different proposals show you that there is serious interest among lawmakers to get more direct payments out to Americans.

Some lawmakers have even threatened to veto or to try to facilitate a government shut down if stimulus checks are not included in a new proposal.

So I definitely would not close off the possibility of more checks going out although if it were to happen before 2021, it would need to happen next week.

But it appears that right now we are dealing with a bit of a jigsaw puzzle in terms of what provisions can pass.

The talk right now with passing more stimulus checks is that a smaller amount of local government aid could go out in order to free up the budget for stimulus checks.

But sending out more local aid is a large objective for Democrats and something that day have tied to the Republican request of liability shields.

Basically, Democrats seem to be content with passing some level of liability shields from coronavirus related lawsuits but only if they get the aid to state and local governments.

So if you were to replace or reduce the aid to local governments in exchange for stimulus checks, then it’s not clear how that bargain would affect the liability shield for lawsuits.

Some lawmakers already proposed exchanging unemployment benefits for stimulus checks but that attempt did not seem to be popular among neither Republican nor Democrats.

So if Congress is set on keeping this bill under $1 trillion, which seems to be the case, something is going to have to give in order to pass more checks.

It seems like the most likely item would be aid to state and local governments but there is no guarantee that could be dropped or minimized.

Lawmakers are reportedly working over the weekend to negotiate so while next week will likely be the week we know something, we could hear more news this weekend.

H/T

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