Will the second stimulus checks be limited to $600?

12/16/20 Afternoon Update:

Now that we have heard the surprising news that there will likely be more stimulus checks coming out soon, the next big question is how big will the checks be?

According to Senator John Thune, the stimulus checks may be around $600 to $700 per individual.

This is roughly the same amount proposed by the White House plan last week (although keep in mind that President Trump was calling for even bigger checks).

If the stimulus checks are cut down to about $600 per individual, the total cost would be roughly $150 billion for the checks to go out.

So what caused the change of heart with lawmakers?

We will probably find out more details later but it could have to do with threatened government shutdowns and the fact that the election seems to be over for the most part.

I think there’s a good chance that there is a small core of lawmakers who were pushing really hard for these checks and we likely will find out their names at some point to give them the props they deserve.

Keep in mind that it looks like Congress decided to drop the state and local aid which was going to cost about $160 billion and Republicans were okay with dropping the liability protections.

So those two decisions were also crucial for getting more checks.

It also looks like there was a recognition that if Congress does not act now they could cause permanent damage to some families.

“There is a recognition that unless D.C. provides some more aid now, some of the economic impact to individuals and to families could be more permanent and some of the impact on small businesses would be absolutely permanent,” said Ed Mills, Washington policy analyst at Raymond James.

So the question is will $600 be enough to alleviate potential long lasting economic impacts?

We’ll see, but we know that some lawmakers like Bernie Sanders will continue pushing for $1,200 checks in the next few days.

“Congress can’t go home for the Christmas holidays until we pass legislation which provides a $1,200 direct payment to working class adults, $2,400 for couples and $500 for kids,” Sanders tweeted on Tuesday.

I’ll keep you updated once we get more details about the amount of the stimulus checks.

H/T

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