COVID-19 Stimulus Checks 2: Why $3,400 Is Unlikely After Leader’s Comments

Millions of Americans are hoping to get a second COVID-19 stimulus check. Unfortunately, the prospects of getting a check ($1,200 or $3,400 for a family of four) are diminishing.

Despite positive comments from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Trump administration officials in the past, when McConnell unveiled his so-called “skinny bill” for a second round of COVID-19 relief on September 8, stimulus checks were not in it. He didn’t explain the omission. He has sounded more negative recently about the prospects of getting a second stimulus check relief proposal through Congress at all.

The skinny bill contains an extra $300 in enhanced unemployment checks, more small business loans, and liability protections for COVID-19, among other things. It doesn’t appear poised to pass anyway because it needs Democratic votes and Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer immediately whipped out a statement opposing it. Pelosi referred to the scaled-down plan as an “emaciated” proposal.

Republicans and Democrats can’t agree on a larger plan including stimulus checks, either. Both sides are in general agreement that a second round of stimulus checks would be a good thing, but they’ve remained about $1 trillion apart when it comes to overall spending for the bill.

It all adds up to a second round of stimulus checks looking unlikely, especially with the election looming.

McConnell Has Introduced a Targeted Proposal But Hasn’t Sounded Optimistic Recently That It, Or Stimulus Checks, Will Get Done

GettySenate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

In a statement announcing the skinny bill, McConnell called it “a targeted proposal that focuses on several of the most urgent aspects of this crisis, the issues where bipartisanship should be especially possible.”

McConnell has not sounded optimistic recently that Congress will get anything through, and that includes a second round of stimulus checks. According to Newsweek, he said last week that he didn’t know “for sure whether we’ll get another rescue package or not.”

Why did the skinny bill leave out a second round of stimulus checks? According to Newsweek, that move was to “strength unity” among Republicans in the Senate; they’ve been divided over whether to continue the levels of spending first seen in response to the pandemic.

The Trump Administration Has Continued to Support Stimulus Checks But Democrats Criticized the Republicans’ Overall Plan

Getty

President Donald Trump and other top administration officials have continued to publicly support a second round of stimulus checks. However, it’s merely rhetorical because the president doesn’t have the authority to grant them on his own, a fact he acknowledged by not including them in a host of stimulus-related executive orders that he signed in early August.

The president has recently indicated that he thinks Congress should use $300 billion in unused coronavirus relief funds to give people a second round of stimulus checks, but Democratic rhetoric seems focused on criticizing the new skinny bill which doesn’t include stimulus checks at all.

“We have $300 billion in an account that we didn’t use. I would be willing to release it, subject to Congress, and use that as stimulus money and it would go right to the American people,” Trump said Friday during a White House press briefing, Fox Business reported.

Trump has urged Congress to pass checks amounting to $1,200 and $3,400 for a family of four.

“The speaker has refused to sit down and negotiate unless we agree to something like a $2.5 trillion deal in advance,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Fox News Sunday.

“Senate Republicans appear dead-set on another bill which doesn’t come close to addressing the problems and is headed nowhere,” Democratic Congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer said in a joint statement after the “skinny bill” was introduced.

“Democrats want to work on bipartisan legislation that will meet the urgent needs of the American people but Republicans continue to move in the wrong direction.”

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