Biden to unveil plan to pump $1.9 trillion into pandemic-hit economy

[webfact 81,860]

Biden to unveil plan to pump $1.9 trillion into pandemic-hit economy

By Jeff Mason and Jarrett Renshaw

 

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President-elect Joe Biden speaks as he announces members of economics and jobs team at his transition headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, U.S., January 8, 2021. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo

 

WILMINGTON, Del. (Reuters) - President-elect Joe Biden will unveil a $1.9 trillion stimulus package proposal on Thursday designed to jump-start the economy and speed up the U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic, officials said.

 

Biden campaigned last year on a promise to take the pandemic more seriously than President Donald Trump, and the package aims to put that pledge into action with an influx of resources for the coronavirus response and economic recovery.

 

The package includes $415 billion to bolster the response to the virus and the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, some $1 trillion in direct relief to households, and roughly $440 billion for small businesses and communities particularly hard hit by the pandemic, incoming Biden administration officials told reporters on a conference call.

 

Stimulus payment checks would be issued for $1,400 - topping up the $600 checks issued under the last congressional stimulus legislation. Supplemental unemployment insurance would also increase to $400 a week from $300 a week now and would be extended to September, the officials said.

 

Biden will make the announcement in a 7:15 p.m. eastern prime time address on Thursday, underscoring the importance his team places on the issue.

 

Biden's plan is meant to kick off his time in office with a large bill that sets his short-term agenda into motion quickly: helping the economy and getting a handle on a virus that has killed more than 385,000 people in the United States as of Thursday.

 

It also provides a sharp contrast with Trump, who spent the last months of his administration seeking to undermine Biden's election victory rather than focusing on additional coronavirus relief. Trump, who leaves office on Wednesday, did support $2,000 payments to Americans, however.

 

Many Republicans in Congress balked at the price tag for such payments, and Biden will face similar hurdles with his proposals, though he will be helped by the fact that his fellow Democrats will control both the House and the Senate.

 

The incoming president will seek to pass the legislation even as his predecessor faces an impeachment trial.

 

The Democratic-led House of Representatives voted to impeach Trump on Wednesday, making him the first president in U.S. history to be impeached twice. Ten of his fellow Republicans joined Democrats to charge him with inciting an insurrection in last week's deadly rampage at the Capitol.

 

The impeachment proceedings threaten to hang over the beginning of Biden's term, and Biden has encouraged lawmakers to handle the trial while also moving forward with his agenda.

 

PRECARIOUS MOMENT

The officials said Biden's plan on Thursday will be a rescue package that will be followed up with another recovery package in the coming weeks.

 

"We're at a very precarious moment for our economy," one of the officials said.

 

The plan would extend moratoriums on foreclosures and evictions until September and include funding for rental and utility assistance.

 

The president-elect will also call on Congress to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour, and the package will include assistance to fight hunger.

 

The coronavirus relief-related funds will go toward a national vaccine program, testing, investments for workers to do vaccine outreach and contact tracing, and money for states.

 

The Democratic president-elect said last week the stimulus package would be "in the trillions of dollars" and argued that more spending early on would reduce the long-term economic damage from the shutdowns spurred by the pandemic.

 

He also said there would be "billions of dollars" to speed up vaccine distribution, along with money to help reopen schools and for state and local governments to avoid laying off teachers, police officers and health workers.

 

Pandemic-related shutdowns and restrictions have cost millions of U.S. jobs.

 

(Reporting by Jeff Mason in Wilmington, Delaware, and Jarrett Renshaw in Philadelphia; Additional reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Dan Burns; Editing by Daniel Wallis)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2021-01-15

 

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[Tug 22,297]

Well he was #2 on the team that saved our bacon last time and he has the ability to take advice 

[PatOngo 47,270]

Print some more greenbacks, push the dollar down and raise the gold price, thanks Joe! 

[mtls2005 16,362]

A President (-elect) proposing solutions. 

 

What a strange concept.

[Tug 22,297]

I almost forgot what a president sounds like I’m feeling better allready and imagine he’s smart enough to stay out of the way of the experts in their fields 

Edited January 15 by Tug

[Walker88 4,576]

Biden and Obama have never gotten enough credit for literally saving the world's financial system in 2009. Those who either do not remember or do not understand, the entire world's financial system was mere days from collapse. Banks were wildly over-leveraged, and some $850 trillion of notional value of derivatives were imploding, because the chains linking everything together were breaking at various points (Bear Stearns, Lehman Bros, a host of Euro pension funds), threatening to bring down the whole. The world GDP at that time was around $55 trillion, so an $850 trillion evaporation of debt and other obligations would have been catastrophic.

 

The system is based purely on confidence and suspension of disbelief, as what we call 'money' is merely a mutual agreement to consider some inanimate and ethereal entity as a store of value. The Obama-Biden team restored confidence by forcing banks to de-lever as well as issue new equity. They also came in to back up insurers, those entities that promise to make losses whole via a system of making more money off premiums than they must pay out, so long as they correctly calculate real levels of risk and charge premiums accordingly. Insurers had failed, both because the investments they make to earn above payout were tumbling, and also because a few insurers and re-insurers had decided to assume the entire risk of the world (e.g., AIG). At that time two other markets were collapsing: Money Markets and the Commercial Paper market. Bold and immediate actions by OBama-Biden rebuilt that confidence. The system did not collapse.

 

Imagine if banks or insurers had collapsed. The economy would have halted, save for barter. It would have been devastation on a scale unimaginable, so don't bother wondering. It likely would have been an extinction event, or at best, a Mad Max world.

 

What we face today is less severe, but it still requires bold thinking, visionary leadership, and a cool hand. Obviously 45 is incapable of addressing it, particularly since a good deal of the problems we face are a direct result of his abject incompetence and childish nature.

 

Remember "Infrastructure Week"? Never happened. Rebuilding the US' declining and deteriorating infrastructure was a plum sitting out there waiting to be picked, something that would have had multiple benefits both in creating jobs and simple building a better US. 45 never got around to it; too busy calling in to fox, Tweeting, or playing golf. Of course he could come up with a $2 trillion tax cut that went to the top 1%, working with a then-(R) House and (R) Senate, but they failed miserably on infrastructure.

 

Biden addressed that shortcoming tonight in his speech. A return of competence and commitment, rather than 'leadership' by someone who is purely self-serving and willfully ignorant, gives the US a chance to recover. Recovery isn't guaranteed, but it will be nice to have someone with a track record of success, vs someone with a lifelong track record of failure (6 bankruptcies, more than 50 shuttered businesses like water, steaks, an airline, a travel company, a football team, a fake university....).

[Jeffr2 9,858]

Finally, an adult in the room.  What a difference Biden's going to make.

 

Now if we can just get the members of the GOP who still say the vote was stolen to get onboard, we'd be in great shape!

[Henryford 5,082]

Printing more trillions !! takes a genius to work that one out.

[Rimmer 10,874]

Conspiracy troll posts have been removed also replies

[ExpatOK 1,090]

We'll have to see what biden does, go through with this plan right away, or have Trump's trial right away.  Can't do both at the same time.

[Jeffr2 9,858]

1 minute ago, ExpatOK said:

We'll have to see what biden does, go through with this plan right away, or have Trump's trial right away.  Can't do both at the same time.

Actually, members of the senate have said they can do both at the same time.

 

And if Mitch really does want Trump gone for good, he'll back the process.  We'll see, but nothing happening until the senate reconvenes on the 19th.  And when he loses his job.  Yeah!!!

[Natai Beach 2,350]

5 hours ago, PatOngo said:

Print some more greenbacks, push the dollar down and raise the gold price, thanks Joe! 

It will be good for all our baht also we have invested for our visas.

 

A big Thankyou to Thai immigration for that forex windfall. 

[placeholder 8,403]

28 minutes ago, ExpatOK said:

We'll have to see what biden does, go through with this plan right away, or have Trump's trial right away.  Can't do both at the same time.

Because it's impossible to walkl0

[John Drake 1,741]

I want $2000, not $1400. And I want another $2000 in two or three months. Take it away from the military. Make it up by increasing taxes and cancelling Trump/Ryan/McConnell's tax cut for billionaires and bankers. Call in the "loans" that were given to the airlines and foreign cruise ship companies. And especially call back the $350,000 to $1 million "loan" that went to Mitch McConnell's wife's family. https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/2020/07/07/firm-run-elaine-chao-and-mitch-mcconnells-family-got-federal-ppp-loan/5390273002/

[welovesundaysatspace 8,691]

4 hours ago, Henryford said:

Printing more trillions !! takes a genius to work that one out.

Guess that’s why Donnie never thought about it while he was busy playing golf and tweeting.