2020 Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders is outlining a costly plan in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
The Trump administration made known on Tuesday that they are considering sending Americans $1,000 “immediately” to offset financial pains during the coronavirus pandemic. The administration pushed for a $1 trillion stimulus package on Tuesday.
“We’re going big,” the president said.
However, on checks for Americans, the Vermont senator explained during a virtual speech on Tuesday that he believes every U.S. household should receive $2,000 a month for “the duration of the crisis.”
“We need to provide a direct $2,000 cash payment to every household in America for the duration of the crisis to provide them with the assistance they need to pay their bills and take care of their families.”
See Sanders’ comments below:
Bernie Sanders addressed the escalating coronavirus crisis on Tuesday night, saying it was an “unprecedented moment” and calling for $2,000 payments to Americans, among other proposals.
— The New York Times (@nytimes) March 18, 2020
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He also proposed other ideas such as unemployment help, Medicare, and assistance to small and medium-sized businesses.
Sanders, however, did mention the costliness of providing each American household $2,000 a month, along with his other proposals, noting it would cost about $2 trillion.
“In this unprecedented moment, this will require an unprecedented amount of money,” Sanders said, adding, “My own guess is that we’ll be spending two trillion dollars in funding to prevent deaths, job losses, and to avoid an economic catastrophe.”
During a press conference on Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said, “I think it’s clear we don’t need to send people who make a million dollars a year checks. But we like — that’s one of the ideas we like. We’re going to preview that today and then we’ll be talking about details afterwards.”
President Donald Trump also added, “I think we’re going to do something that gets money to them as quickly as possible. That may not be an accurate way of doing it because obviously some people shouldn’t be getting checks for $1000. But we’ll have a pretty good idea by the end of the day what we’re going to be doing.”
In Washington, D.C., lawmakers are looking to limit financial damage from the coronavirus outbreak, as the Senate is expected to approve an aid package this week, as IJR reported — though Republicans appear divided on some of the bill, including the payments to Americans.
Senate Majority Leaders Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) suggested to his colleagues on Tuesday, “Gag and vote for it.”