Pelosi Willing to Give?

Anybody’s Guess, Folks

This is another edition of waiting for the Senate to get back to DC so that we can have some real stimulus news to talk about.

But until that point, I will continue to keep you informed, about all the little whispers, all the speculation, all the vague statements made by your favorite Washington DC personalities, such as Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Mitch McConnell with respect to the next stimulus relief bill, because folks, the honest answer right now is no one has any idea what’s going to be in that thing.

There’s so many ideas on the table at this point with respect to what’s going to be in the next stimulus relief bill.

Obviously, the stimulus checks, obviously, an extension of unemployment benefits, but we also got state and local assistance, liability protection for small businesses, money for schools, maybe an enhanced PPP, return to work bonuses, money for testing and tracing, hazard pay, rent and mortgage assistance. The list goes on.

Obviously, the most pertinent items in that list to the majority of you are stimulus checks, and for some of you, the extension of the unemployment.

Pelosi Willing to Give?

Now, that extension of the unemployment, that is set to expire the last week of July.

That’s scary, many people are depending on that money to pay for their necessary bills. Up until this point, we haven’t really heard any budge on the Democrat side, other than what they propose in the HEROES Act, which is to extend the whole $600 until next year.

However, yesterday Nancy Pelosi was at a press conference and it seemed that she was implying that she was more willing to give a little bit with respect to this aspect of the next stimulus relief bill, in talking about the supercharged unemployment benefits which we know in the HEROES Act, which passed her house.

She would want to extend at the full $600 all the way into next year. She said, “We’ll see how it goes with the conversation about those unemployment benefits. Some of it depends on what they (the Republicans) are willing to do on the direct payments as well.”

So she’s acknowledging, look, we’re probably not going to get everything we asked for in the HEROES Act with respect to both stimulus checks and unemployment.

So it seems like there’s this balancing act going on here in Pelosi’s mind. Okay. If they give a little more with stimulus checks, we acknowledge that we’re probably going to give a little bit on unemployment.

If they give it on unemployment, we acknowledge we have to give a little with stimulus checks.

So there seems to kind of be this dance here in Pelosi’s mind, and that’s how she feels the negotiations are going to go with respect to those two priorities that I know many of you have with the next stimulus relief bill.

White House on Unemployment

Yesterday, a spokesman for the White House said that the White House would not rule out agreeing to a more limited expansion of the supercharged unemployment benefits.

We know that many Republicans are on board with this in Congress right now. No, they don’t want the full $600 weekly extended, but they will be open to something maybe $200 a week, $400 a week.

They haven’t even come out with a set number either. In fact, the Republicans haven’t even said very much since the HEROES Act was passed, except that they don’t like it.

But next week, July 20th is when Senate is back in session. And next week is when McConnell has said that Republicans will start coming up with their own relief bill.

Healthy Workplaces Tax Credit

Speaking of Republican ideas today, House of Representatives member Tom Rice, Republican Congressman from South Carolina is going to propose the Healthy Workplaces Tax Credit, which would be a refundable tax credit against payroll taxes for 50% of a business’s cost for COVID-19 testing, personal protection equipment, disinfecting, extra cleaning and reconfiguring workspaces to adhere to social distancing guidelines.

The credit would be limited to $1,000 per employee for business’s first 500 employees, 750 per employee for the next 500 employees and $500 for each employee after that.

For example, if a restaurant with 40 employees spend $60,000 on PPE testing, disinfecting and plexiglass shields, it would receive a $30,000 tax credit against its payroll.

Democratic Proposal to Help Minorities

Republicans aren’t the only one with new ideas for what the country needs right now. Today Democrats released a summary of a proposal that would provide an immediate infusion of $135 billion to minority communities to provide free childcare, healthcare and more job opportunities, as well as an additional $215 billion over five years for infrastructure in those communities, expansion of Medicaid and homeowner down payment tax credit and other needs.

So combine those two figures there in this due Democratic proposal, you get $350 billion. That’s a lot compared to what McConnell and company is gunning for in the next stimulus relief bill over $1 trillion.

At least that’s what they put out there as their starting point. Democrat’s starting point is a $3 trillion HEROES Act.

Republican starting point soon be the $1 trillion figure that we’ve heard of floating around. I hope for the sake of the people that they will meet in between.

Congress Angry With IRS About First Stimulus

Today, over 100 members of the house representatives, both Democrats and Republicans wrote a letter to the IRS saying that the IRS has left people high and dry with respect to the first stimulus payment.

We know many people have not received their first stimulus or received a lesser amount than they were entitled to. And at this point the IRS’s position is, “Sorry, the only way you can fix it at this point is to get the credit for it on your 2020 tax return.”

We know that the IRS has said that they’re looking into ways to make sure that people who didn’t get the $500 for their dependent children are made whole without having to wait until filing in 2020 tax return.

But that doesn’t cover all circumstances. There are still people who did not receive their full stimulus check that don’t fall into that specific boat.

Today, over 100 members of Congress, Democrat and Republican wrote a letter to the IRS stating, “While the IRS claims that all issues may ultimately be resolved with 2020 tax filings in the next calendar year, for many of our constituents, that weight is simply untenable.”

We’ll see how the IRS responds to this. I hope that as they start to fill their offices again, they will figure out an efficient way to get stimulus payments to those who did not receive the full amount they’re entitled to during the first round.

Economic Data

To close out, let’s talk about some economic data. Data was released today, indicating that retail sales in June rose 7.5%, according to the commerce department, exceeding expectations of a roughly 5% increase month-over-month from May to June. And it being Thursday, you know what that means?

Today’s the day the jobless claims come out.

1.3 million Americans filed for unemployment during the second week of July, that’s roughly the same amount as filed the previous week.

There was only a 10,000 individual difference between the first week of July and the second week of July.

So that seems to be kind of holding steady. I’d be curious to see what is in the July jobs report, of course, but we know that Congress is going to start talking about the next relief bill before that.

The Clock Is Ticking

The clock is ticking.

Not only does those supercharged unemployment benefits end at the end of this month, the last week of July, but the house begins it’s recess on the first of August.

Of course, as I told you earlier this week, Pelosi said that she would be very open to canceling the houses recesses to make sure something is done with respect to the next stimulus relief bill, and the Senate, their August recess begins on August 8th.

We haven’t heard McConnell say as much, that he would be willing to cancel that recess or postpone it, but that is the calendar as it exists right now.

So there in a real time crunch, and there’s a lot of things they need to talk about and negotiate. And I hope they get something done and that partisan politics doesn’t get in the way.