(PresidentialWire.com)- There will almost definitely be a fourth economic relief package coming, even if it may be a month or so away at this point.
But as it stands now, whatever bill is negotiated and passed may not bring the direct relief many Americans are hoping for.
According to two White House advisers — Kevin Hassett, a senior adviser, and Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council — the Trump administration may push for a narrower focus on boosting the economy by helping businesses.
This means it may be unlikely that the administration — and possibly even the Republicans in the Senate — would be in favor of additional direct payments to individuals.
Last week, Hassett said the positive growth that was revealed from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ May jobs report shows in some ways that the economy is improving, and that Americans may not need as much direct help as they did before. In May, 2.5 million jobs were added, and the unemployment rate dropped from 14.7% in April to 13.3% in May.
Those numbers were surprising on a number of levels, but particularly because many economists had expected a loss of 7.5 million more jobs, with the unemployment rate possibly climbing to 19% or more.
Kudlow said he believes negotiations on another bill would probably resume after Congress returns from its July 4 recess. If that’s the case, legislators will have another jobs report to analyze to see how the economy is really working.
If June’s numbers follow the same positive line as May’s did, Hassett said he “could imagine it would be a very different Phase Four bill than if we had a whole bunch of months like April. There definitely will be [another relief package], but one of the things the president has instructed the team to do is to watch the numbers carefully and … have a menu of options that’s conditional on how the economy’s doing.”
Kudlow said negotiations on the next relief bill have “slowed down” because many White House officials wanted to assess the results of the massive CARES Act. He also said May’s jobs report was a “very pleasant surprise.”
He further said that people didn’t truly understand the power that the Paycheck Protection Program had, and underestimated the “positive impact of opening small businesses.” In this way, Kudlow is in a way advocating for re-opening the economy and letting “people go back to work” as the main way to help people’s pockets.
As he explained to Fox Business:
“There’s a lot of heartbreak still in the unemployment ranks, and we have more work to do, but let’s be smart. If we go into another discussion, let’s think about long-term or medium- to long-term growth incentives.”
Some of those possible incentives could include a cut in capital gains tax, tax deductions for certain sectors of the economy that were hit the hardest, bonuses for businesses and people to return to work, and a holiday on payroll tax.
