Don’t go spending that $1,400 stimulus payment just yet. It’s not coming so quickly. Maybe not for another month.
That’s because the House and Senate votes this week simply allowed Congress to pass a $1.9 trillion stimulus bill by majority vote and prevent a filibuster. Now, lawmakers actually have to write the legislation.
Their goal is to have a bill on President Joe Biden’s desk by mid-March, when the current extension of unemployment insurance expires.
But that bill will include the $1,400 direct payments, which combined with the $600 payments approved in December will provide the $2,000 promised by Biden and congressional Democrats..
“It’s quite clear that we’re going to have the $1,400,” said Rep. Frank Pallone Jr., D-6th Dist.
House Democratic leaders and committee chairs, including Pallone, who chairs the Energy and Commerce Committee, met with Biden at the White House Friday to map out their next steps.
Now the committees will spent the next two weeks drafting their separate sections of the legislation for the House Budget Committee to put together into a final package. There will be amendments and debate and a vote on the House floor.
Pallone suggested a House bill wouldn’t be completed until the end of February at the earliest.
“Everybody is trying to do this as quickly as possible,” he said.
Then the Senate needs to act. First, though, senators will be holding their second impeachment trial of President Donald Trump for inciting the Jan. 6 Capitol riots.
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One question the legislation will answer is when to cut off the stimulus payments.
In the first bill, individuals earning $75,000 or less and married couples earning $150,000 or less received the full $1,200, while individuals making up to $99,000 and married couples making up to $198,000 received a smaller check based on income.
The $600 payments approved in December also began phasing out after $75,000 for singles and $150,000 married couples.
So too would the latest version, but because they also would provide $1,400 to dependent children, the formula for reducing payments as income rose still would mean that large families making more than $400,000 could get some money, according to the Center for a Responsible Federal Budget.
The budget resolution approved Friday would restrict the payments from going to unspecified “high-income” households, and lawmakers in drafting the legislation will have to decide when to cut off the payments. One way being discussed to better target the money to lower-income households would be to give the full amount only those making $50,000 or less, or $100,000 or less for married couples.
“We need to target that money so folks making $300,000 don’t get any windfall,” Biden said at the White House Friday. “But if you’re a two — if you’re a two — if you’re a family that’s a two-wage earner, each of the parents — one making 30 grand and one making 40 or 50 — maybe that’s a little more than — well, yeah, they need the money, and they’re going to get it.”
Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JDSalant.
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