The Second Stimulus Check

My family received our first stimulus check last month. Speaker Nancy Pelosi introduced “The Heroes Act” last Tuesday, which includes another $1200 dollar stimulus check per individual. This bill passed the House on Friday the 15th of May and arrived in the Senate on the 20th. The likelihood of this bill passing the Senate is slim.

The first stimulus bill, “Families First Coronavirus Response Act” was introduced, passed by both the House of Representatives and the Senate, and signed by President Trump in a week. There was a national mandate for relief by the federal government. Lawmakers did not want to seem ineffective during a crisis. Remember every member of the House of Representatives and one third to the Senate are up for reelection this year, and many of their primaries were pushed into the spring and summer by their state governors.

There is no mandate for a second stimulus check. It would be amazing to see the federal government take the unemployment problem seriously, and encourage people to stay home until the curve is down in all fifty states, but that is not the case. Many states are beginning to reopen, and many members of Congress want people to be incentivized to go back to work. Majority Leader McConnell is afraid of a rising national deficit. It seems unlikely for another stimulus check to reach American bank accounts without a mandate by the voters, or urged by the President.