JaredS Wrote: On the fact of it, the House and Senate seem to be miles apart, but I honestly think they are far closer than we're being led to believe. When it comes to the stimulus checks, they are basically on the same page. Then I can certainly see room for compromise with the additional weekly unemployment insurance. After that, the House and Senate will each have to give and take a bit on all the other aspects of their bills. If I were a betting man, a final bill totaling around $2 trillion will pass both houses and be sent to President Trump for his signature.

It's so frustrating that we already pretty much know what's going to happen yet still have to go through this dog and pony show. Dem's want $3 trillion and Rep's want $1. Let's call it an even $2 trillion and get help to the people who desperately need it right now.

JaredS Wrote: What do you think about the Senate bill? Is there anything you like better than the House version or are you more in favor of the legislation passed in the House?

I like the House legislation better because it addressed so many more critically needed things in order to jump start our economy (in my opinion), but I don't think the House ever really believed their legislation would become law. It was just a starting point for negotiations with the Senate.

What I'm most frustrated about is that we've known for weeks that the Senate was eyeing the $1 trillion number, so what took them so long to do what everyone expected in the first place? Negotiations with the House, at best, will take a minimum of one week after the Senate passes their version. That's just way too long when tens of millions of Americans rent is due in four days.

Talks of a second stimulus check have begun to ramp up in recent days, well over a month after the House of Representatives included another round of stimulus checks in their HEROES Act. While the Senate didn't outright reject another round of stimulus checks, they did reject outright large portions of the $3 trillion bill.

That's where things have stood for the past month, but recent comments by President Trump and other high-level Republicans appear open the door for new negotiations over a second round of stimulus checks. When asked whether there will be another stimulus package, President Trump was unequivocal, saying "[W]e will be doing another stimulus package. It'll be very good, it'll be very generous."

While it's true that some of President Trump's advisers and Senate Republicans don't have much interest for a second round of direct checks to the American public, that doesn't mean there won't be one, especially since President Trump all but guaranteed there will be one.

So, it may take a few weeks of negotiations between Republicans and then some more time for Democrats and Republicans to come to a compromise, but a second round of stimulus checks seems a lot more likely than it did even a week ago.

Stay tuned.

J.K.Logic Wrote: That is really important to know and quite honestly I am very surprised this isn't a more talked about issue in the country right now. With tens of millions unemployed and with so many getting health insurance through their employers, I would have thought this would be just as discussed and worried about as stimulus checks and unemployment. Maybe I am missing something... either way, good share. Thanks for the info.

J.K.Logic Wrote: So now we wait for the Senate to negotiate with House Democrats for about another month or so.. I mean if this didn't even have a chance at really passing into law, why not be more aspirational? I know this bill was already $3 trillion, but if its just a way to show what they want, I don't understand why they didn't push for anything extreme, just to make a point. Like better/bigger student loan forgiveness, and/or bigger/monthly stimulus checks, or paycheck protection for ALL employees.

That's a really good point. I wonder if it is because they may have lost more moderate House Democrats in purple districts if they went much further? While the loudest voices in the caucus are more progressive, there are plenty of quiet middle-of-the-road Democrats who are quite moderate in both temperament and their political philosophy.

Fourteen Democrats voted against the bill that wound up passing, so I wonder if Speaker Pelosi did try to go further but realized she would lose even more votes and then wouldn't have enough votes to pass the bill.

Color me skeptical that the only motivation behind this proposal is to get money into peoples hands now and not, as I suspect, a backdoor way to raid the Social Security Trust Fund well before it is scheduled to run out of money (if nothing is done) in 2034 .

I tend to take things to the extreme when I think about cost, so let's hypothesize that 150 million (roughly half) of Americans wind up taking this hypothetical $5,000. With so many Americans out of work right now, I don't think that is too crazy of a number to put out there. That would instantly deplete the trust fund of $750 billion. That is nearly 1/3 of the entire trust fund vanishing overnight. And if large swaths of the economy continue to stay closed then money won't be flowing back into the trust fund in any meaningful way anytime soon.

Not just that, but this additional $5,000 doesn't address current Social Security recipients, many of whom were struggling to survive on their current Social Security benefits before the global economic shutdown. If this proposal were to become law then their modest benefits would undoubtedly be cut.

I'm not saying I have the right answer and I don't envy our leaders who have to figure out a compromise to get badly needed help to hundreds of millions of people, but raiding the Social Security Trust Fund isn't the answer.

I don't really have much of a problem with the IRS having a deadline for people to enter their direct deposit information, but it is absolutely unacceptable to make the people who are in limbo for no fault of their own and can't enter their direct deposit information to wait even longer.

I understand that we're in the throes of a once in a generation emergency, but people are suffering and making them wait for their stimulus check because the IRS is unable to get their act together infuriates me.

I can't imagine that the IRS will keep it this way, or at least I really hope they won't. It just doesn't make sense to me that they will make people, some of whom are the most in need of these additional funds, to wait for months on end to get the additional money they are entitled to. To add insult to injury, this is a problem of the IRS's own making.

For that reason alone I have a strong feeling that the IRS will eventually reverse course and get the money out sooner.

Individuals and families currently receiving "Social Security retirement, survivor or disability benefits (SSDI), Railroad Retirement benefits, Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Veterans Affairs beneficiaries who didn't file a tax return in the last two years" who have dependents that would qualify for the additional $500 stimulus check will need to enter their information into the IRS online portal by 4 p.m. EST, Wednesday, April 22 to receive your additional $500 per eligible child payment.

IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig said:

"We want to 'Plus $500' these recipients with children so they can get their maximum Economic Impact Payment of $1,200 plus $500 for each eligible child as quickly as possible. They'll get $1,200 automatically, but they need to act quickly and register at IRS.gov to get the extra $500 per child added to their payment. These groups don't normally have a return filing obligation and may not realize they qualify for a larger payment. We're asking people and organizations throughout the country to share this information widely and help the IRS with the Plus $500 Push."

So, if you fall in to one of these categories, have a dependent child, and did not file taxes for 2018 or 2019 then be sure to log onto the IRS online portal ASAP and enter your information to ensure that you'll receive the additional $500 per dependent child in your household.

SSA, RRB recipients with eligible children need to act by Wednesday to quickly add money to their automatic Economic Impact Payment; IRS asks for help in the "Plus $500 Push"

“We want to ‘Plus $500’ these recipients with children so they can get their maximum Economic Impact Payment of $1,200 plus $500 for each eligible child as quickly as possible,” IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig said.

“They’ll get $1,200 automatically, but they need to act quickly and register at IRS.gov to get the extra $500 per child added to their payment. These groups don’t normally have a return filing obligation and may not realize they qualify for a larger payment.”