JOE Biden may alter the income thresholds for the next round of direct payments, in order to secure cross party support for his Covid relief bill.
On Monday Biden said he would negotiate over the $1,400 stimulus checks he proposed in his $1.9 trillion Covid relief package.
The president said he would be open to negotiating the eligibility requirements of his proposed $1,400 Covid stimulus check, after lawmakers said they should be more targeted to lower-incomes.
“For example, you know I proposed that we — because it was bipartisan, I thought it would increase the prospects of passage — the additional $1,400 in direct cash payment to folks,” Biden said.
“Well, there’s legitimate reason for people to say, ‘Do you have the lines drawn the exact right way? Should it go to anybody making over X-number of dollars or why?’ I’m open to negotiate those things. That’s all. "
"I picked it because I thought it was rational, reasonable, and it had overwhelming bipartisan support in the House when it passed. But this is all a bit of a moving target.”
If follows the Biden administration trying to deflect Republican concerns that his $1.9 trillion pandemic relief proposal was too expensive.
Lawmakers from both parties said they had agreed that getting the COVID-19 vaccine to Americans should be a priority.
But some Republican senators objected to such a hefty package only a month after Congress passed a $900 billion relief measure.
The previous round of stimulus checks, including the $600-per-person check approved in December, was generally limited to individuals earning less than $75,000 a year and married couples earning less than $150,000.
Individuals earning more than $87,000 and married couples earning more than $174,000 were ineligible for payments.
The $1,400 figure would bring the total amount given to households to $2,000.
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Biden didn't rule out using a budgetary process called reconciliation to go around Republicans and enact a rescue package in a majority party-line vote.
"The decision to use reconciliation will depend upon how these negotiations go," he said.
"I don't expect we'll know whether we have an agreement or to what extent the entire package will be able to pass or not pass until we get right down to the very end of this process, which will be probably in a couple of weeks."
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