Sen. Bernie Sanders raised a warning on Sunday about lowering the threshold for Americans to receive coronavirus relief checks, saying he agrees with a cutoff for high earners but not for working class people making $50,000 a year.
President Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan calls for $1,400 checks to be sent to eligible Americans, but some Democrats and Republicans have floated the idea of putting limits on who gets the payments.
Biden has said he would be receptive to it.
Instead of a $75,000 limit on individuals they are looking at reducing it to $50,000 — for couples it would go from $150,000 to $100,000.
Sanders, the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, said lawmakers have to “do the right thing” from a policy standpoint.
“It is absurd to be telling working-class people, somebody who has a decent union job – they’re making $55,000, $60,000 — sorry, you’re not eligible for the program. It makes no sense to me at all, nor do I think it makes sense to the American people,” Sanders (I-Vt.) said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
But he said he agrees with a $300,000 phase out for checks.
“When people said, we don’t want rich people to get that benefit, I understand that. I agree. And what we need to do is have a strong cliff, so it doesn’t kind of spill over to people making $300,000. And that’s what I support. And that’s what I think most people understand,” Sanders said.
His progressive colleague in the House, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, also slammed the thresholds and said people should be getting $2,000 stimulus checks.
“Just help people!,” she said.
