The Trump administration is preparing to ask for about $850 billion in additional stimulus to support the economy, which is facing a deep downturn as businesses close because of the coronavirus.
Steven Mnuchin, the treasury secretary, is expected to make the pitch for additional fiscal firepower on Tuesday to Republican senators, some of whom have been hesitant to embrace the legislation that the House passed last week, according to people familiar with the plans. A centrepiece of the proposal is the payroll tax cut that President Trump has been calling for.
The Trump administration is also supportive of a request for $50 billion in economic relief for the airline industry. The industry’s lobbying group publicly made the request on Monday, asking for grants, loan guarantees and tax relief.
Larry Kudlow, the director of the National Economic Council, laid out the administration’s fiscal stimulus approach on Monday and said that it would amount to about $800 billion.
Kudlow and Mnuchin are also considering an array of other proposals to help individuals and small and medium-sized businesses.
The treasury department is expected to outline plans for delaying tax filing and payments without penalties beyond April 15.
More than seven million residents in the San Francisco Bay Area have been ordered to mostly confine themselves to their homes, joining the ranks of Italy, Spain, France and China.
“It’s bad,” President Trump conceded, as financial markets tanked and economists warned of a steep recession.
“We are at war,” President Emmanuel Macron of France told his people.
The enemy is invisible and insidious, gathering strength from the bonds of human connection. So public health officials were asking people the world over to sever those ties.
While nations, states and localities offered differing restrictions with varying degrees of enforcement, the message was coalescing around a simple if daunting challenge: Keep your distance.
In the US, the Trump administration warned against gatherings of more than 10 people, and asked citizens to work from home if possible and avoid unnecessary travel. Bars and restaurants should be avoided, or closed in areas where the virus was rapidly spreading, officials said.
Since March 3, the Trump administration has said coronavirus testing is available to all. But people across the country said that’s not the case.
The guidelines apply for the next 15 days, but President Trump warned that the restrictions could grow more stringent and last well into summer.
While the rate of infections has declined steeply in China, for instance, many of the harsh limits on movement there are still in place after more than six weeks.
The stepped-up action in the US was driven, in part, by a report compiled by British researchers warning that 2.2 million people could die in the country in the absence of strong action by the government and individuals to slow the spread of the virus.
New Jersey residents have been asked not to leave their homes from 8pm until 5am. A curfew is being considered for New York City.
In Italy, the scale of the epidemic is evident in the bodies left behind. With the oldest population in Europe, the country has suffered more than 2,100 deaths, and hospitals and morgues are inundated.
The EU proposed a 30-day shutdown of nonessential travel into the bloc from other countries — an urgent attempt to keep internal borders as open as possible to promote European solidarity.
