The White House is considering the possibility that a fourth-phase stimulus will not be needed to rescue the United States from the negative impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic as signs of economic recovery were already in the works, President Donald Trump's Senior Economic Adviser Kevin Hassett said on Monday
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 18th May, 2020) The White House is considering the possibility that a fourth-phase stimulus will not be needed to rescue the United States from the negative impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic as signs of economic recovery were already in the works, President Donald Trump's Senior Economic Adviser Kevin Hassett said on Monday.
"There are a lot of indicators that appear to really be turning around quickly, like retail visits and percentages of business open," Hassett told a news conference on the White House lawn. "Even in the social distancing data, you could see that people are under the guidelines, hopefully, safely beginning to get back to work. And so, if the economy continues the momentum that we're beginning to see over the last couple of weeks of data, then I think that one might conclude that the stimulus that we've already passed is enough."
Trump's Democrat rivals who control Congress approved last week their own version of a $3 trillion coronavirus relief bill. But Republicans led by the president quickly rejected the bill signed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on grounds that it included aid for illegal immigrants.
Analysts say it's likely that the president will still end up signing a new aid package into law next month or later. The United States has so far rolled out aid programs totaling as much as $9 trillion to manage economic and other hardship caused by the COVID-19, Larry Kudlow, another economic adviser to Trump, said last month.
Hassett said in an interview with CNBC on Monday before the news conference on the White House lawn that the administration was ready to take very strong action if stimulus was needed.
"I just doubt at the end that the product is going to look much like what Speaker Pelosi put out last week," he said.
At the news conference, Hassett said the government has lent money to some two million small businesses across the country.
"It's not something the government can do forever, but it is something that we could do, you know through June. I would guess that there's enough cash for that," Hassett said.
Previous bills, he added, already passed are about two times the size of the entire New Deal through the entire 1930s.
"These are really, really big massive interventions we have got here and I think that it's appropriate to at least wait until we see how those go," Hassett said.
Separately, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell told a CBS interview on Sunday that US economic recovery could stretch through until the end of 2021 and depended on the delivery of a vaccine for the COVID-19.
