The Calendar Is Not In Our Favor
Politico is noting this morning that despite the election itself being over…despite the increasing cases of COVID-19 across the country…and despite agreement that something has to be done…there are no conversations in Washington about government financial relief. They say there’s no buzz about it on Capitol Hill, and the White House is similarly quiet, other than a tweet from the president to get something big done, and fast.
2020 comes to a merciful end in 44 days, but unfortunately the problem will not go away with the year itself. A number of COVID-related provisions in law will expire on December 31st, however. They note those include the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation program, giving 13 weeks of extra unemployment insurance to those without other options. The Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program for those in the gig economy also runs out. The Eviction Moratorium ends. Funding passed through state and local governments ends. So too student loan forbearance and remaining 2020 rebate checks. Small business debt relief ends, and one-time charitable deduction limits expire. The exclusion of employer payments of student loans stops. The refundable tax credit for required paid sick leave runs out. The credit for family and sick leave for self-employed individuals ends.
Wait, there’s more…the payment delay for employer payroll taxes ends meaning more will be taken out of employee checks in early 2021, and changes on accounting for net operating losses end. Those are all COVID-related things…in addition, 33 other tax provisions end when 2020 does, all things that were set up pre-pandemic.
That’s an awful lot of change, something Politico calls a huge safety net for Americans that will be yanked away in 44 days…and Congress isn’t doing much of anything to change that.
Obviously a lame duck session can be problematic, even if one knew who the next president would be. Add a pandemic, and it’s worse. Add lack of action, and it’s worse still.
But I guess first things first…unrelated, the government runs out of money on December 11. So we’ve got that to deal with three weeks before all this other stuff. Not exactly a “good government” way to head into the holiday season.
