Congress Unleashes Torrent of Cash, But Is It Working?

06/11/20 • 26 min

Congress has lowered the boom and allocated trillions of dollars to counteract the pandemic and its devastating economic fallout. It also made numerous tweaks to the tax code, all aimed at getting more money into people's wallets immediately.

How's that working? Could Congress have been more effective by instead just dropping piles cash out of helicopters?

That's the topic of a panel discussion on this week's episode of Talking Tax. Steven M. Rosenthal of the Urban Institute and Kyle Pomerleau of the American Enterprise Institute talk with moderator Colin Wilhelm, a Bloomberg Tax reporter, about the effectiveness of Congress' relief efforts and what it should do next.

How's that working? Could Congress have been more effective by instead just dropping piles cash out of helicopters?

Previous Episode

Paycheck Program in Flux as Congress Tweaks Its Rules

The federal Paycheck Protection Program was rolled out in a hurry—and it showed.

Its initial round of loans totaling nearly $350 billion, intended to keep businesses afloat during the pandemic crisis, was exhausted in less than two weeks. And many small business owners complained that it was as hard to spend their loan dollars in compliance with the law as it was to even get a loan in the first place.

Since then, Congress has added more money to the program. And now it's changing the rules of who can get that money and how they can spend it.

On this week's episode of Talking Tax, host Amanda Iacone talks with Capitol Hill reporter Kaustuv Basu about the revision of the PPP program that cleared Congress late Wednesday night. Kaustuv also explains why the next pandemic relief bill that Congress takes up may be one that makes your vacations tax deductible.

Next Episode

Pandemic Crash Puts E-Commerce in State Tax Crosshairs

Two years ago, the Supreme Court gave states the authority to collect sales tax from out-of-state online retailers with its historic Wayfair opinion. Now, with the pandemic blowing gaping holes in budgets across the country, states may be more eager than ever to flex their new authorities.

On this week's episode of Talking Tax, host Amanda Iacone talks with two state correspondents, Michael J. Bologna and Tripp Baltz, about how Wayfair has changed state tax policies over the past two years. They also discuss how states that were reluctant to aggressively pursue sales taxes from online retailers may quickly shed that reluctance now that they are starving for tax revenue.