President Donald Trump’s administration failed to get a payroll tax cut into the Phase 4 CARES Act on Thursday, with Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin saying it may be included in a fifth stimulus.
The announcement comes just months after Trump said in May that there would be no phase 4 bill without his tax cut. Mnuchin said part of the problem with a payroll tax cut is it takes time for Americans to feel the benefit. He stated Americans need relief as soon as possible. (RELATED: McConnell Preparing New Bargaining Chip That Would Guarantee Phase 4 Bill Includes White House’s Employer Liability Protections)
Mnuchin on payroll tax cut: “It won’t be in the base bill but as we know, this is CARES 4.0, there could be CARES 5.0.”@CNBC
— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla) July 23, 2020
Despite President Trump’s push, the payroll tax cut is out, per Treasury Secretary Mnuchin. He now says Trump’s priority “is to get money to Americans quickly and one of the problems with the payroll tax cut is it takes time.”
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) July 23, 2020
The running draft of the CARES Act will instead include $16 billion in additional funding for virus testing, and providing unemployment relief at 70 percent wage replacement.
Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had shot down Trump’s push to include a payroll tax cut in May, saying she believed it would be unrelated to the coronavirus. Trump nevertheless insisted the tax cut would be included.
“The Democrats want bailouts for the states,” Trump said in May. “But we’ll be doing infrastructure, and I told Steve just today, we are not doing anything unless we get a payroll tax cut. That is so important to the success of our country.”