House of Representatives Passes Heroes Act- Unlikely in Current Form To Be Passed By Senate.
Includes $1 trillion for state and local governments, $200 billion for essential worker hazard pay, $75 billion for more Covid testing, tracing and isolation and direct payments to Americans up to $6000 per household (another round of $1200 stimulus checks), and $175 billion to rent and mortgage aid. It is unlikely to pass the Senate in its current form.
Additional items include a boost in food stamps payments expected to cost $10 billion, a $25 billion bailout for the Postal Service, $3.6 billion for state elections offices and $5.5 billion for expanding high-speed internet to libraries and homes.
The bill would give relief to wealthy residents of high-tax states like New York by waiving the $10,000 cap on the federal State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction for 2020 and 2021.
The Act also includes student loan relief including:
- $10,000 in federal loan forgiveness
- $10,000 in private student loan forgiveness
- Suspension of payments, interest and collections on government held federal student loans through September 2021 and an expansion of those protections to include commercially-held FEEL program federal loans as well as Perkins loans
- A fix to public Service Loan Forgiveness that would allow payments made on previously consolidated federal student loans to potentially count towards the 120 qualifying monthly payments required for the program.
- Source- Forbes.com
The proposed plan would continue the incremental $600 per week from July 31 through December 31, however, the Senate is stating the average full-time hospitality worker who lost their job are making 82% more on unemployment than working as well as those in arts and entertainment, transportation and agriculture who also do better. Hence, the Senate believes that the supplement encourages people not to work.
