Bernie Sanders: Anyone making $75,000 should get full $1,400 payment

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders said Sunday that Americans making $75,000 or less should receive the $1,400 direct payments. Sanders as the new chairman of the Senate Budget Committee will shape the final $1.9 trillion coronavirus stimulus bill.

As stated in a NJ.com report, he did not agree with proposals to restrict the full payments to those making $50,000, which was part of a plan to prevent wealthier taxpayers from getting a share of the money. Under the original proposal, checks could flow to families earning $300,000 or more.

You can read: Republicans push for $1,000 stimulus checks instead of $1,400 from Biden´s plan

“When people said, we don’t want rich people to get that benefit, I understand that,” Sanders said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “And what we need to do is have a strong cliff, so it doesn’t kind of spill over to people making $300,000.

“But to say to a worker in Vermont or California or anyplace else that, if you’re making $52,000 a year, you are too rich to get this help, the full benefit, I think that that’s absurd.”

Sanders said the thresholds should be $75,000 for individuals and $150,000 for married couples, just as they have been in the first two rounds of stimulus checks signed into law by President Donald Trump. Those making less than $100,000 and couples making less than $200,000 got smaller payments based on income.

An absurd political situation

Sanders pointed out the contradiction resulting from the proposals of Donald Trump and what Joe Biden aims for. “It’s also, from a political point of view, a little bit absurd that you would have, under Trump, these folks getting the benefit, but, under Biden, who is fighting hard for the working class of this country, they would not get that full benefit,” Sanders said.

“From a political point of view, it is absurd to be telling working-class people, somebody who has a decent union job, they’re making $55,000, $60,000, sorry, you’re not eligible for the program. It makes no sense to me at all, nor do I think it makes sense to the American people,” he added.