As Congress shamelessly takes a paycheck for arguing with each other, fingerpointing and not concluding business that serves the American people’s interests first, President Trump is considering taking executive action to bring relief to the American people that will put money in their pockets.
On Monday, President Trump said he was considering two timely executive orders.
One would halt evictions that loom for about 24 million Americans who say they have little to no chance of being able to pay next month’s rent.
The second would suspend payroll taxes, which would immediately put would allow workers to keep more of their hard-earned cash each month.
“A lot of people are going to be evicted, but I’m going to stop it because I’ll do it myself if I have to,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “I have a lot of powers with respect to executive orders, and we’re looking at that very seriously right now.”
Trump noted that individuals who are evicted often go to homeless shelters where, he said, they could be at higher risk of contracting COVID-19.
An eviction moratorium included in the CARES Act, protecting an estimated 12 million renters in federally backed properties, expired at the end of July.
There are some 110 million Americans living in rental households; up to 23 million renters – or 20 percent – are at risk of eviction by Sept. 30, according to an analysis by the COVID-19 Eviction Defense Project.
With the supplemental $600 in unemployment benefits now officially lapsed, about 24 million Americans say they have little to no chance of being able to pay next month’s rent, according to a survey by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Rent and mortgage payments are typically the largest monthly expense for Americans: One in four tenant families pays more than half of its income for rent, a rate that’s even higher in cities like San Francisco and New York, according to Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.“They’re thrown out viciously,” Trump said. “It’s not their fault.”
The president similarly suggested that he could use his executive authority to lower payroll taxes — a proposal that he’s advocated for since the beginning of the virus-induced economic crisis, but one that has garnered little support from both Democrats and Republicans.
“I can do that also through executive order, so we’ll be talking about that,” Trump said.
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