Jamie Dimon Warns Against “Too Much” Covid Relief
The head of JPMorgan Chase does not think that people should be given too much money individually.
JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon believes that it would be a mistake to offer too generous a Covid relief package to the American public. Dimon shared his thoughts on what is best now for the American economy in an interview with Bloomberg TV.
The Congress was deadlocked at the end of 2020 over what it should include in its latest Coronavirus relief aid bill. The Democrats and Republicans could not agree on what to do and how much money to give individuals directly. But that was when Donald Trump was still President and the Republicans controlled the Senate.
Now that the Democrats control both houses of the U.S. Congress and the Joe Biden is the President, people expect the Democrats to push through their programs. But the Senate is split literally 50 to 50 so just one democratic senator’s defection would torpedo any legislation. And the filibuster will allow the Republicans to block legislation as long as 40 or more refuse to vote for cloture, for a bill to be moved forward for a vote.
Liberal House Democrats had attached an increase of the national minimum wage to $15 an hour to their version of the new Covid relief bill. But the Democrats in the Senate could not get the votes to block a filibuster over this measure and so they had to remove it from the bill.
As of now, the U.S. Senate is attempting to finalize its own $1.9 trillion relief package which it would then send over to the House of Representatives. The House would then need to ratify it for the bill to become law.
But many experts like Jami Dimon fear that handing out too much money to the public would discourage people from trying to work again. He feels that the government should be more focused on jumpstarting the economy and job creations once the Covid crisis ends.
“We’re just throwing money at people at one point,” Dimon told Bloomberg TV. “There will be another side to that mountain, so they should be cautious about overdoing it, get us through the problem, get the country going, but try not to overdo it too much.”
The head of JPMorgan Chase also had a few critical words for the politicizing of the process for helping the economy. He feels that both the Democrats and the Republicans are to be blamed for tacking on things related to their respective political agendas to such bills.
“Democrats, Republicans are like ships passing in a night,” said Jamie Dimon. “There are legitimate complaints about stuff in this bill that have nothing to do with COVID. There are a lot of people suffering who need help. Both are true.”
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