Dallas Mavericks owner and Shark Tank star Mark Cuban outlined his own ideas on how to help Americans during the coronaviurs pandemic in a series of tweets Sunday. One of the AXS-TV chairman’s idea is a $1,000 stimulus check sent to households every two weeks for the next two months, but there’s a catch — the payment would have to be used within 10 days. Cuban suggested such a radical idea would help drive up consumer demand, which might be a bigger help for businesses than the Paycheck Protection Program.
According to Cuban, the government should “face the fact” that PPP did not work. “Great plan, difficult execution. No one’s fault,” Cuban wrote. “The only thing that will save businesses is consumer demand. No amount of loans to businesses will save them or jobs if their customers aren’t buying.” He suggested the government should try “trickle up economics” and create a “transitional” federal jobs program to train and hire millions for a “federal tracking/tracing/testing program as well as for support for at risk populations including long term care.” His theory is that such a program would create stable jobs.
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Since this idea would take some time, Cuban suggested an “interim spending stimulus program” that would provide 128 million households with a $1,000 check every two weeks for two months. The one catch though is that Americans must use the money within 10 days or it will expire. The program will cost about $500 billion, according to Cuban but it would “allow for demand for non essential products and services to increase, hopefully keeping most businesses alive, as we learn what the impact of re-opening is on the spread and whether or not employment grows organically.” In the end, Cuban admitted there is “a lot of risk in this use it or lose it approach.”
Millions of Americans began receiving at least $1,200 per taxpayer in mid-April, as part of the $2.2 trillion CARES Act signed into law in March. Since then, there have been several proposals for a second stimulus payment, but none have been signed into law. On Friday night, the House of Representatives passed the Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions (HEROES) Act, which includes a second payment for all Americans, but the $3 trillion package is not expected to pass the Senate. The proposal is different than the first payment, as it entitles some households up to $6,000 and would go out to anyone with an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN), even if they do not have a Social Security number.
