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Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen urged on CNBC yesterday that it's crucial to go big on the next round of coronavirus relief legislation, The Hill reported. “We think it’s very important to have a big package [that] addresses the pain this has caused — 15 million Americans behind on their rent, 24 million adults and 12 million children who don’t have enough to eat, small businesses failing,” Yellen said. “I think the price of doing too little is much higher than the price of doing something big. We think that the benefits will far outweigh the costs in the longer run,” she added, repeating a phrase she has frequently used to argue for a larger stimulus. The administration has been working with lawmakers, business groups and others on President Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID-19 aid and stimulus package. Republicans have balked at the price tag, but Democrats are increasingly indicating their willingness to pass legislation with or without GOP support.

Two top Senate Democrats said yesterday that they will keep pressuring President Joe Biden to wipe out up to $50,000 per borrower in student loan debt after he shot down the idea of doing so by executive action or without restrictions, Bloomberg News reported. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Elizabeth Warren for months have been pushing Biden to be more ambitious with executive action to cancel about $1 trillion in student loans, and they said they aren’t giving up. “Canceling $50,000 in federal student loan debt will help close the racial wealth gap, benefit the 40% of borrowers who do not have a college degree, and help stimulate the economy. It’s time to act. We will keep fighting,” they said in a statement. Biden appeared to dismiss the idea during a CNN town hall event in Milwaukee on Tuesday night. In response to a question from an audience member, Biden said he understood that debt can be debilitating and he would support some relief. “I do think that, in this moment of economic pain and strain, that we should be eliminating interest on the debts that are accumulated, number one. And, number two, I’m prepared to write off the $10,000 debt, but not” $50,000, he said. He suggested that there could be a system “to work it off” with public service jobs. Biden also said he didn’t think he had the authority to write off a larger amount through executive action. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday that Biden’s statement reiterated his previous position that he “doesn’t favor $50,000 student loan relief without limitation.” Psaki said Biden’s stance has been that relief above the $10,000 level should be targeted based on criteria such as income, the kind of debt, whether it was incurred at a public school, whether it was undergraduate or graduate debt. Biden has told Schumer and Warren that once his Justice Department team has been confirmed, he will ask them to review his authority to grant relief via executive action in conjunction with a policy review by his Domestic Policy Council, Psaki said. She said in the meantime Biden would be “eager” to sign a bill from Congress granting $10,000 in debt relief for borrowers. Schumer and Warren said previous presidents have used executive actions to grant relief. “The Biden administration has said it is reviewing options for canceling up to $50,000 in student debt by executive action, and we are confident they will agree with the standards Obama and Trump used,” they said.

President Joe Biden is extending a ban on home foreclosures for federally backed mortgages by three months and expanding a mortgage relief program in a push to stabilize the nation's housing affordability crisis amid the COVID-19 pandemic, USA Today reported. The foreclosure moratorium was set to expire March 31 and instead will be in place through June 30. It's the second time Biden has extended the ban after he used one of his record number of Day One executive actions to push back a previous Jan. 31 end date. The Biden administration today also will extend the enrollment window to request a mortgage payment forbearance – which allows borrowers to pause or reduce mortgage payments – until June 30. That program also was scheduled to end in March. As a result of a third action, the federal government will now allow borrowers to defer mortgage payments for an additional six months. Eligible homeowners must be enrolled in a forbearance plan by the end of June.

The tax-filing season is now underway after a delayed start, and it’s expected to bring challenges and confusion as taxpayers and the IRS navigate pandemic-related issues, including some pertaining to stimulus checks, The Hill reported. The IRS started accepting 2020 tax returns on Friday, a couple of weeks later than the usual, after a coronavirus relief law was enacted in late December. Many Americans saw significant changes to the amount and sources of their income last year because of the pandemic, and they will have to file returns that take those into account. People who have not received any or all of the funds that they’re entitled from the two rounds of stimulus payments can reconcile that on their 2020 return. “2020 was kind of a year for the ages and all the life experiences it took with it,” said Mark Steber, chief tax information officer for the tax-preparation company Jackson Hewitt. “There’s a lot for people to watch for on their taxes, and a lot to watch out for.” The IRS is expecting to process around 160 million individual tax returns this year. The agency said it’s prepared for the influx.

American Express disclosed on Friday that several federal agencies are probing its sales practices for its small business credit cards and consumer cards, The Hill reported. The company said in a regulatory filing that it received a grand jury subpoena in January from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York over its sales practices for its small business credit cards. It also received a Civil Investigative Demand from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) seeking information on sales practices relating to consumers, according to the filing. The company also said it began responding to a regulatory review led by the Office of the Comptroller of Currency (OCC) and Department of Justice (DOJ) in May over “historical sales practices relating to certain small business card sales.” The company said it is “cooperating with all of these inquiries and have continued to enhance our controls related to our sales practices.” “We do not believe this matter will have a material adverse impact on our business or results of operations,” it added.

The House Ways and Means Committee yesterday advanced a key portion of Democrats’ coronavirus relief package that includes stimulus payments of up to $1,400 per person and an expansion of the child tax credit, The Hill reported. The committee approved the tax-related portion of the relief package by a party-line vote of 24-18. It now heads to the House Budget Committee, which will combine the portions of the relief package that are approved by a wide array of House panels. House Democrats started unveiling their relief package on Monday and have been spending the week moving the measure through relevant committees. The relief package is based on a $1.9 trillion proposal that President Biden floated last month. The tax-focused portion of the bill that the Ways and Means Committee advanced yesterday contains some of the provisions in the bill that have received the most attention from lawmakers and members of the public. The measure proposes direct payments of up to $1,400 per person, including adult dependents such as college students and elderly parents, who were not eligible for the first two rounds of payments. Ahead of the bill’s release, lawmakers had debated what the eligibility requirements should be for the $1,400 payments. The bill includes the same income limits for receiving full payment amounts as the first two rounds of payments, but changes how the payment amounts would phase out above those thresholds in an effort to prevent high-income households from getting the payments. Read more.

In related news, a U.S. House committee yesterday approved a proposal to give airlines another $14 billion in payroll assistance as part of a broader COVID-19 relief package that is working its way through Congress, Reuters reported. It would be the third round of support for the pandemic-hit industry. American Airlines and United Airlines have warned of some 27,000 furloughs without an extension of the current package that expires on April 1. The House of Representatives Financial Services Committee on a 29-24 vote approved the $14 billion for airlines and $1 billion for contractors to cover payroll through September. The funds will be included in the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill proposed by President Joe Biden, whose initial plan did not include new money for airlines. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Thursday that she expects lawmakers to complete legislation based on the bill by the end of February. Read more. 

Nearly 60 percent of the people facing charges related to the Capitol riot showed signs of prior money troubles, including bankruptcies, notices of eviction or foreclosure, bad debts, or unpaid taxes over the past two decades, according to a Washington Post analysis of public records for 125 defendants with sufficient information to detail their financial histories. The group’s bankruptcy rate — 18 percent — was nearly twice as high as that of the American public, The Post found. A quarter of them had been sued for money owed to a creditor. And 1 in 5 of them faced losing their home at one point, according to court filings. While no single factor explains why someone decided to join in, experts say, Donald Trump and his brand of grievance politics tapped into something that resonated with the hundreds of people who descended on the Capitol in a historic burst of violence. “I think what you’re finding is more than just economic insecurity but a deep-seated feeling of precarity about their personal situation,” said Cynthia Miller-Idriss, a political science professor who helps run the Polarization and Extremism Research Innovation Lab at American University, reacting to The Post’s findings. “And that precarity — combined with a sense of betrayal or anger that someone is taking something away — mobilized a lot of people that day.” The financial missteps by defendants in the attempted insurrection ranged from small debts of a few thousand dollars more than a decade ago to unpaid tax bills of $400,000 and homes facing foreclosure in recent years. Some of these people seemed to have regained their financial footing. But many of them once stood close to the edge.