[thephyber]

> but it is certainly "stimulated" compared to what it would have been if the additional checks didn't go out and a much larger swath of the population missed rent, car payments, or credit card bills.

By that definition, every single bill that passes appropriations sends money to someone and therefore "stimulates the economy".

I still don't think stimulus was the impetus there. Compassion for those who lost their job, a desire to avoid/mitigate social instability, and reinforcement for people to follow the directions of health professionals.

As far as I can tell, this is the bill/law[1]. No mention of stimulus in the title or abstracts.

[1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/6199...

[bb2018]

Trump, Mnuchin, Pelosi, McConnell, Sanders, and Biden have all referred to this as a stimulus. Sure, anything with money could stimulate some, but the express purpose of this was to stabilize and stimulate the economy. Most bills have that a secondary goal. A bill which directs money to institutions that do cancer research stimulates economic movement but that is not comparable to giving money directly to people for not working or losing their job.

There is no mention of the bill, either in the law itself or in discussions, that this would somehow reduce transmission by encouraging people to stay home.

Trump: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/22/coronavirus-stimulus-trump-w...

Mnuchin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoEsSwxKGtk

Pelosi: https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2020/05/12/nancy-pelosi-...

McConnell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHGSQCMZSt4

Sanders: https://www.masslive.com/coronavirus/2020/05/bernie-sanders-...

Biden: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-26/biden-ass...