BUFFALO (WBEN) - With news coming earlier this week that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell adjourned the Senate until November 9, that pretty much ended any optimism that another federal COVID relief package would get done prior to the November 3 election.
However, there appears to be some optimism that a package could be negotiated in the near future.
"I think we will get one very soon after (the election) no matter who is elected," said Silver. "I think investors have been betting on the fact that there's going to be a lot of government spending coming up whether Biden is elected, whether that's going to be toward green energy and stimulus, or whether Trump is re-elected and pushes a stimulus plan and a big infrastructure spending bill plan."
But what makes Silver so confident that a stimulus package is due to come after the election, especially when traction toward a bill has been so hard to come by for several months?
"Politicians are keen to the fact that Americans are suffering," Silver continued. "A lot of folks, you have more than 10 million unemployed, but a lot more people have lost big chunks of their income or meaningful parts of their income, so they see the desperation happening with lower-income Americans, and eventually that's going to beat its way up and we're going to see consumer spending fall. Consumer spending is 70% of the US GDP whether you like it or not, and if spending falters, the entire economy could spin downwards again, and it could take months, if not years, to rebuild."
Congressman Brian Higgins has been calling for a stimulus package for months, saying it's the responsibility of the federal government to provide relief to various sectors of the economy as it would for a natural disaster such as a hurricane or tornado.
"We did a bill five months ago, and that was a starting point, not an end point, and that should have engaged the Senate in a serious negotiation," said Higgins. "There's no reason that we should have a delay of five months - that said, the sooner we can get another disaster relief bill, the better.
"Hopefully we can do something shortly after the election, but I don't know why we have to wait until after the election," Higgins continued. "People were hurting five months ago, people have been hurting for the past five months, and people were hurting before that...I'm ready to go back to Washington at any time to take that vote..."