Economist Moore says he’s not sure US needs ‘massive stimulus bill’

Economist and Trump economic adviser Stephen Moore said he’s not sure that the U.S. needs a “massive stimulus bill” for economic growth in 2021.

During an interview with John Catsimatidis on his radio show on WABC 770 AM, Moore said that recent estimates indicate the economy would get better “without all of this government spending.”

“I’m not so sure we need this massive stimulus bill. We just need to get the vaccine out there,” Moore said. “And we need to get the businesses open in New York City and Los Angeles and Chicago and San Francisco.”

The United States government began rolling out its vaccine effort after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines in December last year. However, the administration did not meet its anticipated goal of administering doses of coronavirus vaccines to 20 million people by the end of 2020. 

Health experts have predicted that if enough people are vaccinated in a timely fashion, businesses and society as a whole will be able to return to some semblance of normalcy. 

Moore’s comments come as the Department of Labor reported that unemployment claims fell to 787,000 last week, the first time in a month claims dropped below 800,000. The seasonally adjusted 19,000- claim drop from the previous week is a welcome surprise to an ailing job market, though jobless claims as a whole remain historically high. 

President Trump signed a $2.3 trillion omnibus spending bill late last month, which included $900 billion in coronavirus relief. The president said at the time that the Senate would “start the process for a vote” to increase the stimulus checks from $600 to $2,000, repeal Section 230 and begin investigating voter fraud. 

The $900 billion relief bill includes $284 billion in funding for the Paycheck Protection Program, which provides small business owners forgivable loans to pay their workers and keep them afloat. 

Shortly after the bill was signed, the House passed a stand-alone bill to increase the stimulus checks. However, the measures failed four times last week in the Senate, despite support from both sides of the aisle.

The failure to pass the bill closes the window that Congress had to get the legislation on President Trump’s desk to sign before the end of the 116th Congress Sunday morning. 

Moore also expressed concern that the incoming Biden administration would want to raise taxes and regulation. 

“I’m worried about Biden wanting to raise taxes, raise regulations, climate change legislation,” Moore said. “They could do a lot of damage to the economy as we start to recover.”

John Catsimatidis is an inventor in The Hill.