Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin is reportedly set to ask Congress for an injection of least $850 billion to help salvage the American economy as it suffers a historic crisis sparked by the novel coronavirus pandemic. Politico reports that the figure is far from final, but that the Trump administration no longer cares about the cost of mitigating the economic blow from the virus. If the figure does hit $850B, that would be nearly twice the value of TARP—the $475B program that saw the Obama-era U.S. government buy toxic assets from financial institutions—which was eventually paid back. A “big chunk” of the fund is expected to be a payroll tax cut, according to Politico, and the airline industry is also expected to receive a lot of it. The rumors appeared to be calming markets ever so slightly before gains slipped again. European markets were up as much as 3 percent before moving back, and Dow Futures bumped up ahead of the 9:30 a.m. stock market opening.
