Here's What You Need to Remember: Another stimulus check has received a more lukewarm reception from more moderate Democrats, and overwhelming opposition from Republicans.

In March 2020, amid a lockdown, a restaurant owner in Colorado started a Change.org petition calling for monthly $2000 payments to all adult Americans and $1000 to their children. More than a year later, in June 2021, the petition has crossed 2.3 million signatures, making it one of the largest on the site. There is no guarantee that all the signatories are Americans, but if they were, they would represent more than one percent of all eligible U.S. voters.

One percent is not a majority, of course, but it is clear that more than one percent of Americans support further stimulus payments. Other polls have suggested that a majority of Americans would look favorably on a fourth, or even a fifth or sixth, stimulus check; a Data for Progress poll conducted in April suggested that seventy percent of Americans are in support of such a measure.

But will it ever happen? At the moment, given the prevailing conditions in Washington, the answer seems to be no. While a hypothetical fourth stimulus check enjoys the support of more than eighty Democrats – at least 64 members of the House and 21 Senators have indicated they are in favor of some form of further stimulus payment – it has received a more lukewarm reception from more moderate Democrats, and overwhelming opposition from Republicans.

Unfortunately for stimulus advocates, President Joe Biden does not seem interested in a fourth stimulus check. The president has rebuffed efforts to draw him into the stimulus debate, preferring instead to focus on his domestic agenda and $4 billion recovery package, the American Jobs Plan and the American Families Plan. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki gave a noncommittal answer when pressed on the question of a fourth stimulus measure, suggesting that Congress could take the lead on it and Biden would listen.

While members of Congress have sent Biden letters indicating their support, so far the stimulus’s proponents within the legislative branch appear to have remained a minority. While budget negotiations are ongoing for the AJP and AFP – newly necessary, as Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough has made it easier for the Republican minority to filibuster it – Democrats will find increasingly little time for a fourth stimulus check if they are to achieve other priorities such as Medicaid expansion, family leave, and infrastructure spending.

Trevor Filseth is a news reporter and writer for the National Interest. This article first appeared earlier this year.

Image: Reuters.