Biden's Name Won't Be on Stimulus Checks

The House is expected to send the $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill to the White House for President Biden's signature Wednesday—but Biden's signature won't be on the checks. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday that in contrast to the checks sent out under the Trump administration last year, the president's name will not appear on the memo line, the Hill reports. "We are doing everything in our power to expedite the payments and not delay them, which is why the president’s name will not appear on the memo line of this round of checks," Psaki said. She said Biden wants to get the checks out as quickly as possible and he does not feel it is necessary to have his name on them.

This isn't about Biden, Psaki said. "This is about the American people getting relief." After Trump's name appeared on stimulus checks last year—the first time a president's name has been on an IRS disbursement—sources said Trump had urged then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to add it, though Mnuchin insisted it had been his idea. Psaki said Tuesday that the physical checks will be signed by a career official at the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, but the administration is working to expand "substantially faster" electronic payments, CNN reports. She said people who used direct deposit information to file taxes in 2019 or 2020 will be the first to receive the $1,400 payments. (More COVID relief bill stories.)