For the People Act to increase transparency in the political donation system

Yahoo Finance’s Rick Newman joins Kristin Myers to discuss the latest stimulus developments, and more.

Video Transcript

KRISTIN MYERS: Let's continue this conversation going on stimulus. I think a lot of folks, again, as we were just hearing, thought that that $1.9 trillion is going to be getting a huge scale back, at least after the Senate was through with it. We have Yahoo Finance's Rick Newman here with us. Now, Rick, you say that the final bill might actually be pretty close to that original bill, at least in terms of that price tag, that $1.9 trillion. So what changes are you expecting?

RICK NEWMAN: You know, I'm surprised it's going to come out as big as it is. We know Joe Biden, President Biden, did ask for $1.9 trillion at the outset. A lot of the analysis I followed earlier in the year suggested he might get $1.2 trillion, maybe $1.5 trillion. It actually looks like it's going to be pretty close to $1.9 trillion. The Senate is not really trimming much. You heard just talking about how they're going to change the weekly unemployment benefit from $400, lower that to $300. But they are going to extend that four months. So that will almost keep the price tag where it is.

The other place to look for possible changes in the next few days, I think, are $350 billion or so to go to states and cities. If the Senate wanted to take a stab at fiscal conservatism, they could lower that by, let's say, $100 billion or so. Then there's this other thing in there that's really unrelated to the pandemic, and that's this pension relief, which is around $75 billion. I have not seen any reporting suggesting any of that stuff is going to come out or be shrunk by much. So, you know, by earlier mid next week, we could have a $1.8 trillion or a $1.9 trillion stimulus deal on the books.

KRISTIN MYERS: All right, Rick, I want to ask you about a story that you are working on. And this is something that you and I have talked about quite a bit throughout, I want to say, the years, but that makes it seem like we've been doing this for 10 years with each other. That's dark money. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to do it with you, Rick. But it's dark money in politics. We have seen that increasing throughout every single election cycle. So talk to us about this story that you're working on. How can we create more transparency in the system?

RICK NEWMAN: This is what's called the For the People Act, which the House of Representatives passed this week. There's a lot in there, and I just want to call attention to one thing in there that I think is actually very important and should pass, even though it probably won't. This bill would require every political donation over $10,000 to have the donor identified by name. So we know who is pumping literally hundreds of millions of dollars into campaign committees and other causes.

Some of this money comes from people who find ways that they don't even have to disclose who they are, some of these so-called dark money groups. It looks as if they funded some of the activities at the Capitol on January 6th, leading to those riots. They helped transport people there. They helped promote the rally. They helped get people kind of fired up. Some of this money came from-- it came from probably wealthy people, who are able to remain secret.

So what this one provision in this rather large bill would do would simply require-- would not ban any donations at all. It would simply require every donation over $10,000 for that donor to be identified. And it would close all the loopholes that allow people to give a lot of money to pretty shady causes sometimes because they know nobody's going to find out who they are.

KRISTIN MYERS: All right, and I would, of course, direct everyone to YahooFinance.com to read that story on dark money in politics that Rick has been writing. Thanks so much, Rick.

RICK NEWMAN: Thanks, Kristin. See you.