While the president says he wants to help Americans workers through the coronavirus pandemic, behind the scenes his party is crafting legislation that would leave the least fortunate behind.

Republicans are working on an aid package that would send cash payments of up to $1,200 to some workers. But for Americans who don't pay or pay very little income tax that would decrease to as low as $600. Some Republicans have lobbied against cash payments entirely.

This is appalling. The bill features a bunch of dreams-come-true for big corporations too.

This isn't just cruel — it's bad economics. The more people have to pay bills and spend as normally as they can now, the easier it will be to get the economy rolling again when this is over.

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Update: This column includes references to a previous version of the Senate coronavirus relief bill, click here to read more on the current state of negotiations.

At a press conference on Thursday, President Donald Trump reiterated that his administration wanted to put workers first in its efforts to mitigate the economic devastation caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

And while that's ideal, his party is crafting legislation that does just the opposite.

The administration has said it's crafting a rescue package of at least $1 trillion. It includes plans to send checks to Americans in about two weeks, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said on Tuesday.

But Mnuchin's "two weeks" turned into "before the end of April" in a meeting with Senate Republicans immediately after the press conference. After that it went back to early April, but the payment — at least for poor Americans — became less generous.

According to a bill released on Thursday, Republicans are talking about prioritizing money for "taxpayers" (by which they mean only income tax, not things like sales tax that all Americans pay). Under this plan, Americans who make less than $75,000 would get up to $1,200, while poor families who pay less in taxes would get $600.

It's also been reported that GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham and Rep. Mark Meadows, the soon-to-be White House chief of staff, were trying to persuade Trump to reject these cash payments altogether.

This idea is ludicrous, stingy, and harmful to our economy and society in crisis.

In fact, there are a bunch of ideas in this bill that would do nothing to help struggling Americans:

The bill waives nutrition requirements for meals for senior citizens, a population more likely to get sick and end up needing care.

The bill offers a pathetic $10 million for minority-owned businesses, which Business Insider's small-business reporter Dominick Reuter calculated could round out to about $2 a business.

And, of course, in Senate Republicans' bill, big corporations get a huge tax cut. They would pay far less tax on their foreign entities. Making them bring cash home from abroad was one of the selling points of the 2017 GOP tax law. Corporate lobbyists have been working against it ever since. Now, in the middle of a crisis, they got it.

All of that is stomach-churning, but the worst part is what will happen to low-income families. Punishing the poorest Americans at a time like this not only is callous but would slow our economy's recovery. If there's anything we've learned from China's experience with the coronavirus outbreak, it's that you want to keep the economy going as normally as possible while people are practicing social distancing. That means ensuring that they can pay as many bills as possible and that they have money in their pockets to spend again when the social distancing is over.

We need to be generous to everyone* right now. It's the only way we're going to get through this with minimal damage. Unemployment claims are about to explode, with data from 15 states putting them somewhere around 600,000, and it's possible that as many as 1 million people could file for unemployment insurance over the next week. Wall Street is coming to terms with the idea that this could be the worst global recession since World War II.

House Democrats are trying to put together a more generous plan, offering Americans $2,000 a month with an additional $1,000 for every child until the crisis is over. This is more like it. But this all needs to move faster. We don't have time for callous proposals; we have to do right by Americans right now.

Trump's party should put our money where his mouth is and actually help all American workers through this calamity, not grandstand on ideology to hurt the poor.

(*Except companies that spent all their cash flow on stock buybacks during boom times and are now asking for a bailout. The president said on Thursday that they should be treated differently than companies that invested their money. I agree. They shouldn't be allowed to do stock buybacks if they accept taxpayer money, and their executive compensation should be regulated.)