By Wednesday, some 80 million Americans should receive a one-time $1,200 check from the federal government. It's part of the CARES Act, Congress's emergency coronavirus package meant to keep the country going through lockdowns and social distancing measures that states are implementing to slow the spread of the virus. Last week, a group of Democratic senators—Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Ron Wyden of Oregon, and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts—wrote to treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin to fix a glaring hole in the legislation. Missouri Republican senator Josh Hawley also joined Brown to reiterate the request. As written, none of the $1,200 can be garnished for any debt held by state or federal agencies. But the CARES Act specifically leaves out privately held debt, meaning that debt collectors can grab the relief payment before it even gets to the people who need it.

Despite 25 Democrat and Republican state attorneys general joining the senators, Mnuchin made no moves to protect people from debt collectors. In fact, according to the magazine Prospect, the Treasury Department informed banks that they were free to seize the money straight from people's checking accounts:

The Treasury Department effectively blessed this activity on a webinar with banking officials last week. In audio obtained by the Prospect, Ronda Kent, chief disbursing officer with Treasury’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service, can be heard explaining that banks had posed questions to her about "whether these payments could be subject to collection from the bank to which the money is deposited, if the payee owes an outstanding loan or other payments to the bank." She responded—twice—that "there’s nothing in the law that precludes that action," while counseling that the banks’ compliance officers should consult with their legal offices about what policies their banks will implement. "You will want to know for your bank what your bank has decided to do," Kent said.

Before joining the Trump administration, Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs executive, made his fortune by acquiring California’s IndyMac bank during the 2008 financial crisis and aggressively foreclosing on more than 36,000 properties, kicking elderly people and active-duty veterans out of their homes. Worth an estimated $400 million according to Forbes, Mnuchin is a tireless promoter of tax cuts for the rich, claiming as recently as February that "the trillion and a half dollars of tax cuts we have made will pay for themselves."

Mnuchin's belief that tax cuts for the wealthy are a panacea for any economic problem is widely held among GOP officials. According to a new report from the Joint Committee on Taxation, a nonpartisan congressional group, more than 80 percent of the tax breaks Senate Republicans included in the coronavirus relief package go to people making more than $1 million per year. This extra support for the already-rich—who currently pay 79 percent less in taxes than they did 40 years ago—is expected to cost $90 billion for 2020 alone.

Meanwhile, millions of Americans couldn't afford an emergency $1,000 expense—that was before the coronavirus outbreak caused more than 16 million people to file for unemployment in less than a month. And the unprecedented 16 million jobless claims is likely an undercount, since many states' unemployment websites crashed due to heavy traffic. So far most of the people who have gotten their relief payments have spent it on food, according to the Washington Post. The relief money, after all, is supposed to help working people survive and put some money back into the economy—not go straight into the accounts of debt collectors and bank executives. Daniel Ruffner, a cook in upstate New York who works at a restaurant that's not closed, received his check last Friday and told the Post, "I’ve just been stocking up on food and paying all of the bills. It’s nice to finally be able to see my bills go to zero." He reportedly spent the entire $1,200 check on groceries, Internet, heating, and rent.