Issuing checks directly to Americans, and residents of the Inland Northwest, would be the quickest way for the federal government to spur economic activity amid fears of a recession caused by business closures due to the coronavirus, area experts said Tuesday.

The White House signaled early Tuesday it wanted to get more cash in the pockets of Americans facing potential long periods of economic disruption, with both President Donald Trump and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin signaling support for the kind of direct payments that haven’t been seen since the economic downturn of 2008. Previously, Trump had said he was supportive of a payroll tax cut, which would benefit individual taxpayers over a longer period of time, said Grant Forsyth, chief economist at Avista Corp.

“If you really want to deliver everything up front, a direct stimulus payment is probably going to be the better one at this point,” said Forsyth.

The U.S. Senate spent most of the day discussing a legislative package that included additional unemployment assistance to states, increasing financial support for veterans and others seeking diagnostic testing for the virus, and federal funding to assist employers whose workers stay home. Congress is expected later this week to tackle the question of whether government checks to all citizens is necessary to support consumption of goods and keep the markets from tumbling further.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., told Tacoma public radio station KNKX on Tuesday she wanted to see the details of a government assistance plan before voting.

“The devil’s in the details and critically important,” Murray said. “We need to make sure that the money, the help and support goes to those families who are actually feeling the hurt. There are people who do not need the help and support.”

But waiting for Congress to decide who should and should not receive assistance could delay the arrival of assistance, as lawmakers and the White House are pressured to offer help to laid off and furloughed workers.

“By the time you get that sorted in Congress, it could be the next century,” Forsyth said.

A spokesman for Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers said Tuesday the congresswoman would wait to see what kind of package was passed by the Senate, but was interested in what the legislation would do for small businesses and employees.

Any decision will have an effect on America’s deficit, which may cause some lawmakers hawkish on the national budget to balk at an assistance package that some government officials said Tuesday could grow to greater than $1 trillion. Mark Gibson, a clinical associate professor at Washington State University specializing in macroeconomics, said the federal government still has the capacity to borrow to pay back cash payments that Sen. Mitt Romney suggested could be $1,000 per taxpayer.

“We can borrow at a very low cost,” Gibson said. “Our credit is still very good. We certainly have a lot of capacity to borrow.”

The federal government has already done all it can to assist with an oncoming recession in the form of interest rates, Forsyth said, referring to the Federal Reserve’s decision this weekend to slash interest rates to near zero. It’s now on lawmakers and the White House to offer a package that will get Americans comfortable spending their money, he said.

“I think in America’s psyche, at least in our historical knowledge, there’s an understanding of what happened in the Great Depression,” Forsyth said. “There was no safety net at all. People had to stop spending.”

Lawmakers have to weigh the amount of any assistance with the possibility that some more well-off Americans won’t spend the checks immediately upon receipt to cover their bills or pay for food and other necessities. A 2009 study of how Americans spent tax rebate checks approved by the federal government in the final year of the George W. Bush presidency, at the height of the housing crisis, found that only about a third of households that received the assistance checks spent them, while others saved.

Gibson said financial decisions will be made by household, and spending of a financial stimulus check might be different in the current economy where many workers are being furloughed or laid off as certain types of service businesses shutter to prevent the spread of the virus.

“Their financial situation might be such that they have to spend it,” Gibson said. “Other people, if they feel secure in their jobs for the time being, it is possible that they’ll choose to save it in case the recession deepens and they get laid off later on.”

That’s another reason why a stimulus check is preferable to a payroll tax cut, Forsyth said. Such a measure would only benefit people who are actively working and receiving paychecks.

Either way, the Avista economist said, federal lawmakers will likely need to take action to help calm the fears of residents of the Inland Northwest and beyond.

“Something else needs to be done. Something bipartisan,” Forsyth said. “It’s the appearance and the actual execution of some sort of stimulus that’s important, whether it’s a direct payment or a tax cut.”