Yves here. Even though we’ve given the Biden Administration bait and switch on the stimulus plenty of coverage in Links and Water Cooler, the situation is so disgraceful that it needs to be called out, so we are doing our little bit to help.
I wish that those campaigning for bigger checks would point out that it’s bad for the economy, as well as citizens, to go into Scrooge mode now.
By Jake Johnson, staff writer at Common Dreams. Originally published at Common Dreams
Despite warnings that doing so would be both politically and morally senseless, top Democratic lawmakers are reportedly discussing a proposal to further limit eligibility for direct relief payments by lowering the annual income cutoff, a restriction that would potentially disqualify tens of millions of people from the next round of survival checks.
Citing unnamed people familiar with internal planning, the Washington Post reported Tuesday that “one proposal discussed by senior Democrats includes lowering the threshold for the payments to begin phasing out above $50,000 for single taxpayers, $75,000 for people who file as the heads of households, and $100,000 for married couples.”
With talks over eligibility for the $1,400 payments proposed by President Joe Biden still ongoing, progressives are vocally making clear that they oppose additional means testing for relief checks that already fall short of the $2,000 Democrats promised on the campaign trail—messaging that helped the party take narrow control of the Senate.
“Democrats in Congress should not waste a single day or shrink their relief package by a single dollar in pursuit of votes from Republican politicians who answer to billionaires and white supremacist insurrectionists,” tweeted the Working Families Party. “We need jobs and care now.”
Ohio congressional candidate Nina Turner, formerly a top surrogate for Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) 2020 presidential campaign, said late Tuesday that “means testing is a form of austerity.”
“Scaling back on stimulus would be a mistake,” Turner argued.
The Biden White House said earlier this week that it is opposed to the direct payment counter-offer put forth by Republican senators, who proposed $1,000 checks for which only individuals earning less than $40,000 a year and married couples earning less than $80,000 a year would be fully eligible.
But the new administration has also said it is open to negotiating the eligibility threshold for the $1,400 checks, which at least two of Biden’s top economic advisers have said should bemore targeted to those with lower incomes—an argument also made by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s top business lobby.
Previous rounds of relief checks began gradually phasing out for individuals who earned more than $75,000 a year and joint filers who earned more than $150,000; that same framework was proposed by the House-passed CASH Act, which Republicans blocked at the end of last year.
In a letter (pdf) to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) last week, more than two dozen members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus cautioned “against an overemphasis on targeting aid, when we know that it comes at the expense of delivering relief quickly and efficiently.”
“At this moment of fiscal crisis, Congress should err on the side of offering generous relief to a larger pool of people, rather than too little,” the letter reads. “The cost of doing too little too slowly far outweighs the concerns about a relatively small share of households getting ‘too much.'”
Lots of talk these last few weeks about how $600 + $1,400 = $2,000, but I'll note for those of you following along at home that $600 + some amount less than $1,400 because you no longer qualify for the full stimulus does not equal $2,000. https://t.co/bQ9f8RYJ2y
— Osita Nwanevu (@OsitaNwanevu) February 2, 2021
Matt Bruenig, founder of the People’s Policy Project, a left-wing think tank, pointed out in an interview with the Post that “people have not filed their taxes for 2020, meaning that targeted checks would go out based on income information that is now one to two years out of date, with a pandemic and mass job loss having occurred in the interim.”
“This is not targeting,” said Bruenig. “It is the illusion of targeting, an illusion that will end up hurting tens of millions of people who are currently in need but weren’t in 2019.”
Progressive members of Congress have argued that limiting the number of people eligible to receive relief payments would be a massive unforced error by Democrats, a needless restriction of popular relief that would weaken a legislative package which—according to some economists—is already inadequate to the task of fighting the ongoing recession, public health emergency, looming eviction crisis, and devastating surge in hunger nationwide.
Negotiations over who will qualify for direct relief payments continued as Senate Democrats on Tuesday took the first step toward approving a coronavirus relief package through budget reconciliation, an expedited process that requires a mere simple-majority vote—meaning a unified Democratic caucus would not need any support from Republican senators to pass legislation.
Speaking to HuffPost earlier this week, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) called into question both the political and economic arguments that have been advanced in recent days in favor of curtailing eligibility for the checks.
“We are in a low-interest rate, low-inflation period where the velocity of money has been reduced given the pandemic,” said Khanna. “I have yet to hear a single coherent argument on how our economy will suffer if we give people $2,000 checks.”
“We should not be alienating working-class and middle-class Americans by excluding them from Covid relief,” Khanna added. “The argument is so obvious it’s surprising it has to be stated.”
the economic distress caused by covid is destabilizing the entire country. Failure to pass relief is a abdication of power. Power abhors a vacuum and something will arise to fill it. This is not subtle, how can Democrats not know this.
It’s quite probable that the ‘guiding’ cohorts of the Democrat Party have stopped thinking like politicians and now think like apparatchiks. This seems to be one of those “eternal verities” that bedevil Terran human ‘civilizations.’
Of all the response, my intuition is that this is closest to the mark. It’s not that they’re stupid or evil, it’s how they think. I realize this has been said before, I find your “like Xs, not like Ys” sharpens the point. They are operating under an entirely different frame.
Of course this is cruel and dishonest. But that’s pretty normal. It’s certainly not new. Of it is stupid from a political perspective – so stupid that obviously that’s the wrong way to look at it.
At the same time, it seems unlikely that they are so stupid and so malicious that they are happy to consciously destroy their political prospects in order to serve their donors. Sure, when it comes down to it they will not side with the people, nor with their party over their individual interests. But there appears to be an abnormal blindness or arrogance here that is larger than that. This doesn’t look like a fully conscious choice.
In Erving Goffman’s original work on framing he uses the example of the shell game. For the player, the frame is that this is a game where he has to identify which shell covers the pea. For the operator, frame is that there is no game: it’s a con that the player always loses in the end.
Good luck telling that to the player: he will be so focused on trying to figure out where the pea is, and so confident of his ability to do so, that he will not pay your cries of “it’s a con!” any mind. After all, he won the last three times. And when he loses, who is he going to believe – you, who disturbed his concentration, or the operator, who tells him he can try again?
Our Democrat is playing a shell game – one that will end disastrously for the country. But he hasn’t just won three times: he’s won for three decades. And even if he listened to your warnings, he would not save anything by walking away – it would be just as if he lost the game. It is better for him to ignore the problem. It is best for him if he doesn’t believe it exists.
We saw something similar with health advice in the pandemic. The health authorities told us that the virus wasn’t coming, that masks increased risk, that the disease is not airborne. They had nothing to gain, but nearly everyone in the business stuck with the party line (at least in public) while the evidence mounted that they were wrong. Zeynep Tufekci said on a recent episode of Sam Harris’s podcast that when she published an article about masks many health professionals said “thank you” for saying the truth. She was astonished. They had known it all along – but they said nothing!
They were not playing the Public Health game, just as Wall Street Bets (like Wall Street itself) isn’t playing the Value game, just as the anti-racist movement is not playing the Solidarity game, just as a someone seeking attention on social media is not playing the Friendship game. But they are, all of them, playing games. They are probably very good at those games. The better they are, the less able they are to see that theirs is a game without a future.
It seems to me that in this moment of extreme instability, the recourse of individuals is not to reason or evidence – for those are flawed and contradictory, and in any case seldom offer a preferable and definite alternative course of action – but to the safety of the group. In some cases that group may have leaders who set the direction. In others, it may have none, like a flock of birds that amplifies small turns into big ones, with no coherent destination in mind.
The framing notion of “games” as the defining ‘form’ of the present, indeed, perhaps over the totality of Terran human history, system of social existence has merit.
This prompts the search for which are the dominant “rewards” each ‘game’ bestows upon the participants. Different populations will give different weight to the “rewards.” There will be divergence between the “rewards” of value to each sub-group. However, the biggest mistake that I can see groups making is to frame this process as a “zero sum game.” “Zero sum” may simplify and focus attention of the members of the groups, but it will also introduce supremely destructive tensions into the inter group contests.
Why is social co-operation so bloody hard?
Because there are enough cheaters gaming the social co-operation game that eventually the honest social co-operators give up on social co-operating. They know they are cheated out of the mutual co-benefits of social co-operation but they don’t know specifically who is cheating.
So they all start playing the “trust nobody” game.
You’ve seen the tete a tete between Hillary and Nancy Creamsicle where they discuss the possibility that Trump was on the phone with Putin on Jan 6th and whether there should be an investigation? The Democrat party leadership aren’t exactly the best and brightest. These are not serious people.
They are deadly serious. And doing exactly what it takes to keep themselves and their owners and bribers in beer and skittles…
The last thing they want to do is reveal that the state can do anything whatsoever to help the common wo/man.
The key to happiness is low expectations.
More “Rainbow Stew” on the way!
They have worked for many years to make sure there is no other party, force or voice, only the useless choice of blue or red. This is how the corporatocracy wants it, and it has become reality.
They *do* know it, of course, and they never intended to deliver on those election “promises”. This, their moral rot and the sheer tone deafness of their politics, is why former Democrats like myself now find the Democrats so repellent.
So very true in my case. The most frustrating bit for me though is twofold; the friends still stuck in the matrix (as it were) but more than this their confusion as to why I’ve unplugged / “why are you a Trump supporter?!”
I’ve felt like Cassandra since 2016; doomed to see the rot while exceedingly few are willing to listen.
You seem to forget that the Democrats’ role, like the Washington Generals, is to find new and entertaining ways to get dunked on. Wall St. didn’t select Biden just to give money out to other people.
It’s even more appalling for those new voters who thought Biden and the “BIG D” democrats were about the little people and advancing things for working class people. LOL – Life lessons for the ill informed
“ill informed” does those deceived voters a disservice. It more properly is, “mis-informed;” purposefully mis-informed.
Or should we say . . . dis-informed, purposefully dis-informed.
The Democrats are up to their old tricks. Assuring a loss of the majority in Congress and/or Senate in the mid-terms to relieve some of the pressure for change from those more progressive voters.
Then next Presidential cycle they hype how they need the Congress and or Senate back to back up their Presidential candidate. The Executive Branch is the main focus of the establishment Dems. All to beef up energy around the presidential election cycle.
My buddy went from making half of what the President makes, to eking out $30k last year on account of having the absolute wrong business model in a pandemic, and how is he going to persuade 15 complete strangers to be in an enclosed vehicle for 5 hours once the drama fades, and what if it doesn’t?
If you were to look at his income from a means testing standpoint over a period of time, he looks rich but like most he got used to living up to his income in spending habits, and can probably stick it out for a number of years, but who knows?
Can’t he mount Captain’s Chairs on the back of a 4X6 and do the tour like a deployment overseas?
“Technical Tours.”
I had a great job requiring lots of travel that paid enough in 2019 that I got $0 stimulus. Then the bottom fell out when clients no longer wanted us to show up and couldn’t pay for services anyway. I was laid off in July and got 3 checks for an additional $600 then basically nothing. But we are still thinking of means-testing based on 2019 income?
Why aren’t these people saying the obvious? Screw the stimulus checks, give the UNEMPLOYED an extra $600/week, make it retroactive to when the additional funds stopped coming in under the CARES act, and you will wipe out 75% of the back rent so many people owe and allow people who truly have little income to survive. Has anyone figured out why this is not even being discussed? Seems to me this would solve the standard pearl-clutching over giving excess money to the un-deserving working class – an obsession with our leaders.
In my view the answer to this is obvious; they don’t work for us.
For me, this puts nearly all of their “illogical” decisions into a very logical framework. TARP and CARES passed within weeks or less. They’ve spent 9 more months getting out a measly $600 and likely another 6+ beyond that for $2000, er… $1400, er… $1000 means tested to hell, er…
Their constituents are taken care of. We’re just not their constituents.
Dems are the GOP’s evil twin. ;)
As Simon Johnson wrote about emerging market countries:
Squeezing the oligarchs, though, is seldom the strategy of choice among emerging-market governments. Quite the contrary: at the outset of the crisis, the oligarchs are usually among the first to get extra help from the government, such as preferential access to foreign currency, or maybe a nice tax break, or—here’s a classic Kremlin bailout technique—the assumption of private debt obligations by the government. Under duress, generosity toward old friends takes many innovative forms. Meanwhile, needing to squeeze someone, most emerging-market governments look first to ordinary working folk—at least until the riots grow too large. (my emphasis)
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/05/the-quiet-coup/307364/
We’re in banana republic territory now. Except, we print our own currency, and importantly, issue the world’s primary reserve currency. There is no need to squeeze Main Street. The US debt is own mainly to the US, to ourselves. Squeezing Main Street isn’t necessary at all.
The Davos “Build Back Better” crowd seems to want a single world-wide, emerging-market, banana republic of which the US is only one part. Joe want’s to Build Back Better. * /heh
* https://joebiden.com/build-back-better/
True that, but some people, like our
sadisticmegalomaniacal leadership, just love totorturediscipline the people in a spare the rod and spoil the child sort of way. After all, poverty toughens people up. A little hunger is good for the soul and makes the little people more obedientwage slavesemployees.I think that some of our elected(?) leaders actually think that the average American is too lazy, or cares too much about being alive, and ultimately is disposable. I also think that they don’t have a clue as to how too many of us have to live, which includes many children, and what few choices too many have making their actions seemingly rational to them.
Is it an evil twin when both twins are evil? Surely its just a twin?
Sneaky twin perhaps?
The USA has a huge underclass of tens of millions of people–if not hundreds of millions. The Dems relationship to these people is to let them eat platitudes and to hector them with “improve your character” and bootstrap f**kery” slogans. Keeping wages at starvation levels is an example of true bi-partisanship.
Not so sure about this. A lot of recent speculative activity (Game Stop, crypto, residential real estate, etc) seems to be driven by people with too much time on their hands and lots of extra savings to play with – Matt Levine’s “boredom market hypothesis”. Most of the excess liquidity probably derives from the wealthy cutting back on travel, live entertainment, eating out plus related wardrobe and accessories but I wouldn’t be surprised if some of it also came from unneeded stimulus payments. If so, perhaps fueling more unproductive speculation would not be good for the economy.
I am in a lucky class of folks whose income was not hit by COVID. And above the limits for the last round of checks, which I was quite happy about. Perhaps it is pride but I refuse to accept a handout for no good reason.
Why should folks like me who have suffered no harm get another round? I confess that if they are going to send me a check I might just gamble it away on the next GME or just stick it in the bank and forget about it. I suppose I could give it away to charity which would indirectly help the economy. Some will blow the money on cheap goods on Amazon which helps … the Chinese economy.
Since you mentioned income, it’s likely you are as insignificant as the 99%. When you on vacation, you will get a suite instead of a room. And the crisis of you getting something for nothing is nothing compared to the crisis faced by people in need who will now be punished because of this absurd argument. You aren’t ripping off public schools to build a football stadium. People bemoaning how they don’t need it is just bragging.
Oh I realize I am in the 99% and insignificant. Personal situation aside, I think what bothers me the most about how these “stimulus” packages are structured is that they are short-term patches that don’t invest in the future. Sure they will spike consumption for a quarter, and help some small businesses survive … but life is not just about survival.
Where is the vision to invest in something that lasts longer than 3 months? I still don’t understand why an army of contact tracers and logistics folks could not have been formed and given funding similar to how New Deal programs created brand new public works agencies.
“Sure they will spike consumption for a quarter, and help some small businesses survive”
That’s why its called emergency stimulus. It stimulates the economy. Just like a defibrillator stimulates a heart in cardiac arrest. If you don’t stimulate, then and there, the patient might die.
Buy stocks. They have just recharged the defibrillator.
Dysfunction, dysfunction, dysfunction. The extreme irony of the apex capitalist country giving out “stimulus” money is also tragedy. The money isn’t going to “the people” – it’s going to the system. If the system starts to fail it will collapse like a house of cards. Credit cards at this point. We have neglected to take care of basic social needs and services since LBJ pushed through Medicare. For anyone who’s counting that’s going on 60 years. Sixty years of neglect is certainly sufficient to kill any society; any nation. It is a disgrace of denial and greed. Fed by the myth of the “free market” and everything all of us know has been just so much b.s. A universal income is the same animal as stimulus money. Capitalism ate itself up pretty fast didn’t it? If there were a better, more conservative, idea out there Congress would have used it. There isn’t. And the Democrats will eat this one.
You tell ’em, Susan! ?
> Where is the vision to invest in something that lasts longer than 3 months?
The stimulus also comes with an extension of unemployment benefits which otherwise might run out in march. I am sure you will agree that unemployment benefits are precisely where the money should go, much more than Christmas for everyone in February.
But yeah, contract tracers should have happened last year. Unfortunately, the ostrich in chief had his head in the sand. Also, now that we mention it, 1 year later we still have cloth masks. At least Europe seems to have woken up on this issue. Our CDC is still tripping over its own doublethink.
huh… your choice. Several of my friends, who also are doing fine, donated their checks’ dollar amounts to local charities or gave outright to some younger friends struggling with no income at all and no unemployment insurance during the lock down, thanks to a state uninsurance program that crashed with the overload of applications. $1200 last March plus $600 this January – assuming people even got that – is a grand total of $1800 relief for 10 months. You don’t really believe that means testing will increase the amount of the relief checks, do you? If so, I have a bridge to sell. ;)
adding: means testing this desperately needed relief is a good test run of trying to roll out means testing Social Security, which the C, W, and O admins tried to get buy-in for doing. (The current pres is on record calling for cutting SS, Medicare, etc.)
I certainly reject means testing for the Social Security, Medicare, etc. which I have paid my FICA taxes for ever since I began working.
Here is what means testing means. If I have a house and a car, SS and medicare will tell me that I am too rich to qualify for the SS and Medicare I paid for. Congress will tell SS and Medicare to tell me to sell the house and live in the car, and when all the house money is gone, then I can qualify.
I am not saying means testing is the answer, but it is hardly very progressive to just hand out money indiscriminately.
It is a logistical problem. They have the spring mailing list, they can use it to quickly get aid out. Or they can spend months having people apply, and you saw how well that went with unemployment. Or, they can use computer algorithms to send it out based on old tax returns which do not reflect reality of those laid off or whose tiny businesses blew up. One of these three choices is quick and clumsy, one is slower and aims badly, one would take forever. Merciful people want clumsy checks, right now.
Considering the extreme inequality in the country, I think handing out money indiscriminately in equal amounts to everyone is extremely progressive. And the people who didn’t need the money are paying the vast majority of taxes anyway, so they’re essentially just paying themselves. No harm no foul
I don’t comment here very much anyway and have stopped basically after the comments hiatus, but, all rules kept in mind, I have to say to this comment, Good Gawd man/woman. Look around you. Do you see what is happening? If you don’t need it give it ALL to your food bank. That’s what I did. Do you know how many people are ‘food insecure’. This is not a joke. And others too are giving to their food banks. Maybe people like you who “don’t need it” won’t in fact “blow money on cheap goods…” but will do something to help their fellow humans. I hope this isn’t ad hominem, but reading comments like this sets off a kind of righteous anger in me.
I have a weird take on this. Donating money to charities to do work that should be a core function of the government gives a “free ride” to the uber rich who refuse to allow these public goods to be funded by our/their tax dollars.
If they refuse to support their fellow citizens they should have to face the consequences. Exactly what those consequences would be is somewhat of a pandoras box, but I imagine it would be more events like Occupy Wall St, as well as more day to day inconveniences like having to dodge pan handlers and stepping over the homeless as one goes about their day
For this reason all of my charity is international
I have a similar take on volunteer work. One needs to be careful about the kind of thing one gets involved in. Is it really ethical to do for free something that should be (or used to be) paid for? Likewise — never clear your table in a cafeteria or fast-food place. If everybody did that, the person whose job it is would be out of work. :-(
Charity is the right answer. However, I’m going to suggest that as great an idea as the food bank is — and there is immediate need — the actual problem won’t solve itself until the virus is stopped. You can help those people back to a job and everyone else out too by finding charities that tackle the virus. You could donate HEPA air filters to crowded places that can’t afford to or won’t install them. Your church, your school, your local bar, are all excellent places. The bartender, teacher and priest will all appreciate it.
Ok, so the PTB have spent 10+ years boosting asset values showering “excess liquidity” on the wealthy, but now the risk is GME like behavior, which if you had read any of the posts was not driven by poor speculating RH’er’s. Unproductive speculation is our economy.
This is all arguing over trivia. The higher up the income scale you go, the fewer people you’re talking about. Also, people who are liquid enough to speculate in the markets aren’t going to be influenced by an extra $2,000.
I had a good 2019 but now I’m laid off. If I don’t get work soon I’m going to have to sell the house. $2,000 would come in handy.
Speed also is important. These checks should have gone out by now. This is sucking all the air out of the room. Get it done and move on to other critical problems. This appears to be by design. Just like Obamacare occupied most of 2009. Makes it look like stuff is getting done. But it’s just the opposite.
And the layoffs aren’t over.
I’ve said this several times here, but its been at least a month so I’m going to say it again: Most of the layoffs in the Great Depression didn’t happen in 1929, but in 1930. We’re only one month into 1930, er I mean 2021, but hopefully things won’t get Great Depression bad. Pretty sure this is going to get worse than 2008 though.
> Also, people who are liquid enough to speculate in the markets aren’t going to be influenced by an extra $2,000.
The markets sure are. Where do you think many of the GME speculators got the cash? December checks.
More money in the stock market does harm.
Does $1,000 – $2,000 really go far enough to make a dent in specualtion on real estate at the prices, even if some have fallen from WAAAAY over-inflated to just over-inflated?
That they think about means testing at all shows that taxes on the rich are too low. Otherwise they shouldn’t care about sending a stimulus check to a millionaire because the millionaire will have to pay most of it back in taxes anyway.
How would you feel about means testing if the money saved was given as larger checks to the ones who still get the benefit?
The Americans need to be very careful elsewhere to ensure they can afford their military budget,
There is nothing like wasting money on futile wars, that they incapable of bringing to any successful conclusion.
This is where the Americans like to waste their money.
Can we get a new leader of the free world and fast?
This lot are as mad as a box of frogs.
You’re right. The federal budget absolutely cannot handle 2000 to every American. It can only handle spending on maintaining global empire in the form of thousands of military bases worldwide, and dominance of the sea, the land, the skies, and space.
It costs a million bucks or so to “field” each US Imperial combatant (at the grunt and specialist level.) https://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/28/one-soldier-one-year-850000-and-rising/ And the cost per “general officer” or colonel is a significant multiple of that, given the perks that go with their inflated importance (and patent incompetence, not having “won” any wars for generations, other than budget wars in the Pentagram Shuffle.)
Hardly bears saying that there are “political choices” being made by people who are totally insulated from the immiseration of the mopery and largely protected against any consequences from mis- and malfeasance and flights of idiocy, especially against any kind of uprising by the mopes who feel the boot on their necks every day. And the longest-serving woman in the House, Marcy Kaptur, on discussion with Dem leaders, reports she was told her remedy for her concern about the mopes in her district was to “Leave:” “Ohio Democrat Marcy Kaptur says her party leaders don’t understand the working class and one colleague told her the solution to her district’s economic problems was to ‘leave’,” https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9215051/Ohio-Democrat-Marcy-Kaptur-says-party-leaders-dont-understand-working-class.html
Wow, I had never seen that million dollar figure, incredible. Thanks for posting, really puts the measly $2,000 in perspective.
The DNC is perfectly willing to put anyone not partisan enough out in the cold. They’ve proven it again and again.
The U. S. Chamber of Commerce has been so busy and charitable with their time during the pandemic, always behind the scenes making crucial decisions about lockdowns, determining policy and mitigation strategies, closures and reopenings with the sole intent of safeguarding the health and well being of the general population. These unsung heroes rose to the occasion even though healthcare, medical issues and epidemiology are not under their purview and they lack the expertise to do so. I don’t think they should have to weigh in on the advisability of relief checks. In fact I wish they wouldn’t. Let them rest and be quiet for a while.
Just curious: Is retroactively revoking the SALT tax still in the works?
The “stimulus” checks were promised and promised in an amount — not a ‘total’ combined amount. Such crystal clear mendacity does not speak well for the new administration and Congress. The Corona pandemic is not over. Many in the Populace are unemployed or underemployed, and many who still have work are and long have been paid too little to cover the expenses of living even a most modest lifestyle. The numbers of homeless and destitute continue to grow. One more serious lockdown without more generous Government support than a one-time windfall $2000 could be all it takes to push millions over the edge … and the Government appears completely lacking in understanding or empathy as it toadies to the wishes and concerns of Big Money. And what of support for State and Local Governments, and Small and Medium Business? I do not believe they are faring all that well. How many State and Local Governments, and Small and Medium Businesses “circle the drain”? I wonder whether the problem might be that Big Money got so many of its wishes in the CARES Act it is having trouble coming up with new wishes. Besides I suspect Big Money is quite pleased with the consolidation and Labor crushing opportunities the pending collapse will offer. What will happen when the last rent and mortgage moratorium ends? The US Government is mindlessly building a multi-dimensional time-bomb.
Oh, I think the govt understands very well. Why else the rush to pass a draconian domestic “security bill”?
https://www.npr.org/2021/02/02/963343896/former-cia-officer-treat-domestic-extremism-as-an-insurgency
So far, though, the optics haven’t favored their preferred narrative, outside of the Capitol. ;)
But they’ve been working hard on the narrative, beginning last summer. From satirical site Consent Factory.
https://consentfactory.org/2020/09/02/new-normal-gleichschaltung-or-the-storming-of-the-reichstag-building-on-29-august-2020/
That was never the case. They passed $600. Trump jumped in and says “No! it should be $2000” (Veto!) The congress overrode the veto and we got $600, even as Bernie Sanders and others said, “Well, YES! Now that you mention it, as a matter of fact Mr. President, it SHOULD be $2000.” (It should have been $2k before!) So, since they already passed $600, this is the rest of it. Its not backing off. That was the original situation. If there was a back off it was the Republican congress who negotiated down some large number down to $600 in the original bill. The Democrats at the time didn’t control the Senate, so what are they going to do? They can’t change the sum when overriding a veto. That is new legislation, which SURPRISE!! is this bill.
The other thing about checks is they are meant to bridge the time it takes for enhanced unemployment to kick in. Its not $2k per month or $2600/mo. The per-month part is what unemployment is for. Still got a job? Then you aren’t hurting, not like the unemployed are. The money is for them. This is a bridge payment just in case you unemployed that we try not to slow down too much with unnecessary paperwork, like you go through to collect unemployment.
At this point, I have to wonder if there’s any real economy left.
When I sent a Stephanie Kelton tweet to a friend who’s a big fan of hers, he wrote back to this effect: while it’s clear people need help and so the covid payments are essential, a big part of this “stimulus” (maybe most of it?) ultimately just stimulates Wall St. (think mortgages, rents, student loans, health insurance) which is already the big winner of pandemic roulette. Instead of money turning over in the real economy a few times (velocity of money), it goes straight to the stock market.
Don’t know what the answer is, but I think my friend’s point is very well taken.
I was thinking the same thing about contact tracing back in April of last year. I even looked into taking an online course that would qualify me for the job, anticipating that I would be called upon just as soon as the people in charge got everything set up. I fully expected that enlisting soldiers in this army would be one of the first and most crucial orders of business in every single state, city, town and municipality.
Since the economy will exist in the future, what is the big deal about keeping people from saving more? If it’s not spent now, it will be spent later. And why not think of savings as a cushion for future economic depressions and recession cycles?
Also, get rid of ageism in hiring and maybe people won’t feel the need to stack as much cash in order to spend later.
Stop talking about cuts to SS and Medicare and maybe people would feel more comfortable spending NOW.
Have more jobs available all around (good paying with benefits) and maybe people wouldn’t feel they had to save so much.
And the biggie…when you can go bankrupt because you got sick or have an illness….ALOT OF SAVINGS IS NEEDED so that you won’t be on the streets.
But all people hear about is all the push for technology to take jobs, meanwhile, they get punished for saving for a future so they won’t have be platform plantation slaves for a few pennies because decent jobs are gone.
Rant off…
No Surprise: As soon as Biden met w/ republicans to “reach across the aisle” and restore bi-partisanship, it was obvious that this “Worthy Goal” (my quotes and caps) would be corporate Dems’ excuse to cut the package.
it’s very simple — checks are a form of downwards transfer of wealth
That is a mortal sin in the current system — wealth is only allowed to be transferred upwards (and on this both parties are in full agreement), so checks will be viciously fought against.
Too bad the Democrats got rid of ‘welfare as we know it’ back in the Clinton era. As you say, this BS isn’t all Republican mess.
It’s the blatancy of it that burns. They know exactly what they promised, and they know we know it, too; yet they deliberately and openly act in bad faith. Loudly and clearly they are sending the message: the people are not to expect accountability from them, or, indeed, basic human decency and respect. “Go die,” they say. It’s actually unbelievable, but we seem to have come to this.
Probably just a cheap-trick, pretend to reduce the amount only at the last minute to defeat the evil dragon, send the 2000$ cheques and be the king of the world.
This is just business as usual, and appears as repeat of Obama’s medical reform. It went into the “influence black hole” and came back out as a minimal improvement, after rejecting all other approaches, especially those that could affect the preemptive bribes, and “Special Intere$ts” who paid for running for office.
Means testing $1,400 tells me everything I need to know.
Americans are at the “Fool me twice shame on me” stage with the Democratic Party. Well, most of the people I know anyway.
Democratic Party “leadership” saw Trump as preferable to Bernie.
These people are irredeemable.
The Progressive Caucus should bolt and form a third party, what have they got to lose.
Its chaos all the way down from here.
European countries: “We will pay 70% or more of lost wages (depending on country)”
Republicans: “Heres 2k dollars. Have fun.”
Democrats: “Well, we gave you all $600, and we were PLANNING to give everyone $1400 more, but uh, we then realized that we might accidentally give $1400 checks to Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, so we’ll have to use 2019 tax returns to determine who is deserving enough to get the free money”.
As always, Democrats love to unnecessarily overcomplicate things for no reason. At least Republicans show people the knife they’re going to use to stab them with. The dems are able to disguise their skullduggery with word salad and math.
They won’t do it, because they aren’t really progressive and they aren’t really a caucus. And they believe in the ” seat at the table” fallacy. I would vote for a party which sincerely wants to burn down the table.
I wonder how Ossoff and Warnock feel about being tossed under the bus?
I had read that Ossoff is little better than a Clintonite anyway. His upsetness, if any, would be strictly instrumental.
Warnock might be upset and offended. But if he tries to lead any fellow “Progressives” out of the DemParty at this “critical juncture” , the Dem Leaders will send out their Squealers to say . . . ” if you do that, then the Republicans will come back. Comrades! Surely you don’t want the Republicans to come back!”
Actually the Democrats are genius level players. Only a genius would be able to figure out a way of paying people cash that makes those people hate and despise those Democrats even more.
They absolutely should means test it.
I’m not going to get a dime of this money no matter what happens and, as anyone wealthy enough to know will tell you, if you give me more money, it is just going to end up in the stock market, which already is high as a kite, as in: on a long strange trip on some deeply hallucinogenic drugs! Reality? Where dat? Having the stock market this loony isn’t healthy, and clearly isn’t healthy to its natural function as a market. It is not giving any of the proper signals to business leaders, where failure is success (GME) and debt is wealth (nearly everyone). Without some means testing, this giveaway will just make that lunacy far worse. The money will only serve to inflate the balloon that much more and when it finally pops, the ride down will be even scarier and the damage to the economy from the hysteria and panic deeper. Where did the GME activists get their investment dollars? Many will tell you the December checks. It will happen again. This is real and a real problem.* Help those who need helping, and not the rest.
They should also not be stingy. Find the income cutoff where people are more likely to use the money to pay off bills and put food on the table, and give ALL the money to those people. If they end up with $20k checks, so be it. They’ve been kicked in the teeth this last year and probably need it. We can have a gradual cliff to make people feel better. Frankly a richly funded unemployment program is even more the right direction, but those take a bit of time to implement.
*If they want to throw their money away making some statement about hedge funds, more power to them! However, I’d say they can do more for their country by buying up some HEPA filters and donating them for use in school classrooms.
Helping people who lost income during the pandemic is the right thing to do imho.
Especially since the economy was shut down by government decree, although one can make the case that business would have shut down anyway notwithstanding government orders, as people get scared and stay home to protect themselves.
The amount of government help should be limited to some reasonable level but not necessary replace all lost income.
Sending money to people who lost no income during the pandemic is wrong and irresponsible.
We underestimate the damage done to the social fabric when the government bailed out the banks in 2009. Moral hazard works slowly through time eroding trust in the institution and government. Sending money indiscriminately to people who didn’t suffer loss of income will only accelerate the erosion of trust not only in the government but eventually the money itself.
Well, the Democrats have gotten me interested in politics.
I will be looking for ways to help primary every Democratic candidate in my local, state, and federal elections for the next few years.
I keep asking myself, “Where was the ‘means testing’ when they bailed out the banks? Or, bailed out Wall Street?”
We’ve had a good Democratic congressperson for the last 20+ years. He’s a nice guy, and effective at what he does. I look forward to seeing him lose his job.
To be fair, the real problem, absence of means testing for banks and Wall Street is the fault of another congress. Also, for some parts of it, there was means testing. The banks had to prove they had enough resources otherwise (highly unwelcome) help would come in the form of bailouts, haircuts and stricter oversight.
For a time after the Enlightenment in Europe and in the settler colonies there were family farms and a free working middle class that was that was fed, sheltered, healthy in the 20th century, powered by coal and then oil, paid to work in factories, grew food, and supplied young men for the armies needed to conquer the world and each other.
Nuclear weapons and the Silent Revolt of draftees in Vietnam ended mass armies. The US working Middle Class was dumped in the trash starting with Jimmy Carter and cemented by Bill Clinton. Farming industrialized. The US southern plantation elite joined the global brahmin caste to end democracy and make workers chattel; once again.
The Brahmin Elite and the 10% Overseers are simply trying to minimize expenses and continue the transfer of wealth upwards. The basic problem is to control the virus and get the economy going again requires changes that go against their very being — ingrained, arrogant, high-class status. The restoration of democracy, ending the forever wars, and a functional national public health system are all required to return to normal and regain the consent of the governed. If not, chaos is certain.
As a WASP from a very old but never distinguished family, the Brahmins were out of power in the 1980s. Nicholas Brady as Treasury Secretary under Reagan was their last face. Go look at the billionaire’s list. Tell me how much old money there is. None. The Walton family is about as old as it gets these days.
The Brahmins haven’t disappeared totally though have they? Maybe not not 1%ers but there must still be old money in the 10%ers …i.e. multi-millionaires not billionaires? Them that has tend to hang on and pass on at least great comfort if not wealth immeasurable to their heirs.
https://twitter.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1356916157001965569
Stimulus checks need to go out – in 2000 or any increment above and extend UI with a kick up – The real debate is who will end up with all the loot. Hint: If you had a minimum salery dispensed to every citizen – irregardless of working status…. it would end up in the same hands and be sucked away by the increased cost of living for things like Housing, food, healthcare specifically – the commercial quote “whats in your wallet” is the same idea that flashes through the pickpocket’s mind… it’s just that the tax system enables a much more socialy distant FIRE sector a more professional and less labor intense way to accomplish the pickpocketer’s goal.
I think it would be more advantageous to promote a better understanding of the tax system and make it tougher to earn a buck through financial speculation and easier to earn a buck through tangible production ( as it is, we have priced ourselves (USA) out of the global market and even our own market in real estate speculation – of course – that was tax advantaged way of doing things but still.. the big boys still had to resort to puffery and all manor of theft)
Laborers knowing that science and invention have increased enormously the power of labor, cannot understand why they do not receive more of the increased product, and accuse capital of withholding it. The employer, finding it increasingly difficult to make both ends meet, accuses labor of shirking. Thus suspicion is aroused, distrust follows, and soon both are angry and struggling for mastery.
It is not the man who gives employment to labor that does harm. The mischief comes from the man who does not give employment. Every factory, every store, every building, every bit of wealth in any shape requires labor in its creation. The more wealth created the more labor employed, the higher wages and lower prices.
But while some men employ labor and produce wealth, others speculate in lands and resources required for production, and without employing labor or producing wealth they secure a large part of the wealth others produce. What they get without producing, labor and capital produce without getting. That is why labor and capital quarrel. But the quarrel should not be between labor and capital, but between the non-producing speculator on the one hand and labor and capital on the other.
Co-operation between employer and employee will lead to more friendly relations and a better understanding, and will hasten the day when they will see that their interests are mutual. As long as they stand apart and permit the non-producing, non-employing exploiter to make each think the other is his enemy, the speculator will prey upon both.
Co-operating friends, when they fully realize the source of their troubles will find at hand a simple and effective cure: The removal of taxes from industry, and the taxing of privilege and monopoly. Remove the heavy burdens of government from those who employ labor and produce wealth, and lay them upon those who enrich themselves without employing labor or producing wealth.
Anonomous author 1920’s
I’m not clear on why if the Dems are going it alone not pass the $3 trillion Heroes act passed in May by the House. Pelosi reduced it to $2 trillion on the “false flag” of bipartinsonship, They only have two reconciliation votes to use. Why not swing for the fence and stop quibbling about $75,000/yr being just too much to give assistance.?