There are better ways to stimulate the economy than handing out checks. A dangerous precedent is being set by changing the relationship between government and citizen. We are creating a nanny state right before our very eyes.
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ANYONE WHO QUESTIONS COVID RELIEF IS A RACIST ANTISCIENTIFIC SHILL
in all seriousness, we've been on the path to a nanny state since at least the 60's, nothing new here bud, just an exacerbation of existing trends. if you really care, you could
1. move to somewhere that's not a nanny state (Switzerland is a good move, but really hard to get into)
2. donate to fiscally conservative think tanks like Cato, Hoover, and historically the Mises Institute (heard a while back they got sucked into alt-right stuff but idk if I believe it)
3. write your congresspeople
4. educate youngsters in economics or in skills necessary for financial independence so they don't grow up expecting handouts
but writing an internet post with "change my mind" at the end does absolutely nothing to change anything.
Fun fact: the guy who founded the Silk Road website and serving a life sentence was big into the Mises Institute. Very interesting biography, “American Kingpin”
That's one person I think Trump should have pardoned along with Assange and Snowden. God forbid someone takes the initiative to add much needed structure and simultaneously remove violence from the black market.
Yeah stop bitching about it on the internet; it achieves nothing. If you have problem with the geezers and politicians screwing you over, then you should write to your congess people, rally your statesmen to perform a recall election or de-throne your current congress person, or do it yourself and run for office. Millions on twitter and around the country complaining but how many are doing something about it? You complain on the internet about a self-created ruling class, voted in, and sustained by, by the stupidity and selfishness, or at best ignorance, indifference, and inaction by the general public.
The way the country has handled covid, the economic situation,and its national security this year is disgraceful. The people who could have avoided these disasters are the same people passing the authoritarian, totalitarian tinged policies which only serve to screw the citizens over while achieving nothing due to miss management. The United States of America has been severely warped and is no longer the country it was meant to be.We need to make America great, but whining about it on the internet ain't going to fix it.
There's the possibility that people who want to make the right changes for the better are in the minority, in which case it's best to leave the country.
Shut the fuck up you dumb bitch
I'll gladly take yours if you don't want it.
Were you aware that only $166 billion of the $900 billion relief package is allocated to direct checks?
Why did so much of it go to Israel?
You dare question the generous gifts to our greatest ally?
That was in the defense bill not the COVID relief bill. There is still an argument of why should that much money go to any country, but it is a misnomer that it was part of the Covid relief bill.
Probably to repay them for the bullets and bombs that they wasted on the USS Liberty.
Lmaoo, stuff like this is why people think finance makes too much money in an unnatural way. Did you grow up on Bikini Bottom?
So what's your policy prescription? Why do some of the most sophomoric and sheltered perspectives about politics and public policy come from this website? Was your contention with the one-time $1200 direct payment that happened 9 months ago and $600 a week for the unemployed that expired in July? 10.7 million people are currently unemployed (despite numbers ticking down since September), the highest level of unemployment claims in weeks was filed just last week, and 8 million people have fallen into poverty since the summer - all while deadwood Congress has passed a stimulus package that halves the aforementioned direct payment and unemployment insurance amounts and you are complaining about a nanny state of all the things to complain about relating to government and its pandemic response. Get a grip
This is not the bubonic plague. I understand the shutdowns at first, but now it’s just self-sabotage. Open the economy before we print ourselves into poverty.
No one is saying draconian lockdowns are some sort of trade-off-free policy action but don't act like opening up the economy at this point is some sort of panacea either especially with a vulnerable public health infrastructure and citizens who can't do simple enough things like mask wearing and social distancing. Sweden operated as normal and look at them now. Policy action should be a balancing act but it hasn't been
ALL of the stimulus should have been used as direct payments to citizens. A lot of the stimulus is garbage that got added for no reason, and no one had time to read before voting.
- $130M for Nepal
- $700M to Sudan
- $85M to Cambodia
- $452M to Ukraine
The list goes on. The fact that even a single dollar is leaving the country is a disgrace.
And then we have:
- $26M to the Kennedy Center
- $1B to the Smithsonian
- $154M to the National Art Gallery
If you took $900B / 400M citizens, everyone should be getting $2.3k
I don't think we disagree, and I actually find it kind of hilarious that now people are scrutinizing and questioning foreign aid when we should have been doing that a long time ago! The blame for much of the misunderstanding should really be directed at the media and politicians that are trying to frame it as a $2+ trillion corona bill. The actual corona bill is only $900 bn and the rest is for next year's government spending which they were already discussing over the past two weeks. The two bills really should have been bifurcated and had a separate vote, but they tried to kill two birds with one stone which is actually not uncommon and was probably expedient given how difficult it was to get the passage of a COVID relief bill in the first place. Am I in agreement with them attaching new piracy/illegal streaming restrictions in a bill like this? No, but pork and barrel politics and riders are, regrettably, endemic to big ticket bills like these.
Don't forget the $500M to Israel as the posters above noted.
While I agree the payments to foreign states is ridiculous, if we don't do it, someone else (China) will. That is the political game being played here. When these states look to ally with someone, they'll remember who had their back, and who turned their back.
not to forget that members of congress have literally earned over 100k$ since Corona
Agreed the stimulus is garbage and setting a dangerous precedent. Not even touching on the fact that rather than risk any potential loss of life that could be tied to not "doing everything possible to keep everyone safe," the government is has printed something like 30% of all dollars in existence in 2020. They're fucking over the people they're giving the money with runaway inflation. But it gets even worse just looking at what they've passed WITH the stimulus bill this time around. And of course most of the MSM isn't touching it.
These people on both the right and left screaming about "look what else is in the stimulus bill" are idiots and so are you if you take it at face value. Both the stimulus bill and FY2021's annual appropriations were both passed at the same time. That's why some dumbasses are whining about foreign aid payments to Israel, Pakistan, etc. for being included.
Why are we paying those countries foreign aid payments? I don't care what you call it.
Maybe you're the idiot for being okay with sending all our money to other countries while our government mandates that people can't work for a living. Get it?
I'm sorry, the US and the rest of the world is still in the midst of a pandemic isn't it? Or did I miss the memo and everything is totally fine now that Biden got the electoral college? In what universe is it ok for us to be sending hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars to other countries while millions of taxpayers have been either become unemployed or are outright banned from working? Screw the 2021 appropriations bill and every other country on the planet that needs $$$ from the US right now, they can either figure it out themselves or croak for all I care. These bills will be treated as one and the same whether or not that's technically true, because they were voted on in tandem and COVID relief was used to hostage take the votes of many House Reps who couldn't cover the 5k+ page appropriations bill document in under 6 hours (shocker). It's time to focus on helping US citizens, otherwise where is all that future tax revenues and projected consumer spending going to come from? Maybe it's because you're still in school and have never worked a day in your life or you're just genuinely this obtuse, but just tossing a paltry $650 to the millions of working class people in this country who are just shy of becoming homeless after months of nothing is unacceptable. Doing it while simultaneously giving hundreds of millions to other nations is abhorrent who have done literally nothing for American citizens during this pandemic is fucking abhorrent.
100% correct. But the media and politicians have deliberately framed it in a way to suggest that this was actually $2+ trillion Corona relief bill - that is where some of the confusion/misunderstanding is coming from for people who have never been concerned about foreign aid.
exactly. tired of seeing toxic remarks based on something they don't even understand on my social media feed.
What inflation? It has been extremely low in the past months.
I'm sorry but the issue you take with this is the direct payments? Not the X trillion that has been given to our corporate oligarchs directly out of our future purchasing power? Yes, it's the $600 payments to the peasants that are the real problem here. Oh, ok.
Seriously, it would be more "efficient" from an economics perspective if the US gov just paid everyone $10k and called it a day rather than dicking around with all of these corporate handouts. Would've saved a bunch of time too. This clusterfuck of a bill and the one before it are the biggest arguments and case studies for UBI. If you're going to be giving out free money, might as well do it right and actually do it efficiently and quickly.
You’re right. I should have clarified I’m not okay with the stimulus all around.
Came here to say exactly this.
@IkeSalisbury - What would you have the govnmt do instead to stimulate the economy? I'm not saying I know wtf to do, but genuinely curious for perspective here.
In my ideal imaginary utopia we'd be spending $900bn on new renewable infrastructure and repairing key existing infrastructure as a means to stimulate the economy. Not sure how this functionally would work in reality though.
I am a proponent of UBI, provided the stats that are always marketed alongside it are true (ie, 'social' costs of the same at-risk group exceed the UBI payments that prevent the need for them).
Well said. The entire concept of a bailout is fucking disgusting for so many of these massive companies, it was biggest and most abrupt upward wealth transfer in history. The government should have let them fail, let the equity holders get rolled, then let Apollo and the other distressed giants come in and tear them apart. We'd all probably end up better off after the fact and the resulting new business entities would be far more efficient.
Crazy Nancy needs a spank in the a*s.
Our government gave Americans $600 but gave $500 million to Israel...
Our elites aren't just negligent or corrupt. They actually hate us.
fact
Christmas just came early for all those Jefferies analysts & associates. Wonder how they will enjoy their $600.
Just wait until they get their stimulus checks too!
Wait, are we not talking about bonuses? (sarcasm for you Jeffries monkeys, we know Rich will give you $900)
I agree for the most part.
Your point on the "nanny state" is one of the two main issues in getting Keynesian stimulus right. Second issue being how you get people to actually spend it for good usage vs. putting it in their bank accounts or wasting it on something stupid.
If you think about where the those 2 issues lead up to, then the question becomes - "How do you get the legislators to actually be good at their job of determining the fiscal policy?" . Unfortunately, with the current political state of the US, they'll never be good at implementing fiscal policies.
was waiting for someone to mention Keynes. the other part that's not mentioned (though I am confident you are aware of it Milton) is that as much as Keynes advocated for government stimulus during times of crisis, he also recommended that we PAY OFF THE DEBT when the crisis is over. we've been doing MMT calling it Keynesian economics and it's time for that lie to stop.
https://www.pragcap.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/keynes-and-deficits-…
the best snippet illustrating this point here: "The government should not deficit finance current expenditures. Public investment expenditures should be financed by borrowed funds that are repaid over the service life of the project. Tax revenue should be budgeted so as to meet these payments"
Oh absutely. MMT people call themselves "post-Keynesians" for a reason. They want to go "beyond" Keyenesian economics because they're so "done with it" or whatever.
What's funny is that economists don't take MMT seriously. It's only among the politicians and economically illiterate it's gaining popularity. Which should send off signals that something dangerous is happening in this country.
Real neo-Keynesians like Krugman and Mankiw are cringing hard at these fools.
I disagree. I think it's probably the most simple and probably best way to stimulate the economy. Certainly better than the cash for clunkers, handing $$ to the banks, etc.
If you wanted to argue with me what $600 to every citizen actually does for the economy and how much it really helps... not sure.
Care to share those "better ways" you speak of?
More times than I can count, I've seen the following propositions from the right
- Give stimulus checks to businesses and landlords, rather than their workers and renters. Apparently this is better because it does not create a "free stuff" mentality for the poor people.
- Hand out massive tax brakes to businesses, so that businesses can support their workers.
etc.
It usually boils down to some variant of the gov. not giving money directly to the people in need, but rather route it through employers, landlords, lenders/creditors, or whatever. This seems to fall in line with the "no nanny state" mantra.
But if you ask me, that seems like just another layer of complexity and uncertainty, and seems pretty exploitable for the unscrupulous.
Ahh yes, landlords, businesses, and banks/lenders will safeguard money for the poor and ensure there is no abuse/corruption/waste, etc.
Massive welfare for corporations, but nothing for little people.
I hate bills like this one because the PDF is 5600 pages long. Does anyone know a source that gives the exact allocations to each project, as well as the nature of the funds (for example, direct payments vs loans)? A quick search just revealed a bunch of op-eds and think tank pieces. Also, do any of you know who is responsible for writing monstrosities like the Consolidated Appropriations Act? I do not see how anyone could read its content, nevertheless create it.
I apologize if I sound like a sour puss but expensive bills with a lot of filler annoy me greatly.
https://rules.house.gov/sites/democrats.rules.house.gov/files/BILLS-116…
Anti-Nanny state guys probably voted for trump who tweeted asking $600 to be raised to $2000 after negotiations have been going for like 6 months. Win
Damn girl, then you must be a stimulus check.
STOP LETTING NON-TARGETS POST ON THIS SITE
I am neutral on stimulus checks. Extending unemployment insurance is a good thing, though. Meanwhile, Orange man implied that he will not sign it. He wants a bigger stimulus check. LOL, his own team and republicans in congress negotiated the deal. Dems wanted more...
Why the fuck is the bill 5K + pages long? Does anyone actually read these things before voting on it or are all the senators / house members just getting a sparknotes easy run down of the "major" things in the bill? I can easily see so much shit being stuff in the 5k pages that likely will lead to loop holes or wasteful spending.
Also for all that talk about climate change, 5k pages is prolly a tree they just killed per representative to read.
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