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They’re Right, $600 Isn’t Enough for a Locked Down Economy
It looks President Trump is sending back the so-called COVID relief bill back to Congress, to demand more direct payments to American families. Instead of the $600 per person check, he’s asking for “at least” $2,000 per American. Senator Rand Paul rightly asks if money grows on trees, why not more free money?
Sen. Rand Paul: "If free money were the answer, if money really grew on trees, why not give more free money? Why not give it out all the time? Why stop at $600 a person? Why not $1,000? Why not $2,000?" pic.twitter.com/mBlQ69UQ1H
— The Hill (@thehill) December 21, 2020
But of course, as we well know, there is no such thing as free money. But liberals and many Republicans seem to agree that $600 for eight months of lockdowns is a joke to people months behind on utilities, rent, etc.
Pssst….$2,000 still isn't enough. People have months of bills piled up through no fault of their own.
I'm not suggesting that people won't take $2,000, but it's important that we keep saying this.
$2,000 still isn't enough.
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) December 23, 2020
But that’s the thing: there’s never going to be sufficient money to make up for the damage we’ve wrought. This debate over how much is “enough” misses one key admission: these lockdowns have cost millions of individual Americans incalculable amounts of wealth, and there is no possible way to pay them back. For those who traffic in “empathy,” there has been a decided lack of it for those who have found themselves unable to financially sustain their businesses and households.
If Republicans are going to push this back to the Senate, we need to tie this money to Governors making an agreement to immediately reopening their economy. We cannot keep giving out free money like Trader Joe’s does with lollipops for kids.
Published in General
I also think people who have continued to get their regular paychecks probably shouldn’t get the money…. I’m a teacher, so my income hasn’t changed. Hardly seems right that I got the first stimulus check…. I mean, I won’t complain or anything if it shows up in my account, but it just doesn’t seem financially responsible? Of course, since when is the government financially responsible. 😅
The one item that should be on a one page bill is a 100% refundable tax credit, payable on quarterly IRS filings, for forgiveness of personal and true SMALL business debt on rent/lease/mortgage payments since the end of March 2020.
No stimulus with fake money. Re-open and let the economy correct itself. It’s up to those states who choose to remain locked down to figure out how to correct the problems they have initiated. None of these lockdowns have come from the federal level.
It could easily be argued that Dr Fauci et al caused at least most of it, and since they are at the federal level it becomes a federal responsibility when their people cause damage.
Then other people rely on you to put that money into circulation. Don’t pay down credit cards, or keep it in the bank… Use it to support things that help with employment. And ideally at smaller, local businesses. Not Walmart or Amazon, which have been doing fine.
We both just lost our jobs. What I resent the most is property taxes to support closed schools. And a light rail boondoggle that no one will ride due to fear of infection. We pay a car-tab tax and a property tax to build that Choo choo train that we will never ride.
A non-libertarian government, society, and financial system that is based on endless inflation and credit growth has to be 100% reserved for a pandemic.
I don’t follow what you are trying to say. Could you rephrase that? Specifically the part starting with 100%
We have an economy that is basically a Ponzi scheme. The government has to save all of the money and resources in advance to shut the thing down. You can’t expect people to plan or self insure for this event given the structure of our economy. It’s not like a normal “v” recession that you always have to be braced for.
It’s a dumb system, but every country does it.
There shouldn’t be a stimulus bill at all.
There is too much debt and all kinds fixed payments to meet to not do it.
It’s all going to collapse at some point, but we keep putting it off.
During Rush’s show, he pointed out if you took the $900 billion and split it evenly among (rounding for ease of calculation) our 300 million citizens, each person would get $3000 dollars instead of $600. So where is the extra $720 billion going? Rush cited a laundry list of things that would make your blood boil . . .
Government giving back a fraction of the wealth that government continues to destroy… It’s like offering the prisoner still on the rack a couple of aspirin. It is also quietly insulting because $600 is the exact minimum amount that would have to be reported to the IRS if from another source.
I read an article many years ago in which the author proposed giving each member of Congress a fixed, large pork budget (proportional to population for Senators) and once in each two-year term of the Congress, they could all act as a giant dung beetle and roll all this into one big ball for unanimous consent for whatever they wanted to send home or to the interests of campaign donors. In exchange, they would not lard up or hold hostage real legislation to include this kind of stuff. I love the idea but don’t think you could ever get them to honor such a deal.
The state forced businesses to close. The state thinks that a little bit of welfare will fix everything. Who needs to work and support a family?
This is another way of saying we live in an inflationist system. We should have quit doing this the second the Soviet Union fell.
I do not support government relief checks because my grandchildren (currently toddlers) will still be paying for them during their working careers.
But I realize that relief checks are politically popular, and thus are almost inevitable.
Mostly because I’m a nasty person, condition delivery of federal relief checks to residents of a state on all elected officials and a large number of appointed health department officials in that state refunding the paychecks they have received for the last ten months. If Patrick (the owner of my favorite diner) can’t operate his business at full capacity, the governor, the legislators, and the health department officials who won’t let him operate should not get paid. And because the trade was not made when it should have been (last March), all governors must move out of the governors mansions for at least one year from now. No state official would dare turn down that trade for fear of riling up the electorate. If the officials are not forced to suffer, and suffer big, they will just do more damage to others while continuing to enjoy luxury at the expense of those upon whom they visit suffering.
The Government Is Running Out Of Money™
The Government never had any money. It’s our money. It’s our debt. It’s our fault for allowing it.