Red Mosquito

B wrote:

4/5 wrote:

B wrote:

4/5 wrote:Also, it does make sense to phase out the checks because the more money a person earns the more likely they are to save a higher portion, the less money a person earns the more likely they are to spend a higher portion. Therefore, multiple series of relief to low income/those out of work/unable to work currently would be significantly more stimulative than a check to everybody.

I thought the Democrats were going to consider that, but I guess not. It would have been a good way to demonstrate trying to work with Republicans.

I thought they were talking about reducing it to singles below $50k and married couples below $100k.

To be honest, I don't know what they voted on this morning. I thought is was $1400 for all.

Today's vote wasn't on the bill, it was on the procedural mechanisms to ram through a bill without Republican support.

Fucking Democrats!

Why are you rolling your eyes while saying that? It's ok to acknowledge both teams are awful.

BurtReynolds wrote:Why are you rolling your eyes while saying that? It's ok to acknowledge both teams are awful.

That's a false equivalence. Democrats are like stepping in a muddy puddle. Republicans are like stepping into a horse turd.

B wrote:

4/5 wrote:

BurtReynolds wrote:To say nothing of the fact that stimulus checks limited by income is a terrible idea supported by people who don't understand what stimulus payments are for (they aren't welfare for poor people).

Can you expound on this?

I would think he's talking about the difference between giving people money for relief of the hardships of COVID vs. giving people money to stimulate spending and improve the economy.

The former wouldn't go to people like me who still have a job and can afford my mortgage payment and food. The latter would with the hope that I would spend it on goods and services.

(Of course, what I, specifically, want to do is refurbish my kitchen, so I'm banking most of the cash until COVID is over, and I can have contractors sharing air with my kids.)

-the hardships were caused primarily by government measures, so the government is responsible for making up for the hardship caused. This isn't welfare. It's reparations.

-It's stimulus to the economy.

-by only propping up the poor and leaving the middle class out to dry , you put more pressure on the middle class (who, let's face it, pays for most of the welfare programs in the first place), and send many of them down to the poor class, who are dependent on welfare. This is the leveling process, driven by bizarre notions of equity. There is no democracy without a thriving middle class, so it's in everyone's interests to maintain it.

B wrote:

BurtReynolds wrote:Why are you rolling your eyes while saying that? It's ok to acknowledge both teams are awful.

That's a false equivalence. Democrats are like stepping in a muddy puddle. Republicans are like stepping into a horse turd.

I didn't say they were equivalent. You just took it that way because you think any criticism of democrats equates to praise of republicans, because you see the world as red team vs. blue team

BurtReynolds wrote: -the hardships were caused primarily by government measures, so the government is responsible for making up for the hardship caused. This isn't welfare. It's reparations.

-It's stimulus to the economy.

-by only propping up the poor and leaving the middle class out to dry , you put more pressure on the middle class (who, let's face it, pays for most of the welfare programs in the first place), and send many of them down to the poor class, who are dependent on welfare. This is the leveling process, driven by bizarre notions of equity. There is no democracy without a thriving middle class, so it's in everyone's interests to maintain it.

Interesting. I posted on the last page why I don't believe that these checks stimulate the economy (or are particularly intended to.) But I do agree with your first point.
Re: the last point that's an argument against all sorts of entitlement programs, basically anything means-tested. Or really just any excessive government tax and spending schemes. So I agree with it to an extent, however, I'd argue that there are people who the government's Covid policies have hammered particularly hard and there are others who are fine economically. Therefore, targeting aid to people actually impacted could be done for a lot less money and would have a similar impact on the economy based on data regarding what people did with the first round of checks. Of course what I'm saying is politically impossible and I believe that the hollowing out of the middle class is mostly a myth anyway so I realize I'm not as concerned about the middle class as most people are; I'm much more concerned with the people at the bottom of the income distribution.

I agree that it's not much of a stimulus since most of it just gets sucked up by landlords and banks. Which is why giving it to people who can actually spend it on things other than rent makes sense if you are trying to stimulate the economy.

none of these one, two, or three offs should've been labeled stimuli. a true stimulus would be ongoing monthly payments to the people.

B wrote: Fucking Democrats!

Basically

BurtReynolds wrote: -the hardships were caused primarily by government measures, so the government is responsible for making up for the hardship caused. This isn't welfare. It's reparations.

What does this mean? The particular hardship being addressed was caused by a virus, not the government. Unless you mean government inaction over time causes these hardships to develop or worsen. But no matter the size of this check or who it goes to, it isn't addresssing all that.

BurtReynolds wrote:

B wrote:

BurtReynolds wrote:Why are you rolling your eyes while saying that? It's ok to acknowledge both teams are awful.

That's a false equivalence. Democrats are like stepping in a muddy puddle. Republicans are like stepping into a horse turd.

I didn't say they were equivalent. You just took it that way because you think any criticism of democrats equates to praise of republicans, because you see the world as red team vs. blue team

A funny thing to tell an unaffiliated voter who falls in the green box of your weird political grid memes.

spike wrote:none of these one, two, or three offs should've been labeled stimuli. a true stimulus would be ongoing monthly payments to the people.

Rob wrote:

BurtReynolds wrote: -the hardships were caused primarily by government measures, so the government is responsible for making up for the hardship caused. This isn't welfare. It's reparations.

What does this mean? The particular hardship being addressed was caused by a virus, not the government. Unless you mean government inaction over time causes these hardships to develop or worsen. But no matter the size of this check or who it goes to, it isn't addresssing all that.

Lockdowns don't work.

Rob wrote:

BurtReynolds wrote: -the hardships were caused primarily by government measures, so the government is responsible for making up for the hardship caused. This isn't welfare. It's reparations.

What does this mean? The particular hardship being addressed was caused by a virus, not the government. Unless you mean government inaction over time causes these hardships to develop or worsen. But no matter the size of this check or who it goes to, it isn't addresssing all that.

Sure, this stuff is all to address the virus, but it's not absurd to expect the government to find a way to ease the hardships caused by their actions to address the virus, regardless of how necessary those actions are. A lot of Europe is doing exactly that.

verb_to_trust wrote:

Rob wrote:

BurtReynolds wrote: -the hardships were caused primarily by government measures, so the government is responsible for making up for the hardship caused. This isn't welfare. It's reparations.

What does this mean? The particular hardship being addressed was caused by a virus, not the government. Unless you mean government inaction over time causes these hardships to develop or worsen. But no matter the size of this check or who it goes to, it isn't addresssing all that.

Lockdowns don't work.

Ours did

Yeah, the problem is that we didn't have a strict enough lock down. If everyone just stayed in their houses for a couple weeks we'd be in a much better situation right now.

B wrote:

Rob wrote:

BurtReynolds wrote: -the hardships were caused primarily by government measures, so the government is responsible for making up for the hardship caused. This isn't welfare. It's reparations.

What does this mean? The particular hardship being addressed was caused by a virus, not the government. Unless you mean government inaction over time causes these hardships to develop or worsen. But no matter the size of this check or who it goes to, it isn't addresssing all that.

Sure, this stuff is all to address the virus, but it's not absurd to expect the government to find a way to ease the hardships caused by their actions to address the virus, regardless of how necessary those actions are. A lot of Europe is doing exactly that.

this is how lockdowns do work

Rob wrote:

BurtReynolds wrote: -the hardships were caused primarily by government measures, so the government is responsible for making up for the hardship caused. This isn't welfare. It's reparations.

What does this mean? The particular hardship being addressed was caused by a virus, not the government. Unless you mean government inaction over time causes these hardships to develop or worsen. But no matter the size of this check or who it goes to, it isn't addresssing all that.

Right or wrong, the government took action and are thus responsible for those actions. Though ultimately we all pay the debt, at least this way it isn't put squarely on the backs of struggling small business owners, people struggling to make rent, people who took steps on their own to prevent the spread on their own, etc. (Edit:...while the government says "tough shit, we can do what we want.")

spike wrote:

B wrote:

Rob wrote:

BurtReynolds wrote: -the hardships were caused primarily by government measures, so the government is responsible for making up for the hardship caused. This isn't welfare. It's reparations.

What does this mean? The particular hardship being addressed was caused by a virus, not the government. Unless you mean government inaction over time causes these hardships to develop or worsen. But no matter the size of this check or who it goes to, it isn't addresssing all that.

Sure, this stuff is all to address the virus, but it's not absurd to expect the government to find a way to ease the hardships caused by their actions to address the virus, regardless of how necessary those actions are. A lot of Europe is doing exactly that.

this is how lockdowns do work

Well, it should be. If you don't support the business owners when you tell them they have to be closed, they're just going to lay everyone off, and those people will stop paying rent and start signing up for government services. It'll be pretty much exactly what happened.