ADVERTISEMENT

Happy Holidays

NYShoreGuy

All Universe
Gold Member
Jan 7, 2006
32,409
9,998
113
Hoping all is good for everyone around these parts.

I have a question...why is a 2k stimulus a big thing now?
 
I guess we can ask questions like why are borders important in Jordan and not here?
 
So I did say Congress....is he the only one responsible? Kind of doubt that.
Hall85 since 2019 the house pass 400 plus bills that didnt make it to a senate vote...yes i aknowledge house is dem/left stronghold when senate in red
 
Mitch is part of Congress, right?

Yes. All of us here are aware how congress works. The house passed a bill on Covid relief. The senate refused to take it up.

You asked the reason why congress didn’t put a plan forward. My answer is that the house passed a bill which Mitch McConnell refused to take up.
 
Yes. All of us here are aware how congress works. The house passed a bill on Covid relief. The senate refused to take it up.

You asked the reason why congress didn’t put a plan forward. My answer is that the house passed a bill which Mitch McConnell refused to take up.
Was it a good bill? Look, McConnel’s an ass and I am no fan of his, but to make him out to be the only reason we don’t have a good piece of legislation, is disingenuous and wildly partisan.
 
Would be interested in knowing how many other bills full of pork Trump refused to sign.

2k is minuscule considering many Americans won’t see a dime.
How is $2,000 minuscule? That’s two weeks pay for the average American.
 
Was it a good bill? Look, McConnel’s an ass and I am no fan of his, but to make him out to be the only reason we don’t have a good piece of legislation, is disingenuous and wildly partisan.

The senate could have passed their own bill. Pelosi was very political about the issue, but she at least got something passed which the senate did not and also did. It consider the house bill and that is squarely on McConnell. He was pushing for states to go bankrupt when the house was pushing a 2nd bill.
 
The senate could have passed their own bill. Pelosi was very political about the issue, but she at least got something passed which the senate did not and also did. It consider the house bill and that is squarely on McConnell. He was pushing for states to go bankrupt when the house was pushing a 2nd bill.
So it was political on both sides.
 
How is $2,000 minuscule? That’s two weeks pay for the average American.

I meant minuscule from the perspective of the government paying that amount (thought that was clear when I also mentioned many Americans wouldn’t qualify). Clearly to the average citizen, that amount is considerable.

Not only can the government afford it, but it pales in comparison to what many other countries have offered its citizens.
 
I meant minuscule from the perspective of the government paying that amount (thought that was clear when I also mentioned many Americans wouldn’t qualify). Clearly to the average citizen, that amount is considerable.

Not only can the government afford it, but it pales in comparison to what many other countries have offered its citizens.
Ok thanks for clarifying. We need to get money to the people who need it. Not a fan of the peanut butter approach as people who have worked through the pandemic get the same benefit as someone who lost their job and can’t make rent/mortgage payment.
And just to be clear, when the dust finally settles on this we’ll be looking at. $25-30 trillion deficit, so, no, the government can’t afford it.
 
Forgive my rudimentary math skills, but I saw somewhere that increasing from $600 to $2,000 would add $350bn to the package. I also saw that 100 million Americans received the first go around, that was $1,200 declining to $0 based in wage scale.

Take away the sliding scale, wouldn’t $1,200 to 100 million people be $120bn and could estimate $1,400 increase to the package would cost far less than $350bn?

Governmental mathematics
 
Ok thanks for clarifying. We need to get money to the people who need it. Not a fan of the peanut butter approach as people who have worked through the pandemic get the same benefit as someone who lost their job and can’t make rent/mortgage payment.
And just to be clear, when the dust finally settles on this we’ll be looking at. $25-30 trillion deficit, so, no, the government can’t afford it.
Not to nitpick, but I think there is an important thing to note. $30 trillion is the government debt, money we owe lenders at incredibly low interest rates (which is why we continually suppress interest rates, not so we can refinance our mortgages). The deficit is the annual difference between governmental revenue and expenses. I only clarify because pandemic aside, government has done little to improve the deficit, which is necessary to reduce the debt. And Dem executive and legislative branches won’t be too focused on that in the next 4 years.

We will certainly need to reverse trend on that debt because at some point inflation will creep in, rates cannot be suppressed forever and cheap debt cannot be refinanced.
 
Not to nitpick, but I think there is an important thing to note. $30 trillion is the government debt, money we owe lenders at incredibly low interest rates (which is why we continually suppress interest rates, not so we can refinance our mortgages). The deficit is the annual difference between governmental revenue and expenses. I only clarify because pandemic aside, government has done little to improve the deficit, which is necessary to reduce the debt. And Dem executive and legislative branches won’t be too focused on that in the next 4 years.

We will certainly need to reverse trend on that debt because at some point inflation will creep in, rates cannot be suppressed forever and cheap debt cannot be refinanced.
You're absolutely right on all points....not a nitpick at all.
 
I meant minuscule from the perspective of the government paying that amount (thought that was clear when I also mentioned many Americans wouldn’t qualify). Clearly to the average citizen, that amount is considerable.

Not only can the government afford it, but it pales in comparison to what many other countries have offered its citizens.
Governments who think they can “afford it” don’t fair too well in financial crises. Ask Greece, Ireland and Spain (and others) if they could afford their debt a decade ago.

The US is not immune to collapsing under overwhelming debt.
 
  • Like
Reactions: shu09
I meant minuscule from the perspective of the government paying that amount (thought that was clear when I also mentioned many Americans wouldn’t qualify). Clearly to the average citizen, that amount is considerable.

Not only can the government afford it, but it pales in comparison to what many other countries have offered its citizens.

How can the government afford it? The US is $27 trillion in debt.
 
Forgive my rudimentary math skills, but I saw somewhere that increasing from $600 to $2,000 would add $350bn to the package. I also saw that 100 million Americans received the first go around, that was $1,200 declining to $0 based in wage scale.

Take away the sliding scale, wouldn’t $1,200 to 100 million people be $120bn and could estimate $1,400 increase to the package would cost far less than $350bn?

Governmental mathematics
In order to get that through you probably have to give hundreds of millions to the Kennedy Center and other places where politicians families work.
 
  • Like
Reactions: sami
Forgive my rudimentary math skills, but I saw somewhere that increasing from $600 to $2,000 would add $350bn to the package. I also saw that 100 million Americans received the first go around, that was $1,200 declining to $0 based in wage scale.

Take away the sliding scale, wouldn’t $1,200 to 100 million people be $120bn and could estimate $1,400 increase to the package would cost far less than $350bn?

Governmental mathematics

Were they payments or people?
I haven’t looked into it, but I’d guess that the number you saw was in reference to the number of payments since a lot more than 100 million should be eligible.
 
Yep. Of course. Almost every bill is political. They still manage to pass some from time to time.
If I told my board I “get some things done from time to time”, I wouldn’t expect to be employed very long.
 
Not to nitpick, but I think there is an important thing to note. $30 trillion is the government debt, money we owe lenders at incredibly low interest rates (which is why we continually suppress interest rates, not so we can refinance our mortgages). The deficit is the annual difference between governmental revenue and expenses. I only clarify because pandemic aside, government has done little to improve the deficit, which is necessary to reduce the debt. And Dem executive and legislative branches won’t be too focused on that in the next 4 years.

We will certainly need to reverse trend on that debt because at some point inflation will creep in, rates cannot be suppressed forever and cheap debt cannot be refinanced.


There is a balance for sure. Your examples though all tried some type of austerity measures which hopefully have shown that they do not work.

The issue isn’t that we spend to get out of a crisis, it’s that we don’t try to close the deficit when things are going well like a trillion dollar tax cut in a strong economy.
 
If I told my board I “get some things done from time to time”, I wouldn’t expect to be employed very long.

Agreed. Let’s fire the senate leadership that failed to consider the house bill or some up with one on their own.
 
Spoken like a truly blind partisan....

My post was in jest because you have to “both sides” it and make excuses why the senate didn’t pass a bill.

If Dems had the senate, they would have passed something. I’m sure they would have still bickered with Trump, and they would have kept pushing for more to blame him for not doing enough, but something would have passed months ago.
 
My post was in jest because you have to “both sides” it and make excuses why the senate didn’t pass a bill.

If Dems had the senate, they would have passed something. I’m sure they would have still bickered with Trump, and they would have kept pushing for more to blame him for not doing enough, but something would have passed months ago.
You're post is a joke because you assign no accountability to Pelosi and the Dem side as well. Where were they in the weeks leading up to the election? "Both sides" is an honest take, because they have both acted like petulant children. Only a blind partisan would only find fault in once side. At least try to own it.
 
You're post is a joke because you assign no accountability to Pelosi and the Dem side as well. Where were they in the weeks leading up to the election? "Both sides" is an honest take, because they have both acted like petulant children. Only a blind partisan would only find fault in once side. At least try to own it.

Your original question asking why there wasn’t a plan months ago.

I stand by my response to that, and it in no way implies Dems were not wrong along the way. I criticized Pelosi here when she was making this political as well... but at the end of the day, the reason why a plan wasn’t in place months ago is that there was no appetite from republicans in the senate to pass anything.
 
The Dems did not want a stimulus bill that would pass in the pre-election run up. Why would they want checks to go out to citizens signed by Trump? Their bills were unpassable. The Senate on the other hand did not compromise much and as a result the two sides were very far apart. Mnunchin tried to get both together unsuccessfully and had a good bill on the table that would have helped the American people in need. A failure of both parties and lots of election year politics. Lots! To say the House passed a bill is disingenuous because it had zero chance of advancing by design.

The latest stimulus bill that Trump should have been more involved with earlier, is a complete sham filled with so much pork and payments to countries at a ridiculous time during a pandemic and not targeted to enough Americans in need. Just another example of how clueless our Congress and Senate are in both parties and how they do not understand the true struggles of Americans and small businesses on the ground. Our leaders Pelosi and McConnell are more into keeping their power than actually doing anything for the America people. They all suck and we keep voting for them!
 
The Dems did not want a stimulus bill that would pass in the pre-election run up. Why would they want checks to go out to citizens signed by Trump? Their bills were unpassable. The Senate on the other hand did not compromise much and as a result the two sides were very far apart. Mnunchin tried to get both together unsuccessfully and had a good bill on the table that would have helped the American people in need. A failure of both parties and lots of election year politics. Lots! To say the House passed a bill is disingenuous because it had zero chance of advancing by design.

The latest stimulus bill that Trump should have been more involved with earlier, is a complete sham filled with so much pork and payments to countries at a ridiculous time during a pandemic and not targeted to enough Americans in need. Just another example of how clueless our Congress and Senate are in both parties and how they do not understand the true struggles of Americans and small businesses on the ground. Our leaders Pelosi and McConnell are more into keeping their power than actually doing anything for the America people. They all suck and we keep voting for them!
Thanks for providing the detail of what I was essentially saying. Excellent post.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Section112
The issue isn’t that we spend to get out of a crisis, it’s that we don’t try to close the deficit when things are going well like a trillion dollar tax cut in a strong economy.

Pretty disingenuous to say "a trillion dollar tax cut" when that is over 10 years, so it's $100 billion per year when talking about a trillion dollars in spending right away.

I thought you were king of context?
 
  • Like
Reactions: HALL85
Pretty disingenuous to say "a trillion dollar tax cut" when that is over 10 years, so it's $100 billion per year when talking about a trillion dollars in spending right away.

I thought you were king of context?

Would also be disingenuous to call it a trillion dollar tax cut when that number isn’t static and more recent estimates have it much closer to 2 trillion.

Calling it that was for the sake of ease, but the point is still the same.
We should have been trying to close the deficit when the economy was strong. Not increasing it by hundreds of billions of dollars per year.

Should have been focusing on spending cuts first.
 
The Dems did not want a stimulus bill that would pass in the pre-election run up. Why would they want checks to go out to citizens signed by Trump? Their bills were unpassable. The Senate on the other hand did not compromise much and as a result the two sides were very far apart. Mnunchin tried to get both together unsuccessfully and had a good bill on the table that would have helped the American people in need. A failure of both parties and lots of election year politics. Lots! To say the House passed a bill is disingenuous because it had zero chance of advancing by design.

The latest stimulus bill that Trump should have been more involved with earlier, is a complete sham filled with so much pork and payments to countries at a ridiculous time during a pandemic and not targeted to enough Americans in need. Just another example of how clueless our Congress and Senate are in both parties and how they do not understand the true struggles of Americans and small businesses on the ground. Our leaders Pelosi and McConnell are more into keeping their power than actually doing anything for the America people. They all suck and we keep voting for them!
That could not have been said any better.
 
Well this barely passed in the House...https://clerk.house.gov/evs/2020/roll252.xml
 
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest posts

ADVERTISEMENT