Moscow Mitch McConnell tearfully proclaimed-
“This isn’t a stimulus package, it’s a relief package.”
After eleven years as a goalie for the GOP, McConnell is going to allow one bill to slide into the net.
You know that country just north of Trumperica, the with universal healthcare and a smart and heartthrob for a leader? The citizens of that country will be receiving $2,000 each, for four months, and none of them are dropping dead on the arduous walk home from urgent care-after having been turned away for not having health insurance.
“The Washington drama does not matter anymore. The Senate is going to stand together, act together and pass this historic relief package today,’ ~Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell since January 3, 2007
Hand me that box of tissue, would you? No tissue? Hand me a square of toilet paper then…paper napkin…paper towel? Fuck it, I’ll use this card from Donald Trump.
How many tax dollars went into this mailing?
The $2 trillion federal coronavirus stimulus package is a ”bipartisan effort,” according to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. Considering where they started, it’s a great package. Initially, the relief for citizens was based on income, with the poor receiving half of what the middle class would receive because every day is Opposite Day in this administration.
This version of the bill pays
- Everyone who earns less than $75,000 a one time check of $1,200.
- Those collecting unemployment insurance will get a bump in benefits- $250 billion- not per person,
- Hospitals will get relief- $100 billion, and
- Small businesses will get small help- $350 billion in loans, that might become grants if the businesses can prove they used most of the loan on the payroll.
- State and local governments will receive $150 billion to fight the outbreak, without having to kiss Trump’s ring.
- Federal student loan payments will be suspended through Sept. 30- that’s not a gift, it postpones the inevitable.
- Foreclosures on federally-backed mortgages will take a 60-day timeout if the homeowner proves their income was affected by the coronavirus.
- And the bill puts a temporary ban eviction filings at federal government-connected properties.
Senators Lindsey Graham, Ben Sasse, and Tim Scott argued that that the unemployment benefit would be an incentive for people to stay unemployed. Who elected these people?
The best part of this bill is that thanks to Senator Elizabeth Warren, the quid-pro-POTUS, his family, top U.S. officials, and members of Congress are exempt from collecting any funds in any form- grants or loans. That is especially good news because last week when a reporter asked baby-fingers if he would use any of the relief money for his hotels, he implied that he was entitled to it and that he would be in charge of fund distribution.
The bad part of the bill is that it bails out corporate America— AGAIN.
Fine Print in the bill reveals aid to the same industries that profited from the GOP tax scam, the industries that used their tax money to buy back stocks and to dole out bonuses to the shareholders and upper management. There are stipulations about how the money is spent, but they didn’t pay taxes last year, so why are they taking part in a taxpayer-funded relief package?
Madame Speaker Pelosi has indicated that the bill will pass in the House. If it does, it needs Covefe45’s seal of approval. How likely is Donny-two-scoops to sign a bill that gives him no scoops at all?
I don’t want to sound ungrateful but I will, so you don’t have to. As much as I need the money, a one time $1,200 check isn’t enough to help most people.
It’s a payout designed to help the GOP in the November election. As I said, our neighbors up North are getting $2k for four months, and free healthcare. They also have Justin Trudeau.
Sigh…
I know what you’re thinking. “Why don’t you move there.”
Maybe I will.
A lot from Lydia 
A bribe can be cheerfully accepted if you know what it is and that you’re actually owed a lot more for the last few years of disaster. Funny, stumpy didn’t send that bogus card to us, and it’s just as well. The grownups in our state (NY) have sent other informational cards over the last few weeks that are actually useful.
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Oh, Lydia–I received that card in the mail yesterday and thought, “what the hell. NOW we receive it?” But he’s so proud. Making America Great Again. Excuse me while I throw up….
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I have to say that the card infuriated me. I think about all the trees that we’re sacrificed so he could say he sent out a warning- after telling us to go back to work to help the stock market.
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The postcard bugged me also. I think it is basically campaign related. $$ would have been better spent on ventilators. Just as wall money would have been better spent on CDC…which seems to be missing in action. My husband noted that on the front it said “President Trump’s Coronavirus”. Maybe we should start calling it that.
I hate to be a party pooper–but where is this money going to come from? The deficit was already at historic highs. If, as I suspicion, they will just print the money, with the ridiculously low interest rates we have now, we are very likely to see significant long term pain in the form of massive inflation that will outlast the pandemic and hurt everyone. Inflation is effectively a form of taxation and the people at lower income levels pay more for it because they spend more of their “wealth”.
This package could be “bye-bye retirement” for a lot of people. In more ways than one, because it could be used as a rationale for raiding social security and eventually ending it.
I very much wish they had just given relief to the unemployed and small businesses at this time and waited to see if there is any need to help larger businesses at all. Since we are in uncharted territory they are just doing anything they can think of, usually determined by what they wanted before.
It would be more prudent policy to get immediate relief to people who need it in the form of unemployment payments and medical coverage. Then see how things are going in a month. Larger businesses use actuarial data and should have money to weather storms like this. Frankly, if they don’t have good business practices, a purely capitalist model would say that they should fail and be replaced by better managed businesses.
The way things are going right now it seems like only the very big businesses like Kroger are open and people are buying everything from there. Those businesses are cleaning up. No more specials and loss leaders needed to draw folks in. Even Amazon is only delivering essentials right now so if you need underwear or a thumb drive to hold your work-at-home files you pretty much have to pick it up at a Fred Meyer or Target.
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