Posted by rsp777 on 5/5/2020 5:59:00 PM (view original):
Thanks to both of you. The other thing I’ve seen is FAR too many friends suffering financially. I retired from depending on my music career for income ten years ago, but so many of my friends who work in the “gig economy” are hurting BAD. Yet almost every one of them maintains that no gig is worth lives and sickness. Many have found outlets online to at least generate some missing revenue, but they have been, for the most part, ignored by this administration and “his” 1200 pittance when he’s bailing out corporations and cruise lines is just **** POOR. His sycophants can ignore these realities all they want but the TRUTH is that he has turned the middle against himself. The Lincoln Project ad didn’t just happen for the **** of it. It happened because those middle swingers are done watching this disgrace go on. November will come soon enough. Hopefully he won’t kill too many more people, either literally or figuratively, before the clock mercifully and FINALLY runs out.
I find it kind of ironic that in yet another post talking about TRUTH in all caps, the one industry you single out - cruise lines - got $0 bailout dollars. Which is why, literally only a few hours before you posted this, Norwegian issued a press release indicating that they may not be able to remain in business. If you want to talk about TRUTH and FACTS nonstop, maybe try getting them right.
First of all, $1200 is not "a pittance." I haven't seen final figures, but it's something on the order of $200 billion dollars. Your party - including you, personally - have been railing against the administration for running up the national debt. Seems like that's always a popular refrain for whichever party is currently not in power, and then they forget all about it when the pendulum swings. But suddenly $200 billion is "a pittance?" Writing checks to individuals and families for any more than this never does what you would want it to do. We know this. There is a reason auto manufacturers and consumer electronics companies lobbied so hard against the adjustment to the tax code to reduce overpayment and reduce the size of refund checks. When people get unexpected windfalls, they treat it as fun money. Sociologists and psychologists have done numerous studies of this phenomenon in recent years, and it's fairly universal in our culture. I'm reminded of an episode of The Middle where Mike is laid off and the Hecks unexpectedly get a check of some sort (I don't remember the circumstances, this was years ago). They fight about whether to use it to pay off their credit card debt or buy cable. IIRC, they pick cable. I think this is, unfortunately, a fairly realistic representation of how middle-class Americans treat government checks. And the balance sheets of pricey consumer goods over the years definitely bear me out on that.
More importantly, though, writing checks to individuals as "stimulus" is just bad policy. I think Lindsay Graham basically got this right - while the small local businesses are largely nonoperational anyway, that money isn't being spent locally. It's not preserving economic wellbeing. It's not a stimulus. The most important aspects of protecting our most vulnerable members of society have already largely been enacted. Most places have enacted policies that enact forbearance on evictions and utility shutoffs as a result of non-payment. Feeding America and local foodbanks are working hard to distribute record amounts of food to the cash strapped. Look, using some of that giant stimulus package to shore up the Federal unemployment program is perfectly reasonable. People who unexpectedly lose their jobs really need some cash coming in to fill in the gaps in feeding their families, keeping them healthy, etc. But across the board checks, even to the large majority who are still employed? It's not necessary. And it's not the best use of the money.
This is a classic "give a man a fish" problem. Are a lot of people happier and more comfortable with a little extra money? Probably. But you have to think longer term. What's going to be better for the lower and middle classes in 3 years? A few thousand dollars in their pocket, or a job? The proper use of the stimulus money (and I'm not arguing that distributions to businesses were done optimally to achieve this) is to keep as many American employers afloat as possible so that when everyone starts to transition back towards normal life, jobs can quickly come back, and the economy can get back on its feet. Again, think about a 3-year window. $10000 spread over 3 years doesn't go very far. $10000 instead of $1200 would cost over a trillion dollars in new debt. How many jobs could that money save if sent to small and medium-sized businesses so they can continue to employ American workers in the future? A certain amount of economic pain in the short term is basically inevitable. For me, the priority is making sure that when we have a vaccine, get it distributed, and return to normal life, there is a realistic path to getting unemployment back down into the 5% range within a year or less.
In that same 3-year window, which will be better for your friends? A few thousand bucks in their pocket, or the same money injected into the industry? If half the venues they play go out of business, and everybody gets half the work for years until the industry gets back on its feet, will they still be glad they got an extra personal stimulus check? Which is better?