At the encouragement of @WuWei - Would love to have a cordial and honest debate about the pros and cons of what will be Bidens 1st major policy debate. A covid Stimulus package.
My thoughts.
1st -Instead of ALL of this- I would rather the government expands the PPE money and guidelines. The BEST way to ensure money gets to where it needs to be is Government gives money to business to cover 80% of peoples wages if the business can show that their revenue was impacted by Covid. That to me is the most efficient way of doing this, along with enhanced unemployment for those that rely on Tips and the Gig Economy for their income.
Short on that…
$1400 checks to bring it to $2000 stimulus checks -Hate this. It should be targeted. Stimulus checks to anyone whose AGI is 10% to 50% less then 2019. Id be OK with a Tax credit that had to be paid back if your AGI is not less. (Different % of different income. Make under 75k a year? If your AGI is 10% less you get the stimulus. AGI is 400k in 2019? If you took a 50% hit in 2020 you get the stimulus.
Enhanced Unemployment - Strongly support.
Rent Assistances and Eviction pause - Only if its carried thru all they way. If Landlords cant evict someone and show they are not paying rent -All Property tax and such needs to be forgiven. The assistance money should go to landlord and again -Be based on the % of hit you took. If you are down 50% of rental income due to Rent not being paying you get a higher $$ amount then if you are down 5% of rental.
15% increase for SNAP -Yes.
Child tax credits enhancement -Yes.
Covering Health Care cost for those that lost their job - YES. That is probably the best part of this. I know lots of people that lost their jobs due to covid and COBRA eats up any and all enhanced UE benefits
Hourly Min Wage increase -Not the right spot for it. I support a increase of Min wage ($15 seems high). But not in this bill.
Everything else in this bill (Money for schools, money for vaccine distribution, guaranteed sick time for companies more then 50 people). All support.
Would love to discuss the plan, and how people think it will look once it hits congress.
In principle I agree with targeted. If you haven’t missed a check, no check. I don’t agree with a progressive scheme. Higher incomes have higher bills.
As do I, if they are managing fraud and malingerers. That is up to the states to manage. I am concerned some aren’t and will demand payback from centgov for fraud later - claiming they are broke. It is not the purview of the central government to pay for state mismanagement so they can buy votes.
I agree with targeted. I agree with the landlord getting paid, although I’m not sure how that works. What does centgov have to do with eviction? How can it prohibit eviction?
Why? Did the price of food go up 15%?
Why?
Just enroll them in Obamacare.
Agreed and I don’t agree with a 3x increase nation-wide. COL is state and area, so too should min wage.
I don’t because it is vague. And I definitely don’t support guaranteed sick time and not based on number of employees. Get out of the relationship.
@WCD9973 Asked for a serious debate. There will be no game playing or trolling in this thread. If you want to debate seriously, welcome. If you don’t, move along. Moderators will determine.
Agreed. Which is why, unlike the current stimulus - I don’t want a cut off based on income, but i do believe you need to show a loss AND it should still be progressive. If I made 400,000 last 3 years and this year I made $320,000 (20% less) I should not rely on the Government for me never saving for a rainy day when I could have. BUT If I only make 50k a year and am down to 40k this year -that is a much bigger hit.
hmnmm. I agree with you about Fraud and that the states have to manage that. But many states cant go in the negative so feds have to pay the enhanced UE (I dont think you are disagreeing with THAT part. But I could be wrong). How bad to you think the Fraud is? Meaning I dont want to spend 1billion in safeguards to solve a 500m problem.
Right now, Under EO President Trump stopped Evictions (May have expired Dec 31st). Are you saying you don’t think he had the power or right to do that? In my head -The money set aside for renters assistance isnt going to the renter. ITs going to the landlord.
Well -PART of the expanded Child Care is to cover kids who are 17. I do support that as getting hourly jobs for 17 year olds is a lot harder then its been before. In addition - we can say how schools are not suppose to be baby sitting, but they ARE baby sitting. WIth many schools still not in person (And even less in person full time) child care costs for most have gone up.
Well 2 reasons. One -Its not open enrollment season. But 2 - Obamacare is a market place of private insurance and your subsidy is based on your last tax income. Even is someone who lost a job, not knowing how long they will be unemployed means they may not qualify for much of a subsidy. But Cobra is still supper expensive. Again -Expanding PPP is the best way to handle this (That way they can stay on employer insurance) but without that…
We are prob closer on this then you think.
I haven’t read the actual bill yet. SO I don’t know how vague or unvague it is. Have you read it? (Not sarcasm. I haven’t seen if the bill is public yet). Working at a company that has a LOT of hourly labor - we would actually rather have the Government put this mandate in place. We don’t want people coming in sick and exposing others to covid - but if we simply start covering hourly sick time for non full time employees -the union contract we have, we would then never be able to remove it. At least not for years. We would rather the Government mandate it for a set amount of time so we aren’t changing policy.
Gig Economy people are a bit different. They never had a steady paycheck. Lets think a uber driver. I know lots of Uber drivers that may work uber in tourist areas that make 80% of their yearly salary in 2 or 3 months a year. Uber keeping them on the payroll at their “Full pay” may not mean much. What is their full pay? Their avg pay they made this month last year? The Avg weekly pay they made over the past 1 year before covid? That may or many not be the correct formula.
It’s too complicated. Nobody saved for this rainy day. You either worked from home or were laid off.
Yes they can, they just need to pass a waiver to their balanced budget amendments in their legislatures. The states don’t get to bankrupt the country and other states so they can balance their budgets.
I don’t know how bad the fraud is. I agree with you not wanting to spend 1B for a 500M problem. Same goes for it on equity in the above.
Yes, I don’t know where that authority comes from. If that money is set aside, then I agree. Sort of a PPP for landlords. You get this if you don’t try to evict.
I’m not buying that nonsense. I know in the beef industry, the processors are the ones getting over. They’re scalping. That needs to be addressed. Not encouraging them to scalp more.
Why? Fast food is open.
Could be. Ok, you convinced me.
It is if they open it. Problem solved.
Change the base for the duration of the bill. Hell, I don’t care if you waive the fee for unemployed for over 6 months of 2020.
I don’t like cookie cutter mandates.
No, I’ve read media reports.
I’m sure you would rather gov mandate it. That’s not the purview of the centgov. And that is a fundamental difference between us.
Every time you involve the centgov more, you slide a little further down the hill. And you can never reset back to previous setting.
Government doesn’t know anything about running a business. That’s not what it exists for. Get it out of the relationship.
I actually wish others would join the debate. You and i are not that far off.
Not to quote it all again. PPP for landlords is a GREAT way to put it.
Jobs for 17 year olds- Yes- Fast food is open but they cut lots of hours (Less staff needed. Esp in many states that are only doing drive thru or reduced seating). So while they are open they are not hiring and still have laid people off. Meaning they are not interested in hiring and training brand new part time employees.
For Obama care - You are talking about different ways to address the same problem. I mean -one think you suggest (Waive the fee for the unemployed so they can join Obamacare) is not much different then giving money to unemployed to cover their premiums. Obamacare is still private insurance. Seems basically the same thing. You idea may be better because it then is streamlined and reduces fraud.
Yes- there is a fundamental difference between us. I think, using your word, Centgov has a role to play. Esp now and in a crisis.
so next part -Obviously the bill as is can and will prob pass the house. But for the senate - This is a lot harder. I am not really in favor of breaking it up to separate bills as I worry only the worse parts with the best PR will pass (Like blanket stimulus checks) . Most likely the only way it will pass is to ADD to it, not subtract. so what is the bill missing? or what do you think COULD pass?
Oh - One more thing -Id also rather the money for additional testing go to vaccine distribution. Agree or disagree and why? Why do we need more federal money to test more, when testing by the private sector is available and we now have vaccines that need to get out the door faster.
I’m going to add this. I don’t appreciate one bit the Congressional squabbling that went on over this for the past few months - by either side. I don’t appreciate them playing politics on the backs of citizens with the misery they promoted. If there was ever a time for them to do their jobs, this was it. And they failed us. All of them.
If this post is inappropriate for this discussion, let me know and I’ll move it to the other one.
I agree with you. There is blame on both sides (Nancy starting with a bloated bill. Mitch refusing to discuss it until last min). You may or may not remember -But i posted on this board that I was pissed at Dems for not quickly supporting and passing the 500m bill voted on by the senate that really was just enhanced unemployment. But for this thread -the discussion is more how do we avoid that the 2nd round.
There will be Dems that push for more stuff -Want them it to go bigger. You have Republican senators who will want to not even discuss anything because 1 - They think the last bill was enough and 2 -They wont want to give Biden a early big victory.
So I think what is very appropriate for this thread -Looking at how both parties acted last time -how do you avoid this?
I heard that one things Dems were going to do is to bring back earmarks. I support that actually. If we don’t ADD to the cost, Im all for using earmarks to give incentives. Example -Money on research - If a Republican Senator has a lab in their state that has experts studying the virus, no issue allocating some set funds to go to that lab to get his vote. I know it seems dirty. But I think some old school politics is what is needed. But perhaps a different thread, one day, about earmarks will be good.
Agreed. But it should really only be for people who lost their jobs. Everyone getting a check is not the right approach.
Checks size should be progressive. If you lost a 200k a year job… you should get the top end of the stimulus. If you lost a 20k year year job… should be at the bottom.
I think they could have used the irs to determine this
Agreed.
Sure
Don’t understand this one.
Good argument for Medicare for all.
I agree take this out of the bill. I also don’t think there should be a national minimum wage. Should be more local.
These are good guidelines, but we can’t discount that the untargetted stimulus check is the most popular part of the proposal. It keeps steadily employed and financially stable taxpayers from getting resentful and jealous of targeted financial aid that they aren’t eligible for.
Enhanced unemployment and SNAP increases can get extensions much more easily with $1400 lubricating the political machine.
I agree with this, especially the percentage qualifier. That does a good job of targeting small landlords.
I would have preferred seeing unemployment benefits being extended, not increased, and a 0% loan repayable in ten to fifteen years offered to those showing a loss, be it from personal income or revenue within large/small businesses. I don’t really agree with stimulus checks, even though my family received one, cashed it, and put it in savings, because not everyone is in need. My industry wasn’t affected, in fact, it exploded. The only time from work I missed was due to my family contracting Rona. There are many others who continued to work from home, and those companies that realized a savings from home bound more productive employees increased their profits.
I’m not so sure how to get around the PPP. On one hand, since it’s forgiven if the business retains a certain percentage of their workforce, the debt is transferred to the taxpayer. On the other, should those companies furlough, the taxpayer is going to foot the bill for extended unemployment. I guess I would have liked to have seen the same as described above, 0% loans for ten to fifteen years to keep the company moving forward. Perhaps a percentage of payroll from 2019 with the same provisions for maintaining full employment would keep most businesses moving forward, buffering the increased costs of doing business with covid on the scene. All of course being optional.
But these are all provisions that should have been made last year when the first round of coronavirus relief was passed. Now that the seal has been broken, who are Republicans to say what’s too much? I think Trump and Republicans have given a democratically controlled legislature and executive a green light on whatever spending tickles their fancy. There will be outrage over $15 per hour minimum wage and increased stimulus check payments, also anything providing increased monetary benefits to those already on government assistance. But again, we’ve already broken the seal and sent out stimulus checks to those on social security who weren’t economically impacted by shutdowns. We’ve been the arbiters of what’s good for the nation, and now democrats will do the same.
I agree with you. Both sides used it to push their package saying we included it. It should never have bene brought up to start with. But yeah -the horse is out of the barn now.
I get it. But the issue is with a loan (Even a 0%) some business will STILL decide to lay off people vs pay take the loan because is a business like mine (Hospitality centered around Travel) its going to be years before we fully recover. There is zero benefit in keeping employees we don’t need, even if we have 15 years to pay back their salary.
On Flip side -countries like the UK said we will pay 80% of your employees salary and you can either pay the rest, or give them a 20% pay reduction (or 20% reduction in time). I know our UK partners have furloughed many staff 1 day a week (20%) and the government is covering their salary. The idea is that since it costs the company nothing, we might as well keep them working 4 days a week in case we do need them, and if not, when this is all over, we will then lay them off but by then they will be more likely to be able to find another job (Now its a bit different over there - because most employees you can’t just lay off anyway. You have to give 90 days notice, depending on their terms, so not a full apples to apples comparison). The value to the government is they don’t have to cover unemployment as well as various industries, like landlords. Everyone in theory can still spend the same amount of money. It does help that over there Health care is not tied to work - which makes one less thing to factor in.
I don’t disagree that Republicans are not in position to NOW pretend to care about the cost. But they will anyway. I don’t think the filibuster will go away right now, so I think there will have to be something to get 10 republicans on board. I just dont know what that is? Perhaps earmarks as i said easier -Perhaps limited covid legal protection, might be something complete unrelated (Give dems this and Dems wont remove filibuster for at least 2 years).
I wasnt here that long ago -But even when i joined there were still some good policy threads and debates. Good debates that force me to read a bill more carefully, or learn about a court case, or discover the history of a problem . Debates that made me more informed, even if I disagreed.
I am as guilty as others - But when the debate turns in to “Child sniffer” and “tRUMP” I become dumber as I participate.
