What I’m saying is that if this is as bad as we think it is, it’s not going to be over after one extension. There will be numerous relief efforts needed, which means numerous hostage taking opportunities - possibly of increasing significance.
I care, man. I’m thinking big picture, though. I have friends and family who will be directly impacted, some of whom I’ll probably be loaning money to until I run out too. But you’re suggesting we just cave every time which means increasing corporate handouts every time. Last time it was trillions of dollars, this time it’s liability shields, who knows what it’ll be next time? At some point we have to stop caving, or we’ll just all be totally fucked anyway.
This could be the last chance to stop caving before we’re out of options.
Maybe. But if Trump vetoes something you need 67 Senate votes to override it. We can riot all we want, the math is the math.
Yeah I don’t necessarily agree with this. I think things are likely to keep getting worse, and the number of people who will need this extended in four months is likely to be higher than the number who need it now. We need to give the wealthy liability protection now. What do we need to give them in four months? A few trillion in bailouts? Another huge tax cut? Prima nocta with the wives of all making under $50K a year?
That depends. I’m guessing some will vote nay but won’t filibuster.
There would only be one extension required by the time the lame duck is over as long as the GOP doesn’t win. There won’t be any extensions if they do. If the win is big in November, you shouldn’t expect big problems in the lame duck. If it’s keeping us near 50/50 there will be all kinds of problems.
To put it another way, a person can’t pay rent today and fell a month behind while waiting for money from the first PUA but was able to pay rent (still behind a month) with that help. The landlord says tomorrow, ‘you’re two months behind I’m evicting you’. If the $600 extension comes in during the next two weeks, the person can resume paying rent for August and won’t fall further behind while waiting for the eviction hearing. Without the $600, the person will likely just be evicted. Being willing to compromise here (a clean bill with nothing in it but the extension) means that can will be able to be kicked down the road into more favorable legislative conditions. The Dems were willing to add just about another 3 months to it to make it happen, which is just them trying to get past the lame duck.
Too many lives are in the balance for me to be comfortable not compromising on a clean bill if it really does mean $600 for four more months. I think a good compromise on that short length if you want it to feel more like a ‘win’ would be a clean bill that provides $600 to the PUA and $600 hazard pay to all essential workers. Doing that one change will make the $600 more valuable to essential workers than those who are unable to work. That’s really what they should be starting with on any short term compromise, in my opinion.
Again, I’m talking clean bills. No liability protection in this. Surely you would think my proposal above is a decent compromise from the angle of not caving. I still think framing this as ‘caving’ when people desperately need this assistance removes humanity and actual human suffering out of the equation. That’s something I think should be avoided at all costs, sorry.
You’re getting too psychological with Trump. I disagree with all of these assessments people have of him. He’s a coward and I think it’s far more likely he’ll slink off if he loses while making a lot of noise in the process. He will probably be advised (lol) that it would be a good idea to do some ‘good’ on his way out with further financial assistance (if necessary) so that some people can have a legit fond memory of him.
I’m for sure not going to strategize long term in an emergency. To me, that would be like trying to figure out your hospital bill during a heart attack.
We have more than enough data right now to know there isn’t going to be another large scale shutdown in this country without us accelerating to 1 million dead in like a couple of months (not happening). The worst it will get again before another extension is what it is now+what happened right at the start with the layoffs, plus some on top. The only way that will happen is if there are large scale shutdowns. Based on where we’re at now, I just see no way that will happen before the election unless a ton of kids die when schools open.
Again, what needs to happen here is a detente. If the program runs out of money due to how many people need to access it based on how bad it gets, there will be more funding. I’m very confident of that. I still think an economy freeze is the best move, but the logistics of that, if even possible, would take months so money is still needed.
The point is the GOP is going to need a lot of Democrats on this bill, which means any bill that passes will be favorable to Democrats, not the GOP. A bad GOP bill can’t get cloture from the Dems. You should have at least some concern there’s going to be an impasse and I’m having a hard time stomaching the consequences of that. I truly believe this is the right time to be thinking short term.
I like to think of the debt in the current situation this way
Either 10s of millions or >100M? Accumulate massive debt during covid or the federal government does. Otherwise it’s massive homeless hunger and poverty that will last lifetimes ala the Great Depression
My 64 year old brother has mostly lived in his car for a few years before last fall when we finally got him to move back to Michigan and into senior housing. He claims his living in his car was by choice but really there are some mental health issues. Hard to watch. He had perfected the library and public pool circuit to clean and spend time. But he was gaunt at my daughters wedding and now with a real home and regular food he’s got a little paunch.
I had a place to come home to every night and I paid part of the bills so I never considered myself homeless at that time. I could have also easily went back to my parents house, but I was 17-18 during this time and very stubborn and wanting to prove a point.
A really important thing to remember is that the entire system for processing evictions etc is shut down. The damage has been done already to a great many people, and giving the GOP an out other than passing the entire Democratic bill (which they will rightfully get all credit for as a result) seems really dumb.
We get everything or they go screaming over the cliff. Those are their choices. We didn’t hurt the people who are about to get hurt, they did.
One of the bravest moments in Western history was the Danish resistance to the Nazi’s. The fact that it operated in the face of mass reprisals that killed thousands of their fellow citizens hasn’t been judged harshly.
The GOP being politically viable is 100% of the reason why we are in this spot and people are hurting this much. We owe it to the suffering to make sure they aren’t suffering for nothing. I think the fact that a lot of people ITT are telling the people who want to actually do the hard but right thing immoral and privileged are losing sight of the forest for the trees. I’ll admit that it’s easier to see the big picture when you aren’t about to get crushed, but if I was going to get crushed I’d want to get crushed for a reason not crushed right alongside the people ineffectively trying to rescue me.
And I say this as someone who has (admittedly way less than Smacc who experienced long term homelessness, but I have my doubts about how many of the people who are about to be homeless because of COVID are going to remain homeless long term particularly after the Dems take power) some of the more extensive experience with actual poverty and what it actually takes to escape it on this board.
The GOP finally made a mess so big the Democrats can’t clean it up. There’s nothing left to do but make sure they own it politically so they stop being a relevant political entity in the US. That’s in play if this gets bad enough for us to win 3-4 election cycles in a row.
Yeah it’s really bleak. We had homeless camps in Austin before the pandemic and I expect them to grow dramatically. I expect a full blown depression tbh. Hopefully this country learns something from the beating it’s about to take. Maybe our reaction to this will lead to long term progress. That’s the only hope I have left for the outcome of this mess.
I look at all of this and the only thing left to salvage is to make sure this didn’t happen to those people for nothing. We owe it to them to extract some long term gain for them. Trying to optimize the handling of this complete shit show around causing the absolute minimum amount of immediate suffering to the population… it’s just wildly incorrect. We didn’t get here by accident and we’ve been headed here for a long time… and if we don’t change the direction we’re going it’s going to get worse. We kicked the can down the road in 2008 and look where we are now. Next time there might not be a next time.
The time of reckoning has come where all political ideologies will be weighed and measured by how they dealt with this pandemic. Not all will survive in their current form. The last big dust up was 1930-1950 and an awful lot of factions that were strong in 1930 didn’t exist in 1950.
Shocked that she is that out of touch with reality. Just shocked.
My job is gone thanks to our federal government’s ineptitude at handling a pandemic. It likely won’t return this year. But as long as the office minions and retail workers are able to get back to work I should be fine getting by on next to nothing, right Nancy? My $1200/month student loan payments will be fine. My $600/month health insurance plus medical bills will be fine. All my other expenses will magically be covered as long as I’m only part of the 5% still unemployed.
I’ve been reading a few articles about the Unemployment Extension, and it’s quite clear Friday’s discussion was framed inaccurately by some of the press. That day it made it look like Meadows said they turned down 4 months at $600 (I haven’t seen any additional reporting confirming this). Yesterday, I saw an article that said his ‘deal’ was extending the $600 for 1 week. Today, I saw the proposal was extending the $600 for 1 week for ‘negotiation room’ and then having it change to $200 through September until a new deal gets made. Their bad faith knows no bounds and it’s quite obvious we would have been stuck with the $200 if Pelosi took it.
I’m shocked this stimulus discussion has taken this long considering the elites of both parties stand to make so much money when the stockmarkets explode off the back of any stimulus agreement no matter how ineffective and shortsighted
Every day is also a great time to mention that $1T = $3,000 for every man, woman, and child in the entire US. Do that every month until we get this shit figured out. Simple and clean bill.
That’s a terrible plan. Do you know how much extra work it is for all the rent seeking leeches and thieves to get the money if you give it to individuals first?
