Posted on 04/05/2023 10:39:32 PM PDT by SoConPubbie
Sometimes the apropos of the thing is just too much fun to notice. Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell is missing in action ever since his slip and fall/concussion a few weeks ago (insert shades of prior HRC issues here). The conspicuous absence of media questioning his continued absence is a little odd for a DC that loves to notice such things.
Meanwhile, sniffing the possibility of enhanced career aspirations amid the political winds of incapable McConnell, Kentucky Republican Representative Thomas Massie, sees Ron DeSantis as a vector to electoral elevation. Except, there’s a funny thing.
While Erin Perrine of Team DeSantis is quick to promote the endorsement for her managed Florida governor, a review of Representative Massie’s Twitter rapid-fire messaging doesn’t show the endorsement. Thirsty DeSantis, with slipping polls, contrasts against a teeth-clenched Massie with political aspirations…. We laugh, because it’s, well, perfect!
Meanwhile, moments ago, in other contextual sunlight, Fox News human cabbage patch doll Bret Baier, leads off the GOPe/Murdoch Fox News narrative engineering with the 6:00pm promotion of Glenn Youngkin. LOLOL… These cats are just too transparently funny.
Am I being a little hard on the “conservative leader” Thomas Massie, probably. But the reason is really breaking the cycle of insufferable battered conservative abuse.
Massie was an attendee at the Four Seasons DeSantis three-day donor retreat last month in Palm Beach. [See tweet from event] Apparently the allure of the Sea Island billionaire funding mechanism can permeate fiscal senses. I digress…
Additionally, Massie likes to rail against government spending, even recently using his opposition to the 2020 Paycheck Protection Program, as an example of his conservative bona-fides.
Now, it is true the urgently rushed PPP program was abused by some 10% of the employers who used it as a tool to defraud the U.S. government amid the urgent spending during the COVID-19 lockdowns and crisis.
However, 90% of the PPP program went directly to honest and earnest small businesses who were shut down and needed a lifeline to help their employees.
When President Trump and Treasury Secretary Mnuchin realized that employees of small businesses were going to get crushed by the lockdowns, most of which were determined in scale, scope and duration by the states, they knew something rapid and urgent was needed to support those employees. Big corporations could take the hit, but small businesses were extremely exposed. The Paycheck Protection Program was the way to help ‘Main Street’.
The PPP program was targeted directly to banks, small banks, local banks and credit unions that support the small businesses. In a brilliant bit of administrative red-tape cutting, Trump and Mnuchin used the FDIC program to backstop the banks and give the banks the ability to lend to the small businesses without risk.
Small businesses were able to go to their local bank and get an immediate infusion of cash to keep their payrolls afloat, while the FDIC program was used as a mechanism to send the funds to the banks. Tens of millions of American employees of small businesses benefited from the continuation of their paychecks during the lockdowns. Without that PPP program, millions of lower to middle-income workers would have no paycheck.
Yes, there was fraud and abuse by lying, scheming and conniving business owners who took advantage of the PPP program for their own financial gains. However, that doesn’t mean the PPP program didn’t protect and support tens of millions of people.
High-horse Thomas Massie would have allowed those people who live paycheck-to-paycheck and are employed by small businesses to be crushed without income. Thankfully, Trump and Mnuchin, together with support from congress – avoided that catastrophic outcome. The quick thinking about how to cut through the bureaucracy was a net benefit.
So yeah, Massie and his principles that would have allowed people to go hungry, can go spit.
Great. Massie would be a Great Senator.
Sundance is always Trump. But keep criticizing one of the fighters for Freedom.
No. And no.
>> Sundance is always Trump.
>> For many, many good reasons.
Excellent answer.
DeSantis will be great in 28 not for 24.
So now the Trump Chumps in their endless destruction of the Republican Party try to defeat Massie.
Here’s how pathetic and disgusting the lies from the Trump Chumps are: Yes, the release points people to talk to DeSantis’ person about the endorsement. But the image comes from Massie’s Twitter feed.
So you liked people that had lost $18K jobs getting $52K annualized on unemployment? Or couples that still had their jobs, making up to $150K getting “stimulus” checks? What has happened to FR? Massie was the only one really calling that crap out!
Sundance is always Trump. But keep criticizing one of the fighters for Freedom.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
No one...and I mean NO ONE puts in more time and effort into research than Sundance. You would better yourself if you decided to read his works. But continue to hope the RNC GOPe will save you.
You keep talking about people making 18K and lost their job getting 52K.
Can you please post a link that confirms those numbers? I know the program was abused, as the article points out but tell me what government program ISN’T abused by some?
So I assume you would have been happy seeing thousands and thousands of small businesses being wiped out. Because Walmart I guess?
I will send some links later from my desktop. Too hard on mobile. CARES included an additional $600 a week for unemployment nationwide, regardless of what the person had been making. That is $31,200 annualized. Most states were paying $400 or more per week already, which is $20,800 annualized. The net result was an entry level employee in Dubuque, Iowa went from $1500 a month while working, to almost $2700 a month on unemployment. It’s no wonder there wasn’t much pushback against shutdowns.
So did people actually get $31,200 and $20,800?
Yes. States continued to pay their standard amount. The extra $600 a week from the CARES Act was added to it.
Thomas Massie would probably make a darn good senator. A much better senator than McConnell is now.
As a former small business owner now retired, I do not know if the Payroll Protection Program was really that good of a scheme but I would not, in a knee jerk reaction condemn Massie for opposing it.
And NO, I will not be voting for DeSantis.
And when Trump gets clobbered in the 2024 General Election (and he so thoroughly will), the same people saying this will again be saying that DeSantis needs to wait his turn until '32 because Trump is the only man who can "Drain The Swamp" in '28.
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