Posted on 03/26/2020 9:24:30 AM PDT by Kaslin
When governments frantically throw more money than they can afford at a crisis -- and we're throwing trillions (yes, trillions) at the desperate war against the coronavirus with that federal relief package out of Washington -- two truths are self-evident.
One was famously expressed by Rahm Emanuel, the discredited former mayor of Chicago who dropped his re-election bid rather than get wiped out over his clumsy suppression of a police video of a black teenager being killed by a white cop. Now he dispenses wisdom as a talking head on ABC.
And the other was proclaimed by Comrade Napoleon, the talking pig from George Orwell's "Animal Farm," the malevolent social justice warrior with the curly tail who clearly understood the use of government force.
"You never let a serious crisis go to waste," said Emanuel. "And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you could not do before."
He perfectly described House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's cynical leveraging of human misery and fear as she used the coronavirus in a push for more political power. If the American media didn't lean to the left, what she did wouldn't be forgotten. But as a deal is struck, they'll champion Nancy.
And Napoleon the pig offered that other self-evident truth, proclaiming that "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."
Napoleon must have been talking about Republicans, who are just as human, and therefore just as cynical, as their Democratic counterparts. They must believe a badly mismanaged airline manufacturer like Boeing is more equal than my friend Karen the Waitress, who lives on tips and who is out of work now that government has closed her diner.
I can't say if Napoleon predicted that Republican Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina and other senators -- three Republicans and at least one Democrat, possibly others -- are more equal than other Americans. Perhaps it was just coincidence, but they miraculously dumped their personal stock holdings just before the stock market collapsed, wiping out the retirement savings of millions of Americans.
If you're blinded by partisan lights, you're free to insist that Burr and company are the beneficiaries of an innocent yet amazing coincidence. But then again, you're also free to believe in pixie dust and fairies. Burr saved his retirement bacon. How's your own 401(k) doing right about now?
What's the difference between a scandal over possible insider trading by a Republican, and a scandal involving the Illinois governor, a Democrat, who purchased a mansion next to his own, had the toilets of the new place ripped out, and had the new place declared "uninhabitable," giving him a nice property tax break of more than $300,000 before he was elected?
Nothing.
Toilets dumped. Stock dumped. It's all a matter of degree. Some animals are more equal than others.
And Pelosi, true to Emanuel's Rule of power politics, didn't waste the coronavirus crisis. Instead she grabbed it by both horns and rode it, stalling a Senate bipartisan coronavirus relief package, one that her counterpart in the Senate, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, had been hopefully optimistic about passing days earlier.
Instead, Pelosi caused the delay, dumping the Democratic Party platform that she never could have passed on her own into the relief package. It contained leftist Green New Deal ridiculousness on climate change provisions for airlines, race- and gender-based regulations on business, even federal cash for more wind and solar energy.
What did all this have to do with stopping the virus from spreading and keeping businesses and the jobs they provide alive? Nothing.
Pelosi's majority whip, James Clyburn, the South Carolina Democrat and savior of Joe Biden's presidential campaign, explained it all by saying coronavirus politics offered his fellow Democrats "a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision."
Mercy. Did they ever. See what politicians can do with a crisis once they set their minds on it?
Taxpayers and talking pigs have long been advised to avoid the legislative sausage-making process. A $2 trillion compromise deal was struck Tuesday. It included direct cash payments to American families, business loans and an expansion of social programs that will cost the middle class more in taxes. How much more? Who can say?
When you're no longer dealing in billions but in trillions, you're beginning to talk real money.
One feature of the compromise Democrats wanted was congressional oversight of a $500 billion fund managed by the U.S. Treasury Department to help struggling businesses with loans and loan guarantees. Such oversight sounds reasonable. What wasn't reasonable was the hideous partisan rhetoric from the hard left about corporate bailouts and slush funds. That was irresponsible.
The American economy wasn't hamstrung by bad management. The economy was booming. The mass unemployment and business losses are a direct result of government shutting down commerce to stop the spread of infection.
Which brings us to the third truth of coronavirus political frenzy:
With trillions being thrown around, and human nature being what it is, it is inevitable that some who'll pass out the government cash, those at the receiving end or perhaps those in the middle will act like greedy piggies and oink their way into deals.
But if you're an American taxpayer, you've long known that truth to be self-evident.
Your children, your grandchildren, and your great-grandchildren will despise you for this.
Not nearly as much as they will hate you if you do nothing and crash the economy into a 1930s style Great Depression.
You choice is to spend this now or turn the Govt over to the Dems and a FDR style decades long “New Deal” command and control economy after the crash.
“Conservative Inc” need to stop with the knee jerk ideological reactions.
If China had declared war on the US none of you would say a word about this spending. This China Virus is doing more damage to the US, and the World, economy then any war in our history.
Yes we all wish this was not necessary. Yes, we wish this was a clean bill without the usual pork vote buying tactics. Well welcome to the messy workings of legislative politics in a Constitutional Republic.
People have to deal with the world as it is right now, not as they wish it would work. We can go back to the ideological wars in 30 days.
Corporations employ tend of millions of people. Corporations are everything from your local privately own gas station down the street to massive operations like Ford or Delta Airlines.
Corporations have debt they have to play just like people. For example, When they build a new store or plant, they borrow money to finance the capital expense. In addition, they do not usually pay cash for daily supply delivers. Those are purchased are made on credit with 15-30-45-60 days to make payment. All those debt payments still have to be made even thought the Government shut them down or put a lock down on their customers.
Here is an example. I work for a Food Manufacturing corporation that employs about 5,000 people nation wide. Due to the loss of business from the slow down, they just cut all Executive and Sr Management salaries 20%. If this goes one 2 more weeks, they will cut middle management salaries, if it goes on a month they have to cut all salaries. After that they start laying off worker bees like me and shutting down production lines. Why? Because they have to have the money to make their debt payments now and hope they can make it up to employees later.
We are an “Essential Business” not shut down like the Airlines or the Car companies. The US, and the World, are on the brink of a financial crisis like nothing seen since the 1929.
Those credit bills have to be paid even if they are shut down by Government order. The people supplying them need to be paid so they can pay their creditor and so on and so on.
If they are not paid, this will trigger a cascading financial default on scale with what happened in 1929.We not talking about just crashing our economy here, we talking trashing the worlds economy if this is not addressed
And the alternative is what?
The upper 10% of the income workers already do hate the politicians. They pay the heavy lift of taxes and got excluded from the freebies they paid for.
“If China had declared war on the US”
“If” is for children. China didn’t declare war on the US. We are also not under assault and this virus is far less a problem than the flu already has been this year.
Maybe not as much as originally thought. The package is mostly loans that will have to be paid back. Not simply free money. There are some compromises for sure, but this may be better than we think.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2020/03/25/all-you-wanted-to-know-about-those-tax-stimulus-checks-but-were-afraid-to-ask/#32f600c11f9c
You will see that its not so much free money as an early refund of next years return. That is some consolation.
But even if you put the check in a bank the economy still gets a jump.......the bank has the benefit of:
<><> the "float" (if deposited in a checking account)
<><> the "fractional reserve" (if deposited in a savings account)
<><> deposits give banks the ability to lend more to borrowers.
<><> borrowing money means business is revving up.
<><> lending money means interest pouring into banks....
<><> and the cycle continues ad infinitum.
Excellent post.
“You will see that its not so much free money as an early refund of next years return. That is some consolation.”
For that to happen they must be raising taxes, which is even worse since we makers are paying for the takers and now we’ll be taxed even more. Nothing like killing the economy with higher taxes.
Read the Forbes article. If you get a stimulus check this year, it will be deducted from any return you would get next year.
I’m not sure the author understands the law as written. She says the income is not taxable but then she says ti is because it is an amount deducted from this year’s refund or MAYBE added to any owed amount.
Its not taxable, since its your refund, just from next year. No change in tax rates.
Look, I dont think this is a perfect plan, but with a few dem inserted exceptions, its a big loan package, not a big give-away. Money to the airlines is loans. Money to business is loans. And not it turns out for most people, the check is just an advance on next years refund, based on this years return.
There is still a little redistribution. If you dont get a refund next year (which one could game by adjusting deductions), its not clear that they will or wont come after you fro the stimulus refund from this bill.
It’s kind of surprising how many people on this board are like “Screw you, Jack. I got mine.”
For all the hate that millennials and gen Z get, there’s one thing that’s true; their future was sold out.
It’s easy for people who already have jobs and savings to look down their noses at the younger generation when even the most hard-working and conservative of the millenials and Zlennials have to work two part-time jobs with no benefits to make ends meet and are literally unable to afford to save because of either A: student loans they were tricked into taking out by the government, or B: massively increased cost of living since the ‘50s and ‘60s, or C: both.
And now they’ve been furloughed or laid off of even these jobs, and the creditors are knocking.
Now what about those who have filed their taxes early and have gotten already their refund?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2020/03/25/all-you-wanted-to-know-about-those-tax-stimulus-checks-but-were-afraid-to-ask/#32f600c11f9c
You will still get a check if you are in the right income range. Just keep in mind its only an advance on your return for next year.
Just saying
Given the HYSTERIA around the topic, 10 MINUTES OF COMMON SENSE from a scientist in the field.
Has anyone VETTED the SCIENTISTS now surrounding & “advising” Trump? How many are leftist Democrats with a political agenda? Consider the STILL NOT CLEANED OUT Deep State INFECTED DOJ & God knows how many other government departments.
Have we ever been lied to by the managerial class in government whose jobs depend on how submissive they can keep the rest of us?
How many of them HATE TRUMP & his stated goal to DRAIN THEIR SWAMP?
Heard the stories that CDC employees wept when Trump beat Hillary? How objective would THOSE folks be collecting & analyzing the data? And wouldn’t a “SCARE” like this serve to open the tax slave (er PAYER) money sigot for them, as another government operation, to piss away on “research” (or whatever)?
Anybody know???
I didn’t think so.
One final thought: Could this just be another of the periodic tests conducted by Deep State leftists who would be more at home in Stalin’s Russia than Trump’s America to see if their century long socialist indoctrination in the GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS has enough of us sufficiently DUMBED DOWN to make their long awaited FINAL PUSH?
Just asking evidence based questions here.
“The author’s first name is John, not Joan.”
Well, I’m not their publicist, so I couldn’t care less.
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