Posted on 01/02/2021 9:16:25 AM PST by RandFan
Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) pushed back Friday on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) characterization of $2,000 coronavirus relief payments to Americans as “socialism for the rich.”
“With all due respect to my Republican colleagues, a $2k direct payment for individuals and families who are struggling is not socialism,” Graham tweeted. “In my view it is necessary in the times in which we live.”
Last month, congressional leaders reached a long-sought deal on a new coronavirus package that included $600 checks for taxpayers, though both Democrats and President Trump have called for the amount to be increased to $2,000.
The House has passed a stand-alone bill increasing the payments, but McConnell has signaled it is going nowhere in the Senate.
"We do not need to let the Speaker of the House do socialism for rich people in order to help those who need help," McConnell said Thursday after blocking the measure for the third consecutive days.
McConnell has introduced a proposal that would tie the larger checks to tech and electoral provisions also supported by Trump, but the measure is unlikely to reach the floor before the Senate’s session ends Sunday
The vandals didn't want to give Mitch a free meal.
Let’s talk Politics and not all the Fiscal issues. You have Trump pushing the $2000 checks. You have Polls saying 80% of voters supporting the checks. You have the GA Republican Senators running for reelection supporting the checks. Any addition to the Deficit will be Biden’s problem. Just what the hell was McConnell gaining by killing this? “Politically” it just doesn’t make sense. Somebody must have their hand in his pocket.
Well, regardless, it’s useless for those of us whom paid the most taxes, as we each get $0 checks...
It isn’t socialism. You’re an idiot if you believe that giving us back our own money is welfare. It’s giving me back a fraction of what I have paid in by being overtaxed.
You’re right. I withdraw. McConnell is your friend. Go with that.
Graham is right: it is not “socialism.” It is a handout of money ... vote-buying, we might say.
It really can’t even be called “redistribution,” because the debt is so incalculably stratospheric that there may never be any actual ... anything ... behind this.
I still don’t understand the “Political” rational for McConnell’s actions.
I say give me back as much as possible, before Biden gives it to some moron who never paid into the system to begin with. Starve the beast!
I have no idea what any of them are thinking these days.
Where do you even buy a pigs head? I don't see them as a thing in the local supermarkets.
For me a $600 or $2000 payment would be a small tax refund since I’ve paid a lot more than that in Federal tax.
These payments aren’t welfare payments to me. They are my money that’s being given back to me.
The 2,000 dollars may be welfare to you and others who don’t pay taxes. But if will be a rebate for me and other genuine tax payers.
Maybe, although I am very skeptical that this stimulus fight will have any impact on the Georgia runoff. Also, politics are about more than just how an issue polls at this moment. If it wasn’t, then why doesn’t every Republican just sign on to amnesty for illegals or for “universal background checks,” when most polls say those measures are popular as well?
Besides, stopping the giveaway is the right thing to do, and I’d like to think our elected representatives do the right thing for its own sake from time to time.
“When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.”
I used to think Ben Franklin said that, but I guess it can only be supposedly traced to 1951. I wonder if it is true, or if we have actually created an indefinitely sustainable and more effective version of the Roman’s bread and circuses strategy.
Freegards
GA Senate is gone. Doesn’t matter what Mitch was doing.
If you qualify for this “rebate,” then I pay more taxes than you do. Yet you get the money and I don’t, because I make too much. And, as you point out, people who don’t pay taxes also get it. That makes it a means-tested benefit, not a tax rebate. Means-tested benefits are what we commonly call “welfare.” Sorry if you are uncomfortable with that, but it’s the reality.
Stein's Law: If something can't go on for ever, it will eventually stop.
I do not thing the world's current monetary and fiscal system is the One Thing that can go on forever.
Therefore, Boom. One day, Boom.
Elected Representatives doing the “Right Thing”? If you believe that, you are in for a Rude Awakening.
The quote comes from De Tocqueville’s Deomcracy in America. The idea probably goes back at least as far as Cicero.
My friend is the one not trying to give away my tax dollars to people who didn’t earn it. In this instance, that does happen to be McConnell.
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