I’m not going to cover this in a stand-alone post, but I hope everyone reads this horrific Politico story about what Rep. Jim Clyburn’s coronavirus subcommittee has uncovered. The Trump administration had political appointees in positions of power throughout its pandemic-response departments and, wouldn’t you know, there was a powerful douchebag who leveraged his authority to weaken pandemic response and advocate for herd immunity as late as July/August. This idiot was the HHS science adviser and his name is Paul Alexander. He was let go in September, but not before he openly advocated for herd immunity and for more younger people (and actual children) to actively try to get infected with the coronavirus.
I bring that up to highlight (yet again) how the Trump administration screwed up its pandemic response at every level, from messaging to testing to the refusal to issue a mask mandate, to actively hosting super-spreader events and more. The Trump administration – with Mitch McConnell’s help – has also completely ignored the dire economic situation in America. All we’ve gotten is one stimulus check for $1200 the entire year, and they gave PPP loans to some f–king megachurches. Well, Congress has finally worked on another stimulus package… and it will involve $600 checks. R U 4 REAL.
It’s looking more likely that direct payments to Americans will be included in the new coronavirus aid Congress aims to pass before lawmakers head home for the holidays. Those stimulus checks could be around $600 to $700 per individual, Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters on Wednesday. That’s just about half of the $1,200 payments authorized by the CARES Act in the spring.
A $600 reduced stimulus payment was included in a White House plan last week, though President Donald Trump has since called for sending bigger checks. Now, Capitol Hill lawmakers are looking to move an approximately $900 billion legislative package toward the finish line.
“There is a recognition that unless D.C. provides some more aid now, some of the economic impact to individuals and to families could be more permanent and some of the impact on small businesses would be absolutely permanent,” said Ed Mills, Washington policy analyst at Raymond James.
Notably, a $908 billion package that was unveiled earlier this week did not include stimulus checks.
From what I understand, the bulk of the relief was originally going to businesses large and small, which… doesn’t make much sense economically if no one has any money to spend on whatever those businesses make. While I’m glad that Republicans suddenly remembered that the best way to stimulate the economy is through checks to individuals, it’s painful to think that after the crisis we’ve survived this year, the government has only handed out $1800 total to tax filers. $600 is a f–king insult too. These people have no idea what it costs for normal people to survive.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.
They do know what it costs for normal people to survive.
They don’t have an ounce of regard in their bodies, though.
Yes this is the essence of sociopathy. They understand but they don’t care.
Their paycheck still gets deposited in their bank account, so why would they care about us?
It really highlights how important taking the Senate is, and if not in January, then we have to keep the House and get it in by 2022. Republicans were never going to support more pay, and they purposefully picked something they knew Democrats couldn’t bend on (blocking worker recourse for COVID workplace violations, which would have defanged OSHA and killed more people in the long term). They want us to crash. They know they can use it to regain seats. Democrats are just going to get their shit together and fight through the next decade if they want to save this country.
The amount of damage Republicans want to do to Americans worries me. I just can’t fathom the depths of their callousness.
We do not have a representational government, we have corporate oligarchy. The tax cuts and corporate protections included in the bill are proof of that. $600 doesn’t come close to covering rent pretty much everywhere in the country. Our leadership doesn’t know us or our problems and most of them don’t want to. We need more reps like AOC and Katie Porter or we are doomed. While we wait for that can’t Mitch just freaking die already??
So pathetic. I’ll take it though. And spend it instantly.
Mine will go towards bills.
So the government isn’t protecting people from getting sick, then they are charged for care if they get sick, and lose wages and potentially their job on top because most states don’t have comprehensive sick coverage or workers rights.
The only people who win in this scenario are the wealthy, the business owners. It’s just appalling.
From what I’ve read McConnell is finally acting is only because the GOP Georgia candidates, Perdue and Loeffler, are getting hammered by voters about covid relief.
Y-y-y-y-y-y-y-yup. Such a scuzz-bucket.
Let’s hope $600 is nowhere near enough to stay the hammer blows.
As ThatsNotOkay stated: YYYYYYYYYUP. Georgia republicans are not happy. Which puts a big ass grin on my face.
$600 wont cover the cost of a month of rent anywhere in this country. This makes me sick to my stomach.
The average rent in the US is about $1,500. The $1,200 checks weren’t enough to cover a month’s rent. Sending half that is just deliberately cruel.
I didn’t even get $1200 the first time around, it was lessened significantly because of how much money I made in 2019, apparently. You know, the year we weren’t going through a pandemic. If the next batch is $600, I am probably going to get $50.
I read that something close to 40 million people are facing eviction at the end of the year. If they don’t address the crisis before this avalanche, it is going to be so much harder after the fact. Sadly, I think McConnell WANTS massive amounts of people to be homeless and struggling during the beginning of Biden’s presidency.
He wants to induce anger from economic anxiety in voters while simultaneously weakening the larger, wealthier blue states is my guess. If he can bankrupt places like California and New York, he can take away some of their fiscal independence. We’ll see, though, especially if we don’t get the Senate in January. States like CA, WA, NY, PA, OR, etc. would be stupid to continue paying federal taxes to a government that openly abuses them. A fair number of the more densely populated states could easily run like countries on the GDP they produce.
Hey Americans, do ALL of you get those stimulus checks? Even if you’re high income, or didn’t lose your job? As a Canadian, I haven’t gotten a dime from our government…but there have been plenty Canadians taking Covid relief money they don’t even qualify for. So many bad apples out there.
The first one was scaled based on income.
The bad apples right now aren’t private citizens, it’s gd businesses that are taking and hording.
I agree there are big businesses getting a lot of government money right now that they really don’t need. But, there are also private citizens taking advantage of Covid relief money. The Canadian government is going after them and trying to get them to re-pay the thousands they took, but God knows if all of them will get caught. It’s gross on many levels.
No we don’t get them if we are considered high earners. Even better part is my husband is an ICU doctor working his ass off and nope, nothing. Even had some of his pay cut because of it!
To be fair, my husband is a hospital pharmacist (on the floors, next to nurses that are beard-masking all the time) and we made barely enough to qualify for the full checks last time. But we really didn’t need it. We ended up donating it to Meals on Wheels and other senior services because we felt bad taking it.
Speaking as someone in that bracket, I don’t know that folks who make upper-middle class incomes can really complain about being above the cutoff unless there is some compelling reason like someone got laid off.
My college age kids didn’t get one last time and I definitely think full time students should qualify.
It’s based on your taxable income. Not everyone gets one. My MIL is a real estate agent/manager in NY and she has agents who will make 300k this year in commissions who are collecting unemployment and don’t have to pay it back when the government figures out they’ve been working and collecting unemployment.
Or you have bosses who are letting workers be on unemployment, but still having them work so that THEY don’t have to pay them…
I’m Canadian, and our government was so intent on keeping people from starving in the first months that they absolutely gave money out fast and said they’d figure out who merited or didn’t later on, and that’s what they are doing. I hope they catch the folks who cheated, but better to keep folks from suffering and deal with the rest. This is the humane position and it’s a damn sight better than what the USA did. I don’t like that we also have big corporations benefiting from support but I don’t think it’s been as corrupt as in the USA.
I lost my job and benefited from the emergency benefit. I also appreciate that once they concluded the emergency benefit, they lowered the bar to qualify for Employment (Unemployment) Insurance.
Bad actors are all around us, but at least there has been an attempt at providing some meaningful support in a crisis that’s nobody’s fault.
I think the states should have gotten what we had in Canada initially – emergency CERB to those who apply, with the vetting/potential repayment to come after the fact. The emergency CERB was implemented because the unemployment system couldn’t process the massive influx of claims in a timely manner. Followed by a transition to regular EI once the system was updated. Sister just applied for EI, got cleared in a week or so.
There is currently a crisis in the states where millions of people who have applied for unemployment benefits still haven’t received them. Their social services are even less funded than ours and less equipped to handle the demand. There was an article about this in the NYT a while ago – about how lines for unemployment offices are spanning miles, and how it’s impossible to get help over the phone. I just read one anecdote about how support lines are hanging up abruptly before you can speak to a person about your claim.
I realize people have taken advantage of CERB, but this is an emergency crisis that few countries were prepared for.
American living in Canada. I got the $1200 check even though I am working full-time In Canada (virtually atm). I did not get anything from the Canadians (probably because I am on PR, waiting to take citizenship test atm).
If you’re working full-time in Canada and didn’t lose your job because of the pandemic, than you would not qualify for any Canadian Covid relief (CERB) anyways.
My roommate got a one time check and has always been employed throughout this pandemic.
As someone else said, no, not everybody got one. It was based on adjusted gross income from last year’s tax return, I believe. My husband and I didn’t get one because we make too much money but I am not complaining about that. $600 is a joke and makes me sick to my stomach for people who are desperate. I suppose it’s better than a kick in the teeth (as my grandma used to say) but not much. I don’t mind paying taxes so we can all live in a better society. And if that means I don’t get a stimulus, ok, I don’t need it and would have donated it anyway. But then when I find out a bunch of these megachurches got millions – that makes me sick.
My mother died in May 2019 and she got a check mailed to her. It was actually made out to her estate, so it wasn’t even just a mistake or the IRS not knowing she died. But plenty of people who could have used the money didn’t get them, there was an income cap. I am her estate’s administer and I deposited the check, then the treasury said we have to give the money back, so I wrote them a check, and they still haven’t cashed it! The Trump administration can’t run a government agency to save its life.
As others have said, it does phase out based on income. We did not get one at all last time and I know quite a few people who donated theirs because they still had jobs and a comfortable income.
I have to admit, I’m not sure why at this point stimulus checks are being pushed when it seems a better option would be to pad unemployment? I get that early on there were delays in getting unemployment payments out and so maybe the $1200 was a good stopgap, but at this point it seems it would be more straightforward to give everyone on unemployment an extra X dollars. Or if you are going to give out checks, give a larger amount but have it start phasing out at a lower income (based on at least anecdotal data that folks on the higher end of the eligible income bracket last time were generally okay without the checks).
I still haven’t received my first check! I called every IRS # I could find and they rang until it disconnected. I called a local office and got a message saying they we’re closed for Covid.
Call your congressman or state senator. That’s how I got mine.
Trump drastically reduced the funding for the IRS, so they don’t have the resources to audit rich people…or help people who need assistance. He’s trying to make them ineffective.
I’m not defending Trump at all! But defunding of the IRS (and unemployment offices) has been happening for years now. The IRS basically admitted to rarely auditing the super rich because it’s too expensive. He’s definitely accelerated a worrying trend.
Me too! It was “dispersed” to a bank account on time, but not mine. I file some irs paperwork months ago, but have heard nothing in response….
And of course Trump is no longer giving a sh– if stimulus checks are approved.
is that the total amount that people who have lost their jobs or had hours cut etc as a result of the pandemic have received? is there anything else that they are entitled to claim? im genuinely shocked at how little money that it. its terrible and saddening
It is shocking, isn’t it? Pathetic. People are moving fast into poverty and losing their homes as well, let along the hundreds of thousands who lost health insurance when they lost their jobs.
In times past, treatment like this led to revolution. We’ve been warned about the likely outcome of the wealth gap – now multiply it by the pandemic.
From what I understand, unemployment is a separate payment and those whose hours are cut back do not get any kind of financial benefit.
Oh boy, that will pay for …. a portion of one month’s COBRA health care premium!
I feel so, so sorry that Americans are being treated so inhumanely. The billionaires are reaping extraordinary gains due to the Republican-Paul Ryan tax cuts, and everyone else is left to starve – or steal food, and be blamed for their ‘crimes.’
I know! I was researching how much healthcare was going to cost if I’m unemployed and was horrified. I’m lucky enough to have saved an emergency fund, but it’s not going to last as long as I expected if I need it.
Remember when we all got $3,000 to go shopping after 9/11? Am I imagining that? I don’t personally need a stimulus check, but there are so many Americans who are in desperate need of help, and these tricks are irritated that they even have to consider tossing a few crumbs our way.
They’re all lucky Jen O’Malley Dillon only called them f***ers…I can think of a few worse things I would call them.
This is mitch attempting (and probably succeeding) to buy the senate majority through wins in georgia.
Of course, Kentucky keeps electing mitch.
I wish i could judge, my state is represented by awful, racist men too.
Stimulus checks are just a bandaid and aren’t going to get to people who have already fallen through the cracks in the system. My older son, recent college graduate, was working temp jobs when this pandemic hit and got laid off. But he’s not eligible for unemployment or the stimulus check because he was not working at his most recent job long enough. And the job before that was part time. My husband’s job wasn’t affected so we can afford to support my son right now. With the pandemic and the economy we have no idea how he’s going to get a full time job that he can support himself with. We are so lucky to have a roof over our heads and food on the table but we aren’t going to live forever. Young people are screwed if this country doesn’t get a handle on this pandemic and fix this economy so the next generation can support themselves.
I am grateful that the pandemic has not impacted my family negatively in terms of finances, but I just don’t know how people who are vulnerable are getting by. $600 won’t keep you with food and gas for a month let alone rent, car payments, student loan payments, phone bills or anything. Why can’t we get rid of the people who have no clue about people’s lives once and for all… It is heartbreaking.
$600 after eight months is such an insult and too sinister to be believed. They expected people to get by for ten weeks on that paltry $1200, that ten weeks turned into eight months. After Christmas millions will be losing their unemployment and their homes due to rent moratoriums coming to an end. I suppose this is their petty way of punishing the nation for the election outcome. I am keeping my fingers crossed that the GA run off comes through and tosses Mitch off his perch.
Meanwhile the airlines and big business will get billions. When they already have billions. Ridiculous.
I am grateful that I was able to keep my job and apt through this crisis and that my family isn’t as impacted as others. It’s absolutely heartbreaking reading about mothers who use their baby’s strollers to steal bread. It didn’t have to be this way but for Trump and his meanness. I’d like to compare him to Scrooge but that would be unfair because even Scrooge was a nice person once before he went to the dark side. Trump was never a nice person.
Congress hasn’t a clue or doesn’t care about the impact this long-term closure has had on ordinary people.
My manicurist had to move in with her son who is lucky enough to work through the pandemic. She cried when they shut her down again. She is a proud woman who wants to work but went on unemployment and quarantined for the country’s sake. Now, the members of Congress want her to stay home for the holidays and they give her a measly $600. She isn’t just losing money. When she returned to work briefly she found she had lost a lot of her clientele because she didn’t work under the table. So she wasn’t making as much money as she did before the shutdown.
This is the problem when most of the members of Congress are millionaires and their big donors are billionaires. They have no clue and they are beholden to people who have no clue.
I’ve been unemployed since March…my industry…which is trade shows & conferences have been wiped out…I’m an Administrative Assistant…so there’s pretty much no where for me to go…and I’ve worked part-time retail my whole life…and a 53…with my medical issues…most of which comes from being so stretched out financially for the last 20 years…I can’t even do retail anymore…
I’m tired y’all….
I’m so sorry LaLa. Keep your chin up. I said a prayer for you. I’m gonna keep on praying. That’s what’s getting me through. ❤️
I am very sorry. Sincerely hoping for better, brighter days.
It should be 600 a MONTH for all until the pandemic is over.
Both Trump and Jared Kushner businesses received PPE loans.