The Senate passed the House Covid19 paid sick leave and Medicaid payment bump bill 90-8 yesterday.
BREAKING: Senate passes House coronavirus aid package 90-8.
Senate GOP inches closer to unveiling their proposal for a third, larger stimulus package to address the epidemic, and Treasury sends topline figures to the Hill for individual payments & loans.https://t.co/P3QzlXZVCU
— Andrew Desiderio (@AndrewDesiderio) March 18, 2020
This bill, once it is signed into law, will have two major effects. First, it will give states a significant cash infusion routed through the Medicaid program. State sales and income tax revenue is crashing this week and will be at minimal levels going forward. 49 out of 50 states have balanced budget constraints. So a big infusion of federal funds to cover more of the Medicaid expense will mean states won’t be cutting back as deeply as they otherwise would have been.
Secondly, the paid leave portion of the bill is the first downpayment that we, as a society, are making to pay for externalities. The public health measure of physical distancing requires people to act, at high cost to themselves, for the good of everyone else. This ask is an ask for impoverishment for the vast majority of the working population. People can’t afford to not go to work as they have rent or a mortgage to pay, food to buy and lights to keep on. With paid leave for some that will (eventually) be fully paid for by the federal funds, we’re making it easier for some more people to stay home and break infection chains.
The 3rd round stimulus package has a possibility of being designed as a massive purchase of more externalities. There is also a set of designs where it is just a redistribution of public wealth to well connected private interests. But the current second package that is now heading for a signature is a large, first attempt at buying some needed externalities.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Is that what you believe, Mitch? Does that mean you might be looking at some of the other 400 House bills you’ve blocked this year?
Major Major Major Major
I’m very concerned about all the proposals to means-test stimulus payments. It’s just impossible to do efficiently, and what we need right now is a firehose of cash. I’ve seen some proposals to just count it as taxable income–it effectively means-tests itself in a year’s time. Payroll taxes complicate that somewhat but you could always exempt them.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Major Major Major Major:
Katie Porter said that too. She says we should have learned from the 2008 situation that if you put too many qualifications, you slow things down.
Cheryl Rofer
I agree that the means testing, and the delay its discussion is causing, is ridiculous. I won’t say the name of one of the people pressing for it, but we should be bombarding her and our own members of Congress with demands to cut it out.
Amir Khalid
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Mitch wouldn’t go that far. That would just encourage Democrat socialism.
Cheryl Rofer
I go back to Twitter and see this. Ugh
trollhattan
Jerry Brown and then Gov Gav got constant grief for their “rainy day” state budget reserves. Grab your umbrellas folks, because as the OP says, revenues will plummet.
We’ll see how long those funds last soon enough. (Ca fiscal year is July – June and we’re in budget season for 2021.)
PSA: Balanced budget requirements are idiotic.
PenAndKey
The Republican fear of the ever-present moocher will ensure they they always fight tooth and nail for means testing. It doesn’t matter that it’s an unnecessary roadblock and doesn’t work anyway.
*Sees Cheryl reply*
What the ever loving hell? Idiots.
JPL
My next door neighbors both work for a major travel/convention company and instantly received pay cuts. They know layoffs are next. If means tested, they would not be able to receive the lump sum because last years income was above the 75,000 cap.
I could care less at this point if Bill Gates receives a thousand dollars. The one percent or ten percent is not a big enough number to worry about.
Major Major Major Major
janesays
Of topic, but Tulsi Gabbard has:
A) Ended her presidential campaign, and;
B) Endorsed Joe Biden.
Maybe we are in the end of days. Never saw either of those things happening anytime soon. Or ever, really.
Amir Khalid
@janesays:
That’s nice, but candidate Gabbard has been irrelevant for some time now. What one would like to see is Wilmer hanging it up.
schrodingers_cat
Only BS and EW haven’t endorsed Biden yet. I wonder what they are waiting for.
David Anderson
WTF —
2020 ME needs ways less help than 2009/2010 ME
Hell, right now, I’m able to work 100% from home, my wife is able to work 100% from home. We don’t need help
If there is means testing (even on the back end with a 2021 tax season clawback) people like me should be getting far less than people who are barely paying any income taxes. We are in a huge demand drop AND liquidity crisis; people who can continue to spend and are able to stay liquid don’t need more cash nor liquidity as our behaviors won’t change. People who are out of work and have low savings need the cash infusion and will change their behavior
Lum’s Better Half
Joe/Tulsi 2020
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Major Major Major Major:
All of my clients have had me halt all fee-generating activity, my wife’s 150K annual income has dropped to zero, and all of my adult daughters are unemployed. If they means-test the aid, my current household aspect of zero income would get lost in the shuffle. If they run it through the ghouls of banking, we cannot, will not qualify, despite me never having missed a payment to anyone.
Jeffro
@janesays: Here’s something else that none of us can see happening, but only because it’s not possible:
trumpov can escape blame by not running for a second term, says Jennifer Rubin. Just declare victory and go home.
Um, J-Rubs, I hate to tell you but for him it’s run and win or risk going to prison (and broke at that). He ain’t resigning for NOTHING.
His campaign put out a fundraising email today saying that China brought this virus upon the world, and that Joe Biden supports China. That’s not a campaign thinking about ‘suspending’ operations. They are going for broke and will stop at nothing.
Yutsano
@David Anderson: There’s really no time for that. Money needed to start flowing yesterday. And the small business relief provisions should have been on their tail. I could not care less if any “moochers” get money. Everyone should get it for whatever. Better to get the cash infusion out there now.
And honestly: making it taxable is idiotic.
David Anderson
@Yutsano: Agreed. Best case is huge EBTs are started this afternoon and by Monday, everyone’s bank account has a good chunk more money and anyone who does not have a bank account has a check coming in the mail that arrives by Wednesday.
That is not the case we’re in.
If we’re going to be dumb with means testing, lets be as minimally dumb as possible.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Yutsano:
Although at this point, I’d take anything.
Like I said – I’ve never missed a payment.
cain
What’s the point of doing it means testing? People need relief now. Just give them cash payments and mean test it for the next round.. cripes. No need to get it right first time.
Major Major Major Major
@David Anderson: Debt is free right now, so a few extra billion dollars is pointless to fight over. If making it taxable income is what it takes to get the checks out, President Biden can always sign something to make it not taxable income in January.
PenAndKey
@David Anderson: Unless they’re smart and ask about current income, which they won’t, all means testing will do is ensure that anyone who’s suffered from lay-offs or work reductions due to this is SOL. Or are we presuming that people who earned over $75k last year are suddenly flush with a full emergency fund? Because that’s absolutely not reality.
Baud
Does anyone even know how the means testing works? I’m not interested in getting outraged based on no information.
zhena gogolia
@janesays:
Wow.
Major Major Major Major
Means-testing inherently will not work in this situation.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Outrage is the oxygen of online leftists. They won’t survive without it.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
So you don’t know any details?
PenAndKey
The details don’t make much of a difference. The administrative roadblocks and overhead ensures that either it will screw the middle class or be unnecessarily delayed in implementation.
janesays
@schrodingers_cat: It’s more than just BS and EW.
Tom Steyer, Michael Bennet, Steve Bullock, Kirsten Gillibrand, Jay Inslee, and Eric Swalwell all have yet to endorse any candidate, while Marianne Williamson, Julian Castro, Joe Sestak, Bill de Blasio, John Hickenlooper, and Mike Gravel have all endorsed other candidates.
So out of the 26 other major candidates in the race other than himself (no I’m not including Wayne Messam or Richard Ojeda in this group because that’s just silly), 12 have endorsed him, 6 have endorsed someone else and not yet changed their endorsements, 7 haven’t endorsed any candidate yet, and 1 is still inexplicably running against him.
Baud
@janesays:
I suspect she will later say that Biden offended her in some way and it will be all the outrage.
Baud
@PenAndKey:
How do you know that without any details?
Ohio Mom
What Majorx4 said, which is what Atrios said — the means test is next year’s income tax.
I know lots of people are tired of Atrios but I stil find him and his cynicism useful.
On the to-do list today: call a Portman office to thank him for his vote and encourage him to try to remain a human being now that he’s tested it out and lived to tell the tale; I dunno, call Pelosi’s office and tell them ix-nay on means-testing?
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: I don’t (last I saw the WH hasn’t released their wish list), but it doesn’t matter, because “let’s delay getting checks out to everybody and also not send them to everybody” is inherently an impediment to “let’s send checks out to everybody immediately.”
Fleeting Ex-istence
FWIW, regular HVAC filters are being deconstructed to make masks. The material is dense enough to stop COVID19. I read that on a # for nurse shortcuts. tee shirt fabric blocks %70 of airborne virus, regular masks block 89%, mask constructed from filters 85%. That information might be helpful.
janesays
@cain: Better yet, give it to everybody now, and worry about clawing it back from wealthy people later when people file their taxes next year.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
How do you know there’s going to be a delay if you don’t know how it’s being implemented?
Ruckus
@JPL:
How many millionaires/billionaires would get the money? 5,000-10,000-20,000 people? That’s not even a damn rounding error in this. They can get the disease that is causing the entire issue, yes they don’t need it, but damn what a fucking waste of time for a rounding error.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: The best stimulus method is to send checks to everybody immediately. Literally anything that is not sending checks to everybody immediately is an impediment to sending checks to everybody immediately. Any retroactive clawbacks are also an impediment since the core idea is to give people money that they can have. There is a right way to do this, and then there is means-testing. The details are completely unimportant.
ETA: the least-wrong way to means-test is to make it taxable income, which at this juncture would be acceptable.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
Ok, I give up. Jesus is Lord and means testing is evil no matter the details.
PenAndKey
@Baud: Means testing, like any other qualifier, is by it’s very nature a roadblock for whatever aid/benefit/etc is being provided. That’s literally why it exists as a practice. You don’t need to know the underlying details to know that a means test for this aid will be a roadblock, any more than you need to know thermodynamics to know that running a car without engine coolant is a bad idea. Or that you can get higher throughput in a foodbank if you don’t ask for layoff papers first.
If your goal is immediate aid the only way to achieve that is to help everyone equally and without asking questions. If that comes with a clawback, as it would if this is taxed as income at tax time, it can be done so after the fact.
Baud
@PenAndKey:
I’ll wait to see what actually happens. Thanks.
Ruckus
@Fleeting Ex-istence:
Look at China, South Korea, Japan, where masks are not out of the ordinary at non epidemic times. If the masks, even tee shirts used as masks cut down 50% of transmission, that would be a huge cut.
Major Major Major Major
That is a core tenet of UBI, yes, and what we need is a coronavirus UBI. Roughly every serious economist agrees with this.
janesays
@Ruckus: I don’t disagree that means testing is a silly waste of time, but there are actually quite a few more millionaires in America than that – there are about 11 million households in the U.S. with a net worth north of $1,000,000.
There’s an easy solution to this means-testing nonsense – send everyone a check now, and just claw the money back from extremely wealthy people when they file their taxes next year.
Major Major Major Major
So we waste eleven billion dollars. Chump change compared to the damage caused by not sending out checks immediately.
ETA: Goldman revised estimate for Q2 is -5% growth, we need this right now.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
That doesn’t answer the question of how far away from the ideal this particular program is.
L85NJGT
Miniature American flags for some, ventilators for others.
Betty Cracker
@Major Major Major Major: Agree. Tick tock, little starlings.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: I had no idea that was the question you were asking. Obviously the details are unknowable without details.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
But we never even TRIED thoughts and prayers this time, and gun violence kills a lot more than what Coronavirus has in the US every single year….
Ruckus
@Baud:
Any details are just roadblocks.
Hell I don’t make much but I make enough from SS that I can get by with what I’ve got now to not truly worry about it. Far too many people don’t and they are exactly the people who don’t have any backup. Even if half the people getting the money don’t actually need it they will spend it eventually and that will more than take care of any problem. The people that do need it need it badly and have nothing else. And the concept of means testing just slows down any possible disbursement.
It would most likely cost more to do the means testing than to just pay everyone. It mostly does in any other program and it costs the people who need it most, the worst.
Kelly
A quick google turns up a Kiplinger magazine article March 2019 claims 6.21%, or 7,698,765 US household have a million dollars in assets. So if there are two people per millionaire household that is $15 billion to the rich. Still why should anyone care? As has been mentioned borrowing is free.
Another Scott
Don’t forget that the “3rd Round” that the press keeps pushing is just McConnell’s attempt to divert Nancy’s train from the House. The House is also working on a 3rd Round and one that will be much more helpful to real people.
Repost, Warning – Politico:
Don’t let them erase Nancy and the House from this process. It’s not a fait accompli.
Cheers,
Scott.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Kelly:
We’re entering an extreme deflationary period, I’m afraid, while everyone is carrying a metric fuckton of high interest credit.
low-tech cyclist
What was the first package? I didn’t know there was one before this. Or is this different from the one Pelosi and Munchkin negotiated at the end of last week? I thought this was that package.
Anyway, I’m confused.
Brachiator
@Ruckus:
The masks do not necessarily do anything with respect to disease. They are also used in places where there is a lot of air pollution, spitting in the streets and other unpleasant practices.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@low-tech cyclist:
After the Revolution, there will be a unicameral legislature and no upper body.
Frankensteinbeck
@Cheryl Rofer:
I’m chiming in on ‘wait until we know what this actually means.’ The amount of spin regularly devoted to make it seem like Democrats are betraying their voters and principles is astonishing. Every time a Democrat says they want taxes raised on the rich to pay for new programs, it’s described as ‘supports Pay-Per-Go’ and left at that for Democrats to think their leaders want to slash services.
Kelly
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I was referring to US government borrowing.
I am not an economist but extreme deflation seems low probability. A recession on the scale 2008 seems likely but is preventable if Republican preferences are ignored. Like by turning on the money firehose.
negative 1
@PenAndKey: I agree, and the means testing is especially pointless now. What we need is cash in the economy. Even giving rich people money means that ‘hey, maybe I’ll take that vacation this year’ when this breaks, or ‘we should get takeout tonight’. These are great ways to get money back into the economy.
Brachiator
@Another Scott:
I hate the political bullshit games Trump and McConnell are playing. The Senate, the last I saw, is deliberately excluding Democrats as they re-write the House bills. They will try to do the same with Pelosi’s latest efforts. Public expectations and Trump’s fear of looking bad seems to be having some effect at preventing the GOP from being total asswipes.
negative 1
@Major Major Major Major:
Is it a bad sign when this is actually kind of good news? I’ve seen worse expectations.
Another Scott
@Baud: There are always details to be considered. But details can be handled with sweeping language (“these payments shall not be considered income for evaluating eligibility for X,Y,Z”) or they can be handled with specific language that requires people to check for verification (“no-one left-handed who has less than 5 children under 18 years of age who lives in a 500 year flood plain and has green eyes shall …”).
My brother has autism, is on SSI and Medicare/Medicaid. He cannot earn over $X/mo from his part-time job or he is at risk of losing his benefits. Details like that must be considered in shoveling money to people quickly. Details like left-handed green eyed flood plains only serves to delay.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
janesays
@Major Major Major Major: Oh, I don’t disagree with sending the checks out to everyone. I was just correcting someone who was under the impression that there were fewer than 50,000 millionaires in America.
Another Scott
@Frankensteinbeck: +1
Cheers,
Scott.
ET
My mother just tested positive. She got tested last Friday and just got the results back. 6 freaking days! And she is in the at-risk group and was only tested because she was (last Friday) in a known cluster at that time! 6 days! Definitely we can contain this if this is how things are going (end sarcasm)……. I would say I hope this is not how testing is going forward, but honestly I don’t have that much hope.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Another Scott:
In Greater Wingnutistan, the money will be used to buy more firearms and ammo.
Major Major Major Major
@ET: Oh no. Hugs & good vibes.
Brachiator
@negative 1:
Some reports are saying that the government is going to do much what they did with the Make Work Pay Credit. Use a threshold of $75,000 for singles and $150,000 for joint filers, based on prior year adjusted gross income. Sending a spew of cash to just everyone would be too expensive.
The payments will help many people to survive, but it is not going to provide much economic stimulus, which is OK. People will not be going on vacation, if they still have to largely stay home.
Other Suzanne
I am a lurker to Balloon Juice and thought I’d ask you fine folks for some advice. I am currently unemployed and just as the Covid-19 was taking over our lives, I was informed that my UC benefits will be ending 6 months early due to the fact I hadn’t made much money to begin with. How am I supposed to find a job now? What do I do? I’m single and I live alone, no kids. Can’t get thru to UC, lines are busy. I am freaking out!
Calgon, take me away!!!!
Brachiator
@Another Scott:
Good point. Some of these programs should be reviewed so that benefits will not be lost. I think when the ABLE program was established to help people, safeguards were put in place so that distributions from these plans would not result in a reduction in other benefits.
scav
Judging from the amount of pie I see scattered about the place suddenly, originating pie eaters come out to play anytime money is involved, but not when the cost is measured in lives. Life is too short to wade into the details, but the main point is nevertheless illuminating.
janesays
@low-tech cyclist:
Coronovirus Relief Package I:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronavirus_Preparedness_and_Response_Supplemental_Appropriations_Act,_2020, signed into law March 6, 2020. ~$8.5 billion.
Coronavirus Relief Package II:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Families_First_Coronavirus_Response_Act, signed into law March 18, 2020. ~$180 billion.
BR
@Baud:
Came here to say this.
Louise B.
I don’t consider myself rich, but I have a well paying job that I will not lose in this crisis. If I get a check from the feds, I will give half to the food bank and half to a charity serving the homeless.
Yutsano
@scav: But hey there’s pie! And CatCake! And now Pupcake!
Adrienne
I feel I’m pretty much screwed. I’ve worked as a “consultant” pretty much my entire adult working career. After this passes I’ll be looking into unemployment insurance, but my worry is now. Do we know if there is anything for people like me?
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator: Helping people pay rent is stimulative against a backdrop of people not being able to pay rent (to the degree that rent money enters the economy).
chopper
@negative 1:
just don’t look at the estimates for the next quarter.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Brachiator:
Fantastic. Despite flatlining all of my household income as a matter of law, my government is now telling me I somehow make too much money for relief.
I may as well start engaging in political violence and blowing shit up.
Frankensteinbeck
Oh, good lord. The Sanders Fan Club has decided that his not dropping out of the race means that he selflessly does not care about being elected, only solving the Coronavirus problem.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Adrienne:
You’re neither rich enough for concern from the political classes nor poor enough for care from Our Progressive Betters, so you get a sneering “nothing”, just like me.
CaseyL
I don’t understand why there’s a means testing part of the bill, and I don’t believe anything being reported about it – what have the Dems themselves said about it? Was it a sop they had to throw in to get GOP votes?
cain
@ET:
I posted this earlier today on twitter – “we are now at the zeitgeist of virus – where things are going to become real as friends and family – people you know – are going to catch the virus. It’s going to get emotional from here on in. Stay safe. Protect your family. Stay isolated.”
It’s going to be a shit show from here on in and the administration and congress are going to be scrutinized more than ever
Sending the best healing vibes in your mother’s direction. I hope she escapes this virus with her health intact. Best wishes.
Major Major Major Major
@CaseyL: At present there is no bill to analyze, so now is the time to write and call your congresscritters.
CaseyL
@Major Major Major Major: There’s so much disinformation, so much of it spread by trolls, that I will wait until the Democrats themselves say something.
ETA: Good point. My ‘critter is Jayapal, and I know she won’t go along with means testing.
Squid696
I worry about a lot of the bar workers. My wife worked as a bar tender for years and was paid as a contractor with no payroll taxes deducted. She did not make enough to set aside money for income taxes/self-employment taxes. Consequently, neither she (or most of her bartender friends) would submit their income taxes since they would have to pay a big chunk of income they didn’t have. Yes, that is wrong and illegal, but that is where a lot of bar staff are economically. So, I don’t think any of them will get anything from this.
cain
I’m going to ask my representative about the means testing bit and if she supports such a thing and why.
Brachiator
@Major Major Major Major:
In California, as an example, the proposed payments are a drop in the bucket. Fortunately, we have the ordinances in some cities and counties preventing personal and commercial evictions which may serve as an effective backstop.
These payments will help, without a doubt, but we are in new territory. What may happen is not even best described as a recession. The old ways of looking at the economy may not apply. We will see how economists adjust in describing what is happening.
The slowdown is severe. We don’t know the degree to which it may still accelerate.
Quick anecdote. The owner of a coffee shop where I have breakfast has noted that his business has declined by 80 percent now that he is no longer allowed to seat people. He closes at 3 pm instead of 7 pm. He has had to lay off two people.
News stories suggest that this is being repeated throughout the city, the state and the country. In the short term, the proposed cash payments will help people maintain, but may not provide much in the way of significant stimulus.
And of course, if the slowdown has to continue in order to deal with the corona virus, additional payments may be necessary.
terry chay
@schrodingers_cat: one is waiting for the other to drop out, or, if that never happens (Just like 2016) for the other to win an outright majority of first ballot delegates.
Due to rule changes and California moving up their primary, this will occurs in late April (after New York and others) instead of June.
Bernie could surprise us and drop out. But the dude is an almost 80 yo narcissist. Like Trump, he is totally predictable.
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator: Definitely uncharted waters. We can’t afford an extensive UBI but we can afford a few rounds probably.
My household is quite lucky–I’m in online advertising and my husband is in clinical trial software, which seem like safe industries–and I’m still super insecure about my own future.
A Ghost to Most
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Likely for hunting. i just bought an air rifle for that purpose. I haven’t hunted in 50 years, but rabbit is tasty when you’re hungry.
low-tech cyclist
@janesays: OK, that makes sense. I thought he was talking specifically about *stimulus* packages, so I wasn’t thinking at all about the bill from two weeks ago.
piratedan
@Frankensteinbeck: I gotta say that is so incredibly spot on that it should be part and parcel caveat to any reporting that’s done on Democratic proposals. About the only media outlet I take seriously these days is the few times I get to watch C-SPAN and actually hear what is being stated and proposed.
Everybody else is busy trying to tell you what they think the proposals are and you can’t even be sure how many of these folks paid attention in junior high civics… its bleeping maddening.
CaseyL
OK: I did just speak to Jayapal’s office. The aide says negotiations have just started, and she has heard nothing about what’s going to be in the bill.
I passed along the points that have been made here: that means testing from last year’s income is meaningless, because people who may have made a lot of $$ last year could be making very little this year; and that “wasting” $11-15 billion on giving rich people money is nothing compared to getting the $$ to people who need it.
I also said a case needs to be made – repeatedly, in public – to revoke the tax cuts.
I was friendly, reasonable, and she listened.
PenAndKey
It’s not that we can’t afford it. We can. It’s that the people who would have to pay the bulk of the taxes for it have the ears of the people who would write the laws in question more than you and I do.
Brachiator
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
I don’t know that the cash plans have been finalized. I am just passing on what I’ve been reading at tax and accounting resources.
Senate Republicans have objections to any help for individuals (as opposed to corporations). The income thresholds are part of a compromise.
There may be push back for a greater degree of help to more people.
This might get some attention. Not sure if it would otherwise help much.
It may be cold comfort, but seeing Trump and the GOP consider any degree of cash help to people instead of corporations is a significant shift to the left.
Fair Economist
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Means testing in a crisis like this is just nuts. There will be lots, LOTS of people like you making good money last year and nothing now – managers in hospitality, small business owners, professionals like lawyers, theater owners, etc. etc. Probably including my brother and his wife. Checks to everybody is the only solution. Taxable income if people get their undies in a twist about the few comfortable left getting a trivial 2k.
Ksmiami
The goddamn government needs to step in and hire all the cooks and waitstaff they can to work in hospitals at higher wages. At least those with ServSafe because most r great cleaners and can help with the meal prep, delivery and provisioning that will be required by full hospitals and hungry staff not to mention that restaurants should be selling their cleaning other supplies like gloves and dry storage stuff to medical centers rt now.
schrodingers_cat
@terry chay: Hillary Clinton did win a majority of the pledge delegates in 2016. What are you talking about.
MisterForkbeard
@Major Major Major Major: The only kind of means-testing I’d support is something REALLY broad, like “did you make more than 600k last year? Then you don’t get a one-time $4000 check.”
Simple, easy to verify, shouldn’t delay money going out for more than a few days. Helps the optics somewhat.
Also unnecessary, because the relative benefit for that is really low.
Major Major Major Major
@MisterForkbeard: Josh Barro suggested sending them to everybody and then starting a “return it if you don’t need it” campaign, which is obviously mostly a joke, but it would be funny to watch the deficit scolds not return their checks.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodingers_cat: I am sure Warren’s motive is nefarious. //
Fair Economist
@Other Suzanne: Honestly, call your Congresspeople. At this point the government has to help the millions in situations like you. Having enough people like you calling in will focus even Republican minds.
Maybe we could look at a BJ relief fund. A lot of posters are going to get squeezed
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus: Of course not, whatever it is it is brilliant strategy for she is never wrong and can only be wronged.
Ohio Mom
Another Scott and Brachiator: that’s a good point, people on SSI can’t have more than $2,000 in unsheltered assets. And the list of what counts as an asset is rather long, e.g., owning a burial plot is counted as an asset.
Some will have special needs trusts or ABLE accounts to stash their bailout payment in, but lots of people do not have trusts or ABLE accounts. Something will have to be arranged for these people.
Note to self: dig up file on Ohio Son’s ABLE account so we have what we need to make a quick deposit.
CaseyL
@Fair Economist: This is why I hate that members of Congress only pay attention to their own constituents (assuming they even do that; I know the GOP doesn’t). The bills they debate and enact affect everyone in the country, not just the people in their districts/states.
janesays
@terry chay: Unfortunately, that’s not quite true… Biden is currently at 1,180 delegates, which puts him 811 delegates short of an outright majority. Even if he were to win every single delegate between now and the end of April (he absolutely won’t, because of proportional allocation), he would still be 60 delegates shy of 1,991. More realistically, he’s likely to take about 60-65% of the delegates over the next six weeks (assuming Sanders hasn’t withdrawn), which will leave him roughly 250 delegates short of an outright majority. The soonest he can realistically have a mathematical clinch – even if he does extraordinarily well – is June 2nd.
Fair Economist
@ET: So sorry. Hope it’s a mild case with no spread.
Other Suzanne
@Fair Economist: Thanks for this. I will get right on it. I will report back any info I get.
tam1MI
Lucky for Nancy, Rand Paul is in the Senate.
Philbert
I emailed all my Congress critters NO MEANS TESTING. Last years income means nothing. For instance 75-79K last year for a couple both in hospitality jobs means laid off now. If Dems win, soak the rich later.
Another Scott
@Ohio Mom: Thanks for the ping about ABLE accounts. My dad wasn’t able to get one set up for my brother before he (my dad) passed away. I’ll have to ping his guardian to have them check into that…
Cheers,
Scott.
J R in WV
@Baud:
Can you imagine a means testing method that can be implemented — by this administration — that won’t be implemented slowly, ineffectively, and painfully? I can’t.
How do I know there would be delay — Trump is in charge! What more need to be said~!!~
J R in WV
@janesays:
There
areWERE about 11 million households in the U.S. with a net worth north of $1,000,000. Have you not seen the stock market reports that last two weeks?My definition of millionaire has changed over the past 30 years. Net worth isn’t part of the equation — net annual income of more than a million is my new definition.
You can burn a net worth of a million dollars on a single 1 bedroom apartment in San Francisco, New York, LA, etc, etc. It wouldn’t touch an apartment in London or Paris. And the monthly maintenance would burn up the million dollar annual income, too.
Get real !!