Great job by the Democrats. There was agita about the composition of the bill. But Dems went big, and—this is crucial—it seems nearly devoid of useless payouts to GOP constituencies; almost every dollar is about COVID, helping people who need help, & ramping up the economy
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) March 6, 2021
From the Washington Post, official paper of the company town where the monopoly industry is politics, “Biden stimulus showers money on Americans, sharply cutting poverty in defining move of presidency”:
President Biden’s stimulus package, which passed the Senate on Saturday, represents one of the most generous expansions of aid to the poor in recent history, while also showering thousands or, in some cases, tens of thousands of dollars on Americans families navigating the coronavirus pandemic.
The roughly $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, which only Democrats supported, spends most of the money on low-income and middle-class Americans and state and local governments, with very little funding going toward companies. The plan is one of the largest federal responses to a downturn Congress has enacted and economists estimate it will boost growth this year to the highest level in decades and reduce the number of Americans living in poverty by a third.
This round of aid enjoys wide support across the country, polls show, and it is likely to be felt quickly by low- and moderate-income Americans who stand to receive not just larger checks than before, but money from expanded tax credits, particularly geared toward parents; enhanced unemployment; rental assistance; food aid and health insurance subsidies…
The total numbers are staggering. Cumulatively, the government will hand out $2.2 trillion to workers and families between the relief passed last year and this latest bill, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan group. That’s equivalent to what the government spends annually on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid combined…
The Democratic stimulus package also provides significant funding for vaccine distribution and state and local governments. Business and health leaders say getting most Americans vaccinated is key to the economic recovery. But most of the attention on the bill has focused on its overall price tag and the payments that are set to go to about 150 million American households.
The latest stimulus will reduce poverty by a third, lifting nearly 13 million Americans out of it, according to an analysis by Columbia University’s Center on Poverty and Social Policy. Black Americans, Hispanic Americans and poor families with children are set to benefit the most. Child poverty would be reduced by more than half, the researchers predict…
BREAKING: Senate Dems pass Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus
Biggest provisions:
— $1,400 checks per adult & kid
— Unemployment @ $300 thru Sept. 6
— $350 billion for cities, states, tribes
— $3K/yr per kid 6-17, $3,600 kids 0-6
— $170B for schools
— $100B public health— Jeff Stein (@JStein_WaPo) March 6, 2021
Biden with a fairly overt contrast in his remarks on the Senate passage of the Covid bill: “When I was elected, I said I was going to get the government out of the business of battling on Twitter and back in the business of governing for the people.”
— Sam Stein (@samstein) March 6, 2021
A lot had to fall in place to enable the $1.9T price tag but this was a crucial moment: January 9, 2021 — Joe Biden made the case that deficits don’t matter right now and Dems must go big. It changed the frame of the debate.https://t.co/oooXwAKQ3K
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) March 6, 2021
This is also really important. And it’s worth remembering back to CARES that eligibility expanded significantly. A lot of gig workers & people who haven’t earned much or worked many weeks are getting UI they wouldn’t have were it not for this change https://t.co/zJlyGlqh86
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) March 6, 2021
Honestly, that puts (or better, keeps) money in pockets now. Not doing it means most people, when faced with a big bill next month, would be sure Biden raised taxes.
— Malaclypse (@Mal_A_Clypse) March 6, 2021
Breaking: Senate Majority Leader Schumer Has Advanced Merrick Garland’s Nomination To a Final Vote
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
uno
Jeffro
Frist?? ETA: NOPE!!!
debbie
Experience has its benefits.
Brachiator
This has been a good week. I got my vaccine jab. Biden is getting his big bill passed. And this will be a ripe topic for the clowns on the Sunday shows.
I hope the Democratic Party guests remind the pundits that “bipartisan” means helping all the people, not just making GOP Senators happy.
cain
Congratulations to our fellow Democrats! This is a Big Fucking Deal!
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
@Jeffro: if you’re not frist, you’re last
cain
@Jeffro:
My boy, you need to embrace the #2. That’s where all the shit is.
Omnes Omnibus
Take a victory lap and spike the football, Congressional Dems. Then let’s do voting rights.
Baud
I would like to thank Republicans for passing their tax cut for rich people with no Democratic votes. I think that helped give the Dem stragglers the fortitude to go big here.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
Do a victory lap!
ETA: Time to gloat!
Chetan Murthy
Oh wow, they changed the tax code retroactively to make these UI benefits non-taxable? That’s *excellent*!
Kent
We are also finally averaging over 2 million vaccinations per day. Which is a big fucking deal. The numbers keep creeping upward and I expect we will soon hit 3 million. There is a huge expansion in vaccination efforts here in my area now that supplies are starting to shake loose.
Biden is going to blow WAY past his 100 million vaccinations in his first 100 days. He’s been president for 45 days and our vaccine numbers are up to 57.4 million already vaccinated with at least one dose.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
Chuck Schmur was masterful in his parliamentary moves: using the absence of republicans on the floor to cut scheduled debate from 20 hrs to 3 hours; forcing capitulation on endless amendments by forcing an around the clock session (did anyone see the video of Turtle’s face, when he realized he’d been outfoxed); and once again using the absence of republicans on the floor to end Tom Cotton’s filibuster on Merrick Garland.
WHAM! BAM! POW!!
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Do we need to get pom-poms?
debbie
A Big Biden Deal = 70% approval rating for ARP.
Bill
Well, if I had known the that the UI benefits weren’t going to be taxed retroactively I wouldn’t have had to make any estimated payments, nor would I have had to pay any ACA premiums or deductibles. So no, I wouldn’t have been surprised by any tax liability, but it is nice that they made the change.
dmsilev
@Kent: We’re well on track to hit Biden’s ‘stretch’ goal of 150 million doses given out in his first 100 days.
So, yeah. Long way to go still, but the progress is very real and the pace is relentlessly accelerating.
dr. bloor
@Brachiator:
I can’t remember where I saw it–maybe here, in the previous thread, that someone said we should ready ourselves for the “stimulus overheating the economy” elves on the Sunday teevee shows.
JMG
First rule of sports: No such thing as a bad win. Let’s enjoy it until Monday. While ordinarily I would never recommend this, the Sunday gabfests full of wailing Republicans will help keep the high going until Monday.
Kent
@dr. bloor: Because a little economic overheating would be such a bad thing
In any event, I heard on NPR’s Marketplace yesterday that we have clawed all the way back to an economic and employment level which equals the WORST point of the Great Recession in 2008. So we are quite a ways from getting overheated at the moment.
Ken
Whoa, whoa. Democrats on the Sunday shows? Things really are changing.
Xavier
Republicans are pissed because it showers money on the wrong people.
raven
@JMG: Go Illini!!!
dmsilev
@JMG: To quote a noted Republican,
The Sunday talk shows are the modern equivalent.
PsiFighter37
Good day today. Also happy that Schumer tricked the GOP and pushed forward Cabinet nominations being pointlessly stalled by the GOP. They are such idiots. I still don’t have the highest opinion of Schumer as Minority Leader, but he knows politics – he crushed D’Amato in 1998, and he visits every county in NY…there’s a reason why a Brooklyn kid like him crushes statewide elections since then. He was also responsible for turning a 55-45 Republican majority after 2004 into a 60-40 Democratic majority after 2008. He’s a smart political cat. And frankly, so is Rahm – he should’ve turned down Obama’s offer and lined up enough chits to kick out Hoyer and be in line for Speaker. But alas, he wanted to be mayor of Chicago, and now his domestic political career is shot…but there are worse endings than living in Beijing or (much better yet) Tokyo.
Brachiator
@dr. bloor:
Let me repeat what I wrote in the other thread about “overheating the economy.”
I expect that the Sunday shows will have the usual gang of idiots blabbering variations of conventional wisdom.
But I would love to ask: how can you “overstimulate” an economy that is still shut down in many places?
Short answer: you can’t.
And Fed chair Powell has consistently argued for more stimulus.
Conservatives just look for any excuse to defend what they think is a need for smaller government. This also means a government that mainly watches out for the interests of the plutocrats.
But logic and economic common sense argues that you need to help people who have lost income and jobs because of the disruptions caused by the deliberate shutdown of the economy.
But there are even too many economists who insist on applying out-of-date analyses to an extraordinary situation.
And the worst of the worst appear on Sunday shows (Krugman excepted).
Ken
@dr. bloor: @Brachiator: Another comeback might be “Fortunately we have the evidence of the Trump tax cuts, which despite giving people a huge amount of money had absolutely no stimulative effect.”
lowtechcyclist
The Dems need to have an ad campaign, letting people know about all the goodies that are part of this bill, and driving home the point that this was passed entirely by Dems, and not a single GQP Senator or Representative wanted to give them a freakin’ penny.
The media aren’t going to tell the story of who came through for them, and who did their damnedest to block this bill. The story will only be told if the Dems do it. They should be talking about it every time a mic is in front of them (until it’s time to switch the topic to voting rights), and there should be ads in media markets in swing states or with swing districts.
We need to fucking BOAST about having gotten this done!
James E Powell
Most everyone I follow on twitter is either in music or sports. But occasionally a political take pops through. Today, some guy from Mumford & Sons endorsed a book by a guy named Andy Ngo – who I think I’ve heard of here – entitled Unmasked: Inside Antifa’s Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy.
I really want to laugh, but there are too many people who are too far gone who believe in shit like this. Has anyone ever established whether Antifa even exists as an organization and, if so, if there are more than a hundred people involved with it?
Bill Arnold
@dr. bloor:
The Federal Reserve has tools to deal with an overheated economy. Any such talk should be dismissed with contempt.
lowtechcyclist
@Ken:
FTFY. :^)
James E Powell
@Bill Arnold:
It should be, but that’s not how the Sunday shows work. The producers invite Republicans who have well-established reputations as liars, those Republicans spout their lies, then the host thanks them for their time.
dr. bloor
@Kent:
Chuckles Todd’s enthusiastic response to this argument is correlated +1.0 with the absurdity of the argument.
Bill Arnold
@James E Powell:
I’m hoping for a pleasant surprise tomorrow. :-)
The talking-heads media have been waking up a bit in the US over the last 4 years. They still often keep hitting the snooze button, but not always.
PsiFighter37
@Bill Arnold: Inflation hasn’t been an issue since the early 1980s. I would gladly like to see inflation ‘overheat’ again – it would be a signal that the old economic measures and thought school still had some meaning. If it doesn’t, we are in a brave new world, and MMT will be the guidepost going forward…and we do not have any idea how it turns out. Unless we use Japan as a guide, and it is not going well for them.
Brachiator
@Kent:
I enjoy Marketplace and Planet Money and a couple of other shows, but some economists (including some of the analysts at the Federal Reserve St Louis and a couple of other places) note how what is happening now is not like a classic recession.
The biggest thing, of course, is that this is not an economic downturn. The economy was shut down.
Side note: it has been interesting to see how much society can get along with a lot of sectors shut down.
Economic activity is very asymmetric. Remote work allows a lot of economic activity, but massive sectors have been hit, and some may not recover. Unemployment has been high.
There is a huge amount of pent-up demand. In Southern California and other places, when bars and restaurants were open up again, people flocked to them and spent money.
Still a lot of businesses that involve mixing in social spaces are shut down. And the people who work there, often lower paid than people doing remote work, make up more of the unemployed.
Marketplace episodes may have noted that women are comprising a lot of the unemployed.
Anyway, despite the yammering of some economists that we need to encourage consumer spending, people who get stimulus checks also pay rent, pay down debt and maintain themselves, and hopefully will make it easier to get back to work or find jobs when the economy can fully bounce back, assuming that we get the virus under control.
And Biden’s relief bill should significantly help people maintain and move ahead when things get better. And it will provide a lot of relief to lower income families.
Overheating the economy is not an issue.
James E Powell
@Kent:
Duncan Black at Atrios keeps track of this. We are coming up on 50 straight weeks of new unemployment claims greater than the worst week of the Great Recession.
By the way, why don’t we call that the Bush Recession?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@James E Powell:
Oh fuck. I like Mumford and Sons. Ngo is a fascist
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@James E Powell:
I’ve always wondered how a conversation with these producers, calling them out for this shit would go
James E Powell
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I had no idea who he was. I checked his bio on wikipedia and someone added that he was a fascist. It’s since been removed, but it still says he’s a fan of that book.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Brachiator:
It’d make for an interesting thought experiment how the world would’ve fared with the pandemic in past decades. Like the 1990s and earlier when technology was once more primitive. Hell, even in the 2000s remote work via the internet would’ve been more difficult
mrmoshpotato
Are 1400 dollar bills going to come flying out of my showerhead in the near future?
Brachiator
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Remote teaching, remote working, Amazon and other Internet delivery, and restaurant food delivery services went a long way toward making the pandemic endurable.
And Zoom. Zoom. Zoom. Zoom.
I listen to some British podcast comedy shows. The guest and audience all appear via Zoom. Otherwise, these shows might have had to shut down. Some tried without an audience. No fun.
Musicians and other artists got hit hard. I have a musician relative who made up for missed work by teaching guitar via Zoom.
Amir Khalid
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
The Mumford and Sons name is a blatant lie. Marcus Mumford has only one son, and he’s three years old. And Carey Mulligan is far too young to be the mother of those other guys in the band.
Baud
@Brachiator:
And Balloon Juice!
Geminid
@debbie: 70%?!! This is the best kind of bipartisanship in my book: taking the lead on a measure supported by many independents and Republicans as well as Democrats, and leaving Congressional Republicans flatfooted.
gwangung
@Brachiator: Theatre folks, from Equity to fringe to community theatre, also got hit hard. My NYC friends tell me that 2/3 of the jobs in the theatre world are gone, and it will take years to rebuild everything.
Brachiator
@Baud:
Yes. I hated the pandemic. Hated it more knowing that its worst effects could have been avoided.
And it had been infuriating to see this thing spread, to go from a rumor to an expanding menace that sickened and killed people. I would read comments here of how people were dealing with it, how sometimes it affected friends and family.
And I appreciated how folk here understood what this thing was, and were all on the same page when it came to keeping themselves and family as safe as possible.
AL’s daily collection of key links and stories about the pandemic has been invaluable.
There probably have been other blogs and Twitter feeds and FaceBook pages dedicated to the pandemic.
But the material here, and the people, have all been essential in helping me maintain.
Another Scott
The framing of the WP story is infuriating to these eyes.
“stimulus” – it’s not a stimulus, it’s a rescue
“generous” – implies charity, and often undeserved charity. It’s not charity.
“showering” – implies willy-nilly wasteful spending, rather than directed spending. It’s not.
“The total numbers are staggering.” – No they’re not. Does the US spend “staggering” amounts on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid? The US economy imploded (again) because of GOP mismanagement of the pandemic. A huge hole was knocked in the economy and because the economy is so large it takes a lot of money to fill that hole and make repairs.
Grr…
Similarly, Kapur’s tweet – “and told deficit hawks to shove it.”
There are no no such thing as GOP “deficit hawks”.
Grr…
Framing matters.
With all of that said, it’s a good day and Biden and the Democrats have a good reason to be proud of the accomplishment. Cheer and move on to the next challenge and get it done.
Cheers,
Scott.
Cameron
@mrmoshpotato: Biden=money shower. Trump=golden shower.
WhatsMyNym
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): You had these things called First Class mail and telephones. There were more shops located nearby. Manufacturing was actually done in this country. There was less international travel by airplane. Radio, TV, and newspapers all could deliver info into folks homes.
Aussie sheila
A bit late to the party, but a hearty congrats to all the Dems who fought so hard last to vote, and it’s good to see the hard work rewarded with this success today. 2020 was a wretched year for everyone, particularly for US people battling a homicidal leader and a nihilistic repub party, but it looks like the sun maybe coming out to shine for you this year.
Well done and best wishes all.
Brachiator
@WhatsMyNym:
Ugh. This all sounds so primitive. Instead of a blog, you would have to write individual letters to people and wait days for a response.
danielx
But…but…my partisanship! /
Fuck bipartisanship. Smokin’ Joe deserves a victory lap or three, and so does Schumer. Between AFA and the Merrick Garland move, this has been a good weekend so far. In regard to the latter, I can think of so many items on Garland’s to-do list to which I’m looking forward. I hope McConnell is crying into his bourbon and branch water this evening, turtle faced fascist shitbag that he is.
danielx
@Brachiator:
Truth! Can you imagine not being able to cast insults with a few keystrokes?
Cue Homer Simpson trying to buy a pistol: “Three day waiting period? Ohhh, but I’m angry NOW!”
Hoppie
@Brachiator: Replacing bipartisanship with bypassGOPship is long overdue.
rikyrah
The GOP showed themselves once again. But, we didn’t waste time on them. We have learned from experience
rikyrah
Millions will be helped ??????
rikyrah
@Brachiator:
Yeah on your shot
Hoppie
@PsiFighter37: Ironically, Mitch may have helped Chuck beat Al.
Mitch, in charge of the Repuke Senate campaign funds, was desperate enough to install Jim Bunning as his sidekick in the Senate that he spent vast quantities to beat Scotty Baesler – back when Kentucky was still competitive – by a smidge. But he did it by shortchanging other rethug candidates, including Al D’Amato and Lauch Faircloth, hence Schumer and John Edwards.
Could D’Amato have used more money? Sure. Would it have helped? Who knows, but more cash would probably have beaten Edwards.
Jeffro
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch: dang it
@cain: DANG IT
Jeffro
Yup. Upsets their paradigm in so very many ways…let us savor…
Soprano2
So did they pass restrictions on the money to states and cities? Asking for my boss, who wants at least $200 or $300 million to do work on our sewers. I heard the Republicans were trying to keep states from spending it on pension funds. They sure do hate that government workers still have pensions. They wanna force all of us into 401k’s.
frosty
@Baud: This is a big point. The Rs stepped in their own shit passing that 1.9 trillion tax cut and gave Ds a reason to pass this one.
The Fat White Duchess
@Brachiator: Many musicians are making a living via Zoom, at least in the acoustic/folk world. (And one could arge that they’ve never made a living before…) Tonight we watched a show by James Keelaghan, and we could watch favorites every evening (and some days) were we so inclined.
frosty
@Brachiator: Dead thread but I agree with all of this. Unlike a year ago I can read AL’s morning thread and not be afraid to get out of bed now!
StringOnAStick
@Soprano2: I’m hoping the money lets state and local government fund priorities and stop any layoffs, thus directing what money they still had into pension funds.
IMHO, states switching to PERA systems and out of SS was part off the plan to kill SS by balkinizing government employee retirement plans, many of which have not recovered from the 2008 economic debacle. Funny how Goldman Sachs and many others had no qualms at all about selling the CDO’s and like crap to PERA systems while they were busy betting against what they were selling.
the pollyanna from hell
A pandemic in mid to late 90’s would have found me just as much on the internet. The flame-wars of ars made light reading for my idle hours.
aliasofwestgate
@the pollyanna from hell: mid to late 90s, chat rooms would have been absolutely overloaded and humming away. More than they already were. That’s not even counting the endless amounts of forums going on.
Blogging has taken over as a way to do things, but we’re always social creatures. If it was the early 90s, i bet party lines for phones would have gotten popular again as a way to speak with several people at once. They had just started to fall out of popularity then. Afterwards, the internet took over. I’m honestly glad about the net.