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from the a-billion-here-a-billion-there-pretty-soon-you're-talking-about-real-money dept.
Biden signs $1.9 trillion stimulus bill, making $1,400 checks and child tax credit official:
President Joe Biden on Thursday signed the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package, which includes a third stimulus check, for up to $1,400, and an expanded child tax credit. The IRS and Treasury will begin to send the new stimulus checks as soon as this weekend, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday at a press briefing.
The bill signing comes just one day after the amended bill passed in the House by a vote of 220-211. The House initially passed the bill on Feb. 26, and the Senate approved it last week, albeit with some changes.
[...] Democrats had been pushing to get the stimulus package signed into law before current unemployment benefits expire March 14. Biden was originally scheduled to sign the bill on Friday, but it got moved forward after Congress sent the final bill to the president more quickly than anticipated, Psaki said on Thursday.
The stimulus package, called the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, includes changes made by the Senate last week, such as reducing income limits for the third stimulus payment and lowering proposed weekly unemployment benefits from $400 a week to $300 a week (though they'd extend through Sept. 6 rather than the end of August). The Senate also dropped a federal minimum wage increase from the legislation, but proponents say they'll reintroduce that at a later date.
How to watch President Biden's national address tonight.
House passes $1.9 trillion Covid relief bill, sends it to Biden to sign:
[...] Here are the proposal's major pieces:
- It extends a $300 per week jobless aid supplement and programs making millions more people eligible for unemployment insurance until Sept. 6. The plan also makes an individual's first $10,200 in jobless benefits tax-free.
- The bill sends $1,400 direct payments to most Americans and their dependents. The checks start to phase out at $75,000 in income for individuals and are capped at people who make $80,000. The thresholds for joint filers are double those limits. The government will base eligibility on Americans' most recent filed tax return.
- It expands the child tax credit for one year. It will increase to $3,600 for children under 6 and to $3,000 for kids between 6 and 17.
- The plan puts about $20 billion into Covid-19 vaccine manufacturing and distribution, along with roughly $50 billion into testing and contact tracing.
- It adds $25 billion in rental and utility assistance and about $10 billion for mortgage aid.
- The plan offers $350 billion in relief to state, local and tribal governments.
- The proposal directs more than $120 billion to K-12 schools.
- It increases the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefit by 15% through September.
- The bill includes an expansion of subsidies and other provisions to help Americans afford health insurance.
- It offers nearly $30 billion in aid to restaurants.
- The legislation expands an employee retention tax credit designed to allow companies to keep workers on payroll.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Thursday March 11 2021, @11:26PM (149 children)
This is a very popular bill and zero Republicans voted for it.
I would like to think voters will remember that by the time we get to the midterms but who knows...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 11 2021, @11:36PM (11 children)
"I would like to think voters will remember that by the time we get to the midterms but who knows..."
Dang, you really are a "funny" dude, eh.
When times turn hard, we become tribal, focusing on scapegoat. In America, it became racial.
...
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday March 12 2021, @12:09AM (10 children)
Jews became afraid of a mass-awakening as a result of Occupy Wall Street and the public anger surrounding it, so they used a classic divide-and-conquer trick of introducing identity politics and the infighting it brought. After seeing how successful woke bullshit was in collapsing the movement, they decided to apply it to the entire U.S. Fortunately, we're not as stupid as Jews are self-unaware.
They spent months letting their pets riot all over the place in the hope that some of those evil White supremacists they claim are everywhere would get together and put a stop to the nonsense, but all they got was a handful of unarmed frat-boys and a clown in a buffalo hat, and then they tried to spin that as an "insurrection" (Jewish Trick #37: Accuse others of doing to you what you've been doing to them the whole time, also known as the "hit-you-OW!" principle).
The hilarious part is that these dumbasses claim to be champions of the common man after totally destroying what was left of the middle-class with riots and hoax lockdowns and further enriching their corporate backers such as Disney and Amazon while consolidating the power of warmongering neocons. #RESIST LOL. I hope y'all swallowing that poison-pill was worth it, because we have at least a few more years of popcorn-worthy happenings on the way.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @12:13AM
Eat bean burrito, twice a day.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @12:59AM
in 1991 .
(Score: 5, Informative) by shortscreen on Friday March 12 2021, @01:35AM (6 children)
Replace "Jews" with "neoliberals" and then you'd have a decent post without the stench of flamebait.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday March 12 2021, @03:25AM (4 children)
Modded +1 Informative, and I have no idea who modded you Flamebait for that or *why.* It makes perfect sense.
Eth is very clearly missing a few screws. I don't know all that much about his history, but about 3 years ago he seems to have disappeared into the anus of his own troll-sona and now appears to believe everything he types.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Friday March 12 2021, @05:14AM (3 children)
I challenge the assumption that anyone on the internet who acts racist is anything other than racist.
The idea that there are neckbeards out there saying racists stuff for the lulz may have been true in 1995 but these days you should just take people at their word.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @11:35AM (2 children)
That's not how you challenge an assumption. Your explanation can't just be "it used to be this, now it's this".
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @06:23PM
Yes it can. Are you one of the "not so bad ones" that thinks racist trolling is funny while sulposedly not being racist?
(Score: 2) by https on Friday March 12 2021, @11:22PM
To be fair to DeathMonkey, racist neckbeards were posting racist shit on the internet in 1995, for the lulz. Your whoosh gets 9/10.
Offended and laughing about it.
(Score: 2) by legont on Friday March 12 2021, @01:37PM
Anglozionists, perhaps?
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @03:00PM
Ah, but I _do_ love a kosher reuben sandwich! [thejewishkitchen.com]
--
In a hundred years (or less), everyone reading this post will have passed away. Plan accordingly.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 11 2021, @11:41PM (31 children)
It's only "popular" because "muh 1400 dollars".
If the average Joe knew what a giveaway to special interests this bill was, it would not be so "popular".
Only 9% of the money in this bill is directed towards Covid relief.
The fact that zero Repubs voted for it should give one at least a smidgeon of curiosity as to why not.
Cue default/knee-jerk; Republicans are bad m'kay.
That's all you need to know, dear....shhhh go back to sleep.
(Score: 5, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Thursday March 11 2021, @11:53PM (3 children)
If you click [Continues...] in the article above you will see that your claim is a blatant lie.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday March 12 2021, @12:12AM (2 children)
Sweet, I'm glad L.A. and Chicago got their pension bailouts. Who needs accounting?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Acabatag on Friday March 12 2021, @02:48AM (1 child)
The funny part is that the blue-city/state pension bailouts are going to people who don't even live in those areas anymore. It's going to retirees who have relocated to red states like Florida and Texas.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday March 12 2021, @03:38AM
Vote no then take the dough!
--Nancy Pelosi (paraphrased)
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @12:19AM
Many republicans voted against it because the aid given to the states is substantially a big fat giveaway - but prohibits states from cutting taxes as a consequence of the giveaway.
Aside from the constitutional questions that raises, the states with the biggest problems to solve with fat blocks of money, without lowering taxes, are blue states.
And even if you think that's all wonderful and groovy, the whole thing is a twelve-zero piling on when we know perfectly well that the only thing that makes it possible is rampant money-printing (and bond-buying) by the Fed. Many people see this as a problem - not even only republicans. In fact, quite a few union economists are complaining that the real inflation rate isn't what D.C. says it is, to the detriment of their members.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Friday March 12 2021, @01:19AM (25 children)
🙄
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday March 12 2021, @04:09AM (24 children)
41% of their voters like the bill. [pewresearch.org]
So the curiosity is more about why 0% of their representatives voted yes.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @05:57AM
Many Republicans Congress Critters are already trying to claim credit for all the good things that are in it. It is kind of hilarious how obvious they are, but it is more tragic given how successful it will be.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 12 2021, @06:19AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @02:22PM (20 children)
It's called demagoguery. If a bill managed to reach the president's desk that would set the tax rate on the first $80,000 of income for everybody at $0, then it'd have widespread support even among democrats - in spite of the fact that it would be harmful for the programs they support. And similarly here. It takes somebody of strong character to say they simply don't want free money because giving such is likely to damage the country. And most people, especially now a days, have the character of rodents, or monkeys as it may be.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @03:10PM (15 children)
Wake up, Republicans are only fiscally conservative when they are not in power. The spend more money the Dems anytime they are in power. The only reason they are opposing this is because the dems are in power so they must vote against whatever dems want.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by EEMac on Friday March 12 2021, @04:42PM
I wish you were wrong. Both sides play the game! When you're in power, spend spend spend. .When the other group is in power, have a cow about the deficit/budget.
Where it *really* gets interesting: observe what both sides agree to spend money on, with little or no debate.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @04:42PM (13 children)
Bill Gates is the largest owner of farmland in the United States.
Weird response to your post isn't it? The reason this is a bad idea has nothing to do with fiscal responsibility, which is more of a broad imperative. There's a very specific issue here. That money in your wallet, on your card, and in your bank account? It means nothing. It has no value, it is based on nothing. If the government genuinely sought to do so, they could give every single person a check for a million dollars tomorrow. Of course we'd completely destroy our own economy, not only from outside (as other nations realized the US dollar was basically trash) but also on the inside. The real problem would not just be the hyper-inflation that would result, but people realizing that those dollars they work their entire life to earn, that people are killed over on a daily basis, have absolutely no "real" value. It's all a matter of perception.
When you start printing large amounts of money and giving it to people, you risk ruining the shared illusion of the value of the dollar. If that illusion is ever cracked, "everybody" becomes worth approximately $0 overnight. I put "everybody" in quotes because the rich are already well aware of this. They are going to be deeply diversified into both non-US assets, and assets that have inherent value independent of economic whims, like farmland. Consequently, and as usual, only the poor and middle class would be negatively affected. The moment people decide 'You know, I think I'd rather just have the government give me some more money than go back and do a job I don't really like.' is the moment the economy for these groups is destroyed.
The rich are actively advocating for all of these policies (which stand to greatly enrich them if they work out) while simultaneously prepping for collapse, because they fully understand the risks involved in what we're doing. By contrast most people have no clue and are just thinking 'wheeee $1400 more'.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday March 13 2021, @12:49AM (2 children)
So what's your solution to this?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 13 2021, @04:41PM (1 child)
For whom? For you or for myself? Do what you've been claiming you plan on doing for years, or what I have already done. Get out of the US, detach yourself from assets dependent upon the stability of the US. Then enjoy life without a people going batshit insane, cheaper prices on everything, and in most countries even greater entrepreneurial possibilities than back home.
For the US? Even if there were a solution, it wouldn't matter. Not a thing I said is surprising or controversial to those with wealth and influence. They're happy to run these experiments because they believe even if the US collapses, that they can come out on the top of whatever that "collapse" translates to in practice. And they're probably right. If these experiments work out they win, if these experiments crash the country they win. This formula's not getting changed.
For those within the US who cannot leave? Drop the mindset that prepping is for far right or conspiracy types or whatever else. There is a reason all of the elites are prepping, that Bezos is buying up land + citizenship in New Zealand, etc.. The US collapsing is a very real possibility. What does that mean? I've no idea. But keeping your wealth in stuff with value independent of the market (home, land, physical "stuff"), and having supplies to live very comfortably for an extended period of time without access to public resources (like electricity) is very easy to do. Even if you're 99.9% sure nothing will ever happen, you don't want to be caught with your pants down in that 1 in 1000. Even just going out and buying 5kg bags of rice + beans + gallons of water + blankets + basic first aid + costs basically nothing, and gives you vastly more security than without.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday March 13 2021, @11:26PM
So we're basically thinking along the same lines, then :/ How awful, that it's come to this. I really hope Halifax is even practicable, because as much as I like Hamilton based on the research I've done, even *that* may be too close to the center of all this. Never fear, emigration plans are on track--actually slightly ahead of schedule, financially--for mid-2022. Would be earlier if I hadn't insisted on getting my mother out of NYC and settling her here in Buffalo this summer.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by linuxrocks123 on Saturday March 13 2021, @03:44AM (3 children)
One falsehood at a time:
- The dollar has intrinsic value because the US government will accept it for payment of taxes owed to it.
- The government does not "print money" when it goes into debt. Treasury bonds are sold to private investors, and the money taken from them is recirculated into the economy through government spending. Therefore, no new dollars are created this way.
- The Federal Reserve expands the money supply by purchasing Treasury bonds on the secondary market, putting new dollars into the economy when it pays the investors it bought the bonds from, and contracts the money supply by selling bonds on the secondary market, destroying dollars by taking them from the investors it sold the bonds to. It does these things with a motivation to manage inflation and unemployment, not in order to finance the government.
Stuff you said that's true:
- Bill Gates is indeed the largest individual owner of farmland in the United States, but it's less than 1% of his net worth, and I speculate that his recent purchases are more tied to his charity's recent interest in improving third-world farming techniques than because he's preparing for an apocalypse.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 13 2021, @04:26PM (2 children)
Intrinsic means value in and of itself. Who will or will not accept money has nothing to do with whether what you're trading has any actual *intrinsic* value. For instance, in prisons cigarettes are often used as a currency - even by people who do not smoke. The reason they have intrinsic value is not because people will accept them for trade, but because people want those cigarettes in and of themselves to personally utilize outside of trade or negotiation. Dollars by contrast, have no intrinsic value whatsoever. In an economic collapse you could have a pile of a trillion dollars stretching miles into the sky and the best use you might find for it is to burn it for heat/energy.
And yes, we do literally print money when we go into debt. Treasuries are considered liquid assets due to the direct convertibility to the dollar and so, for instance, banks are able to use these treasuries are part of their margin requirements for lending, identically to cash. And then *on top of that* the government also tosses out $x trillion as well. The net result is an increase in the monetary supply. You can see this rather visibly here [stlouisfed.org]. Our monetary supply is skyrocketing out of control, and at this point we're simply *hoping* nothing bad happens.
And similar for your "optimistic" view of Bill gates. Two choices:
1) Buy hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland at an ultra-premium price in a first-world country with different climate/weather/soil requirements, and numerous regulatory/contractual requirements, to try to test third-world farming techniques.
2) Buy a small to moderate amount of land in the exact area with the exact conditions and exact soil you want to learn to develop, for a minuscule fraction of the price and minimal/no regulatory burdens on top.
You don't even need occam's razor, you simply need to compare alternatives to realize your proposition is obviously incorrect.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 13 2021, @09:02PM
Such as the being the accepted tender for payment of debts to the US government. This box is checked.
(Score: 2) by linuxrocks123 on Monday March 15 2021, @11:53PM
As sibling poster has stated, people want to use dollars to pay debts to the government. That is their intrinsic value.
You're moving the definitional goal posts here. Your original claim was that hyperinflation would result if people realized dollars didn't have "real" value. But dollars do have "real" value to people because they can use them to pay their taxes. Attempting to quibble over the definition of "intrinsic value" distracts from the point that dollars have real enough value that people can and do use them for a purpose other than trade, which is the only value dollars need to have to negate your original claim.
By the way, any fool can see that an actual dollar bill has no industrial or consumptory value. Everyone knows they are fundamentally tokens created by society as a convenient value store. The thing you think is a secret isn't, so there's no "big lie" here. What, did you think you were the only human who ever lived who was intelligent enough to realize dollar bills were made out of paper?
I was very careful with my language. I said "no new dollars were created". Yes, fiscal policy can affect the money supply, although the Federal Reserve can use monetary policy to dampen that if it wants. But the actual number of dollars issued by the Federal Reserve, either through printed physical notes or through the electronic balance sheets at Federal Reserve Banks, does not change through this.
"Printing money" would be the Federal Reserve issuing Federal Reserve Notes to finance the purchase of first-issue Treasuries. It's prohibited by law from doing this; instead, it purchases Treasuries on the secondary market when it wants to expand the money supply.
Did you just make that up? I'm almost certain that's not true and that the reserves have to be actual cash held in a vault or electronic cash held at the nearest Federal Reserve Bank. Given the function of the reserve requirement, it really wouldn't make sense to allow anything else to be used. The reserve requirement is literally zero right now anyway, so it doesn't matter at the moment, but I really think you're wrong about this.
https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/reservereq.htm [federalreserve.gov]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Reziac on Saturday March 13 2021, @05:44AM
"Bill Gates is the largest owner of farmland in the United States."
People have asked why.. what's he up to?
Someone pointed out that Louis Farrakhan is receiving farm subsidies because he is likewise a "farmer".
Follow the money.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 13 2021, @07:32PM (4 children)
Squandering a currency has tremendous cost which I think you adequately cover, but we have plenty of examples of hyperinflation. It doesn't completely destroy the economy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 13 2021, @08:15PM
Hahaha. Fair enough. As bizarro world reaches its climax, we become the guys running gold farming business on Chinese MMOs to sell for a few Yuan, because it ends up being more than you'd make working a real job!
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday March 13 2021, @08:34PM (2 children)
:-) The day is still young. The madness of Wall Street's Zimbabwe dollars is coming to a store near you.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 13 2021, @09:01PM (1 child)
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday March 13 2021, @09:11PM
No, it will just be stolen by the banks to be handed over to giant agricultural conglomerates.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @05:07PM (3 children)
the decadence narrative
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 13 2021, @04:46PM (2 children)
No, more like self indulgence. And it's not a narrative, it's reality. The easiest measurable metric is obesity. Nobody wants to become obese, and you don't become obese without over-indulgence, by definition. Yet we're rapidly reaching the point that the *majority* of the nation will be obese. People are losing any notion of self control, discipline, or restraint.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14 2021, @02:13AM (1 child)
Not necessarily true. A significant number of obese are likely due to bacterial infection. If efficiency jumps, and nobody tells you, is it your fault when you become obese?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14 2021, @01:51PM
By efficiency I assume you mean energy efficiency.
And yes, it's your fault. Anybody over the age of 30, perhaps 40 at the latest has experienced that your 'energy efficiency' changes dramatically, and what is technically in a very good way. Your body is able to produce enough energy for your day-to-day consumption with far fewer calories. Awesome survival benefit. But of course this also means that if you keep eating what you used to, you will become overweight, and gradually obese.
And it sucks. I *love* eating, and my wife is an unbelievably good cook. Yet, because my energy efficiency increased - I am forced to eat only a fraction of what I used to, to maintain a healthy weight. Maintaining a healthy weight is difficult, requires extensive discipline, and means you no longer get you enjoy food the way you used to. It sucks. But it's life. You gain the self discipline, or you turn into a disgusting blob and shave potentially decades off your lifespan for it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @02:26PM
Take a poll on what percent of the bill's funding most Americans think is going to the people. Almost nobody realizes it's less than 25%.
All your 41% demonstrates is peoples' ignorance of what they're being asked to judge.
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 11 2021, @11:58PM
Is that when Biden gives stimie recipients the $600 he owes them?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by krishnoid on Friday March 12 2021, @12:57AM (1 child)
I would like to have thought that anyone voting for Trump the second time would have remembered the interm four years [mcsweeneys.net], but ...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @08:08AM
That is a great list of reasons to vote for Trump.
They left out the reasons to vote against Biden. He's senile, a kid-sniffer, corrupt, and racist.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @01:06AM (93 children)
Even if it really were free, with no inflation or taxes, half this stuff is just toxic:
You might wonder why the right would object to "humanities, arts, and museums" but they vividly remember that federal funds went to a work of "art" called Piss Christ that featured Jesus upside-down in a jar of the artist's own urine.
Paying off debt for San Francisco is particularly offensive, just like the city. The economics term for bad effects of bailouts and insurance is "moral hazard". We encourage foolish and evil behavior by saving people from the downsides. San Francisco also happens to be filthy rich. Why are we bailing out the rich? This is a place where a typical home is $2,000,000. Republicans tend to live in places where a typical home is $100,000. Democrats sure seem to love the 1%er people. Heck, we can recycle a democrat talking point for this: poor people who vote democrat are voting against their own best interest!
It seems like "no earmarks" somehow turned into "no earmarks except for leftist areas and causes".
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @01:35AM (30 children)
What's worse, if they just gave the $1.9tn directly to the people, distributed equally, that's roughly $5.7k per person in the country.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday March 12 2021, @03:03AM (29 children)
And Jeff Bezos would be getting a $5.7k check, is that supposed to be better?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Friday March 12 2021, @03:31AM (7 children)
And for that reason, nobody should get it? That's weird thinking...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday March 12 2021, @03:56AM (6 children)
Yes, that is definitely an accurate representation of my position!
Or, perhaps, I'm in favor of giving it to people who make less than $160k which is in the bill I just posted about.
It is true that it does exclude Jeff Bezos. And, thanks to Manchin, myself!
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday March 12 2021, @04:03AM (3 children)
Yeah, well, you are a democrat, counting out your pennies...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday March 12 2021, @04:27AM (2 children)
Well I watched the speech and kind of liked it. I feel like I might actually get the vaxx in a reasonable timeframe.
I'm OK with that getting stimulated as opposed to my bank account. The debt actually is important. I'm not too pissed off by Manchin trying to reduce the sticker price a bit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @01:19PM
Not when that money is going to help ordinary people, it's not. 'But the debt!' is a Republican talking point. Manchin would know.
So you're okay with fucking over people on unemployment to the tune of $100/week and stealing checks from millions of people who received the $600 checks, just to save what amounts to an absolutely minuscule amount of money? Just insane. Democratic party partisan hacks really are right-wing.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday March 12 2021, @06:47PM
I could believe you mean that if you made some noise about the Wall Street bailouts instead of standing up for Manchin. The "debt" is nothing but a bullshit pretext to justify austerity that the democrats do not oppose.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @07:09AM
Are you also in favor of lying? Because the Democrats promised $2,000 checks ($600 + $1,400) if they won, and now they've excluded millions of people who received the $600 checks from receiving the $1,400 checks. Those people were 100% lied to and betrayed. Are you in support of that, too? What's worse is that the people in that income range were the ones who helped Democrats win states like Georgia. Is screwing over your own voters the strategy for winning 2022?
We saved what amounts to fucking pennies on this and broke a major promise. And I don't believe for one fucking millisecond that Joe Manchin would have tanked the entire must-pass bill if they had kept the income thresholds and unemployment benefits the same; that was just an excuse to do what Joe Biden wanted to do already. Such a 'compromise' would not have been made under Bernie.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @11:41AM
Why spend a bunch of money on bureaucracy to determine who gets paid, when you can just send them to everybody?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @04:23AM (1 child)
Universal income is supposed to be universal, so yes Jeff Bezos gets a $5.7k check.
Aw, can't have that! You're back to peddling jealousy, envy, and other negative feelings. You're back to dividing us with class warfare. (yeah, "divisive", that's you)
Seriously, it would be better. It might not be good, considering questions of inflation and motivation. It would be better though. Giving a $5.7k check to everybody would at least avoid funding your toxic pet causes and bailing out your rich San Francisco friends.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @11:47AM
Direct universal payment would be the most democratic form of stimulus that exists, and most in line with the theory behind stimulus (give people money, and most will spend it immediately on obligations or recreation, thinking of it as "free money").
(Score: 3, Insightful) by julian on Friday March 12 2021, @05:03AM (7 children)
Have you forgotten taxes exist? We just claw it back from him, and then some, at the end of the year.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday March 12 2021, @05:22AM (6 children)
What can be passed via reconciliation can be un-passed via reconciliation.
The obvious rebuttal to any debt concerns would be to repeal that tax cut for rich people.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @05:59AM (5 children)
Because you're totally going to nail "rich people" for 1.9 trillion bucks. 1,900,000,000,000. Even if you go for the richest 10,000,000 taxpayers (cutting well deep into the middle class here) that's an average of 190,000 each.
That's exactly what we'd be clawing back, right?
You don't believe your own arithmetic, if you even checked it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @06:43AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_nFI2Zb7qE [youtube.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Friday March 12 2021, @06:53PM (2 children)
We could bring in $7.5 trillion by simply enforcing the existing tax code on rich people. [nytimes.com] REfund the IRS!!
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday March 12 2021, @07:22PM
Agreed, these are the reasons we have a "debt", so why is anybody talking about raising taxes [reuters.com]?! Why aren't Biden and all the other democrats putting this on the front page? The net just a little too big? Might catch Pelosi and Feinstein, et al perhaps?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @10:53PM
7.5 trillion - over ten years.
And even that is a guesstimate, assuming that the people they want to go after have incompetent accountants and lawyers.
Maybe.
If they first dump fat pots of money at the IRS.
It would make way more sense to simplify the tax structure to remove loopholes and so on ... but that's also a mess because who depends vastly on those loopholes? The middle class.
It would make way more sense to ditch personal income tax entirely, structure it as a (much lower, yet net similar) payrol tax on businesses, vastly reduce the expense burden of the IRS, and stop hassling individuals.
But no ... that's not the narrative that the writer wants to produce. Rich people are eeeevil tax cheats. You know it, I know it, it feels right.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Saturday March 13 2021, @11:47AM
Think again. They've reportedly added $1.1 trillion to their money bins during the past year alone https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/world/american-billionaires-added-1-1-trillion-in-wealth-during-the-pandemic/ar-BB1d6AgG?viewall=true+ [msn.com]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Friday March 12 2021, @06:21AM (4 children)
Better than giving ~75% of that money to pork?
Are you crazy?
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday March 12 2021, @06:55PM (3 children)
Pork like paying for and distributing vaccines...
The best way to stimulate the economy is to give me the vaxx so I can go to a fucking bar again.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday March 12 2021, @07:31PM
Even that is a relatively small part of the bill. Most has been inadequately itemized to know where it's going, very convenient.
But I guess we're supposed to be grateful when a billionaire tosses out a nickel for 20 people to fight over.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 12 2021, @11:46PM
Actually no. That's part of the ~25% that has been accounted for.
Indeed. But what does oh, 99+% of this bill have to do with that?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Saturday March 13 2021, @12:23AM
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @07:03AM (4 children)
Who gives a fuck? There aren't that many millionaires and billionaires, so it would amount to nothing. Means-testing is extremely inefficient and delays getting checks to the people who do need it. A UBI is 100% better.
I can't believe we as a country are so stupid that we're willing to screw everyone over just so a few people who don't 'need' the money won't get it, even though it's an astronomically small sum to them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @06:26PM
I was going to sat Republicans, but they are happy to give money to the people that don't need it and worse than Scrooge when poor peoole need help.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday March 12 2021, @06:58PM (2 children)
I agree with you in general but this is a bill targeted specifically at COVID. So the question is what is the best way to mitigate the pandemic?
In my opinion, giving me and Jeff Bezos a check when we're making money off all this chaos is less productive than spending our checks on vaccines and distribution.
I'll stimulate the hell out of the economy myself if I can get vaxxed and go to restaurants again!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 13 2021, @12:26AM (1 child)
I see that the covid vaccine is priced for under $40 [healthline.com] per dose. So the federal government could pay for full vaccination of everyone in the US for under $13 billion. Where's the need for the rest of the $1.9 trillion in spending?
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday March 15 2021, @03:45PM
Bread and Circuses
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @02:59PM
That $5.7k would be the least of our worries compared with the taxes he's allowed to avoid. And giving it to everybody makes it a lot harder to argue against.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Friday March 12 2021, @01:43AM (3 children)
Stimulus checks for prisoners? Does that mean the checks aren't based on who filed a tax return this time? or are prisoners filing tax returns?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by krishnoid on Friday March 12 2021, @03:09AM
And you gotta wonder how much is going to the payment processors [time.com].
(Score: 5, Interesting) by DeathMonkey on Friday March 12 2021, @03:22AM
It's the exact same process for prisoners as the previous stimulus passed under Trump. Suddenly it's a problem....
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @05:10PM
Unless they put special protection in place, that money would likely get taken as restitution to the victims. The only place where it's really fucked up is for some victimless crimes like drugs where the money goes back to the government for prevention programs.
In other words, there's no reason not to give the money to prisoners, they aren't going to get to keep it anyways.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by julian on Friday March 12 2021, @02:00AM (54 children)
Wow! You're pulling out some deep fascist cuts. I wasn't expecting a "degenerate art" [wikipedia.org] trope. The very fact that you're still talking about it 37 years on proves it was probably worth the incredibly small amount of money the government paid to indirectly sponsor the artist through The National Endowment for the Arts. Cheers, Andres.
All of the things you listed are actually good, btw. You are just giving truth to the adage that all conservatism is nowadays is just saying good public policy in a sarcastic mocking voice. Oh, what's next? We give eeeevveeryone healthcare?! Yes, we want to do all those things. They're good. Listing them like they're bad just makes you look out of touch.
More succinctly: OK, boomer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @02:23AM (50 children)
Why would you want to subsidize illegal immigrants?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by julian on Friday March 12 2021, @02:38AM (49 children)
Everyone here deserves healthcare. I don't care what their status is. That's the standard in the rest of the civilized world that I would like us to be a part of. The psychic pain it causes conservatives when they know their tax dollars are being pooled to support all of us, including people who are undocumented, is a value-add for me. And even beyond the petty pleasure I take in that, from an epidemiological perspective, disease doesn't care about human contrivances like nationality and borders. It's the right thing to do morally, and scientifically.
But it's a distraction issue anyway. Immigration is a totally different topic and I have a whole lot of reforms on that I would like to see including holding businesses responsible for exploiting undocumented workers.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @02:46AM (14 children)
So it's not just that you support it but "The psychic pain it causes conservatives [...] is a value-add for me" because "It's the right thing to do morally"?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday March 12 2021, @03:09AM (1 child)
I'd argue that if someone is doing wrong, the fact that being made to do right causes them psychic pain *is* a good thing. You law-and-order types are supposed to be all about that aren't you? Aren't you?
Besides which, while some of my ideas on immigration sound decidedly un-liberal, Julian is correct that disease doesn't give a shit about national borders. Regardless of how someone got here, if they *are* here, there is no realistic way of making sure they don't spread disease to others. It would cost less, in the medium and long term, to care for people as and when they need it.
It's not hard to figure this out. What you're really saying here is that you would rather subsidize the suffering, the...ahem, "psychic pain" as well as physical pain and disease, of those you don't like, no matter the actual cost in money, or even the cost in lives and quality of life of those people you supposedly do like. Again, disease doesn't give a shit about ingroups and outgroups.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 13 2021, @08:00PM
a bullet for bean niggers is still cheaper.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @03:38AM (11 children)
Your response is abnormal, in fact, it doesn't sound human.
Yes, pissing off bad, immoral people is the right thing to do. Especially when they are already bad tempered. They are the most entertaining. You don't like it? Oh well...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 12 2021, @06:02AM (10 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @07:25AM
Khallow, khallow is the bad person here. Bad, bad khallow! Nasty, selfish, Republican richie wannabe khallow! Very, very bad person, khallow!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @07:06PM (8 children)
The people who enjoy watching people suffer instead of giving them help. There are a lot of you here. Just typical middle class white folks.
(Score: 2, Touché) by khallow on Saturday March 13 2021, @12:36AM (7 children)
Like when julian wrote:
Only documented example of someone who enjoys watching people suffer. What gets missed in your naive pretension, is that suffering also comes from those higher taxes. Medical care isn't free. Someone pays for it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 13 2021, @02:43AM (6 children)
Yes, he is right about those people. People who would make other people suffer by denying them their needs and social safety nets deserve to suffer even more. Rich people can afford to pay the taxes. They still have plenty left over. So fuck them if they don't like it. The is no reason to ever sympathize with a rich person about their taxes. They're just a bunch of crybabies
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 13 2021, @05:16AM (5 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14 2021, @01:43AM (4 children)
The rich aren't suffering, they're only complaining. Mere equality is so oppressive!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday March 14 2021, @05:22AM (3 children)
The rich aren't the worst affected by taxes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14 2021, @05:54PM (2 children)
Yeah, not after Reagan, Bush, and Trump. They moved the burden down to the middle class and poor. We have to bring back the old rates and make the system actually progressive where the highest brackets pay the most tax.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday March 15 2021, @03:08AM (1 child)
The rich never paid those old tax rates.
This is all profoundly dumb. Government can't cover this stuff, even if we seize outright all the rich people wealth.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 15 2021, @10:52PM
The rich never paid those old tax rates.
Well, it's time they do! We have to kill all their fancy deductions
(Score: 2, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @03:12AM (27 children)
Please don't tell me that we have an Azuma Hazuki sockpuppet here.
Come on, why do you have to make us all look bad? You were on to a good thing with "Everyone here deserves healthcare." - arguable, depending on where you start, but at least a benevolent position based, presumably, in compassion.
And then "...psychic pain it causes conservatives..."
Why did you go there? What on earth good does swinging a hatred-filled censer do for your argument? Do you think that's what's going to win people over?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday March 12 2021, @03:18AM (26 children)
I don't sockpuppet, you fragile little snowflake. I don't need to. My opinions stand on their own merits.
And quit the fucking tone-trolling already. By this point, anyone who doesn't see the sense in points like Julian's or mine isn't "undecided," they're already past the point of no return and no amount of reason or "civil discourse" is going to change their minds. Perversely, reason or civility from someone holding an opposing position is going to make them oppose it even harder, because this type sees attempts to take the high road as a sign of weakness.
This schtick of yours is getting incredibly tiresome. There is no "winning over" people who have stared evil in the face and decided they want more of it.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @03:25AM (23 children)
OK, so just for the sake of curiosity, how might someone who is worried about driving away allies suggest that folks, y'know, try not to be obnoxious without it being tone-trolling?
Because if any suggestion that anybody anywhere might want to kick it back a notch when they sound as if they're grinding their teeth while typing holes in their keyboard is automatically tone-trolling, we're going to need a different word. Tone-sincering?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday March 12 2021, @03:28AM (18 children)
Here's a suggestion: stop pretending to be anything but a trolling shit-stirrer, as you're not fooling anyone. We've had this discussion before already: the irredeemable have disappeared beyond their own mental event horizons and nothing is going to pull them out save the accelerated Hawking-radiative process of hideous personal suffering in topical ways. These people do not and will not believe X is a problem until X happens to them. Until then, they're beyond reach, trapped inside their own selfish psychic Schwarzchild radii.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @03:48AM (17 children)
You're ignoring the persuadable middle.
Are you just deciding to cede them to the likes of Mitch, because you can't be bothered to look approachable? Do you think that the antics of the street vandals over the last year won the election? Seriously, do you think Biden would have done better if he'd been caught on camera throwing bottles at a line of cops?
If anything's tiresome here, it's the obstinate refusal to do the hard work of actually reaching out, rather than sitting in a puddle of your own loathing.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday March 12 2021, @04:34AM (16 children)
Again, there is no "persuadable middle" of any consequence left any longer. At this point, if someone has seen all these horrors and is somehow still undecided, it's because they're either completely morally vacuous, or else not actually in "the middle" at all and just keeping quiet about it.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @06:09AM (2 children)
OK.
I give up.
Rave on.
I can't stop you, and you're buried much too far in your own little mental bunker to look around, and see what you're doing.
When you don't get, politically, what you want, look in the mirror, point at it, and say: "You're why we can't have nice things."
That's right; it's your reflection's fault, not yours.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @07:41AM
Tone troll tone troll bullshit centrism and "leave em to mitch" threats
You are an idiot
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday March 12 2021, @08:09AM
Valiant attempt. Wise decision in the end.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Friday March 12 2021, @01:28PM (10 children)
What horrors? You trying to say something? I just see $1.5 trillion here of our future getting flushed because reasons. I think we're investing heavily in some future horrors, but then again, you aren't planning to flee for Canada for nothing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @08:48PM (9 children)
Another libertarian who does not understand money. Gets old, after a while, always have to explain that it is not something real, that is subject to physical scarcity. khallow must be one of those who's obvious rebuttal to the proposal to have Obama just order the US Mint to mint a trillion dollar coin of platinum, and deposit in the Fed, was that there is not enough platinum to make a trillion dollar coin, and it would be huge, and too big to fit in the Fed! As if a dollar bill contains a dollar's worth of paper and ink. Idiots incapable of abstract thinking.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @11:01PM
Going out on a limb here to guess, but maybe you can let me know whether the robes of the MMT cult are really as free below the belt as the whisper goes.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday March 12 2021, @11:43PM (4 children)
The fact that our currency is both fiat and floating ought to scare you shitless. I know it does to me. It means that the money isn't worth a damn thing except what we can convince people it's worth, and any sufficiently serious crisis of faith in government or other sociopolitical disruption will crash the economy as well.
Now a metal standard is stupid, but why not something like an energy standard? As a bonus, that would get us onto renewables right quick, as they would almost literally print money...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 13 2021, @01:00AM (2 children)
Hyperinflation is not hypothetical. We already have numerous examples of hyperinflation throughout history. Crashing the economy does have harmful consequences, but economies can and do recover. When money disappears, assets and people remain.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 15 2021, @01:22AM (1 child)
Hyperinflation in the world reserve currency is extremely unlikely for many reasons. It's a complete non-issue. There is very little appreciable inflation.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday March 15 2021, @04:00AM
The key one is that the world reserve currency won't stay the world reserve currency, if/when it happens. Should the US dollar become an economic hot potato due to hyperinflation, something else will have become the world reserve currency.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday March 13 2021, @08:43PM
Seems like we already have that [wikipedia.org]. Works best under conditions of scarcity, managed through warfare.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1, Interesting) by khallow on Saturday March 13 2021, @12:13AM (2 children)
then we get to:
Sounds like you're the idiot here. I get inflation. I get trillion dollar coins [soylentnews.org]. The problem here is that you're trying to pay back debt with money of greatly diluted value. Borrowers aren't going to fall for that more than once - it's a one-time default.
Don't borrow money that you won't pay back in good faith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14 2021, @12:53PM (1 child)
Are you nuts? Borrowers love paying back debt like that. The whole economy for the last 75 years has been based on the idea that inflation makes the dollar you pay back with less than the dollar you borrowed, so less painful to the wallet or purse.
Deflation, on the other hand …
And lenders don’t really have a choice except to go along with it. Or be stuck repossessing assets that will quickly drop in value to less than the note is worth. We saw that with the financial crisis - homes with 6-figure mortgages being sold at auction for $500 in Chicago, for example. So their only option is to keep the merry-go-round of low interest rates going.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday March 15 2021, @04:04AM
Except the other choice, don't go with it. Duh. You can talk all about the lack of choice, but they'll find those alternate choices.
What assets would those be again? Anything physical isn't going to do that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @08:01PM (1 child)
Well, according to that other AC, fascist ideals were originally very liberal, but their methods left something to be desired. I think the same thing applies to you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 15 2021, @01:46AM
He lied about that. Fascism is the reification of the military industrial complex. https://thirdworldtraveler.com/Fascism/Fascism_Mussolini.html [thirdworldtraveler.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by julian on Friday March 12 2021, @03:30AM (2 children)
Start by logging in to post.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @11:50AM (1 child)
Why? So that you can make assumptions one the motives behind the words instead of judging the words on their own merit?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 12 2021, @01:28PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @06:15AM
They are just mad because someone called them out on their shit. They say racist, bigoted misogynistic shit all the time while pointing the fingers at others for doing it. They can sit and pretend it is not true because 'they are right' and everyone else is a racists. But we thank her for her racist views to remind everyone what they really are.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Friday March 12 2021, @08:05AM
Listen, Zumi, letting aside the motives, the A/C you are answering to has a point.
I may have strong feelings (one way or the other) on some of the soylenters here; believe me (or not), berating them is a negative overall.
After a while, the feeling towards such berating posts doesn't get much different to the one arising from fusty-es constant "both parties are the same, wake up people and fuck them".
The magister tried the "naming and shaming the alt-right" for a long while now. What do you think he achieved?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @11:57AM
If you can't present your ideas without directly, intentionally insulting people and stereotyping broad swathes of the population, either you or your ideas have a problem. Where is the tone trolling in pointing that out? Basic principles of rhetoric and logic lead me to conclude that the real troll was the one who gloated about enjoying causing psychological agony to others.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @04:30AM
Mexico has universal healthcare. (superior, isn't it?) Here's the deal. When we find an illegal alien who might need healthcare, we deport the fucker.
Hmmm, we also provide socialized medicine in prison. That's another idea.
The VA provides it too. How's this: we ship illegals off to fight a ground war in Syria as infantry, then maybe Iran or Sudan, and after retirement they can get VA healthcare.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @02:35PM (1 child)
How is it the people most frequent to cite "the rest of the world" invariably have little to no clue about "the rest of the world"? Do a quick search for Denmark zero asylum [duckduckgo.com] and educate yourself. The American policy on immigration is *insane* and nothing at all like the rest of the world. The rest of the world treats illegal immigrants as illegal immigrants. This absurd concoction you create in your head where an illegal in "the rest of the world" can just walk into a hospital, make it clear he's legal, and do as he fancies is simply completely out of touch with reality. If there was an urgent condition, they would be treated (same as in America) and then generally scheduled for rapid deportation or expulsion.
Denmark in particular has a unique solution. They're planning [nytimes.com] to start sending unwanted illegal immigrants to a small island miles off the coast once used for the quarantine of contagious animals. As the country's immigration minister stated, "[The illegal immigrants] are unwanted, and they will feel that."
The US has gone just batshit insane, and the stuff we're doing is nothing like this "rest of the world." I strongly recommend you, after this dumb virus is passed, actually take the opportunity to see "the rest of the world" and you may suddenly realize neither it nor America are anything like what you are constructing in your mind.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by EEMac on Friday March 12 2021, @04:48PM
You're observing the collapse of a civilization. There's multiple possible outcomes. Try to guess what the result will be! Grab some popcorn and watch the show.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Friday March 12 2021, @04:06PM
It's not even just a question of what they "deserve": Sick people make other people sick. Which makes it in everybody's best interest to make sure fewer sick people are walking around or doing their jobs and infecting people. Which means giving out health care and paid sick leave to people who may not "deserve" it (whatever that means), which actually saves money in a matter of weeks.
But that simple reality is up against the significant portion of the US government and population that would gladly institute a genocide of anyone they consider "undesirable" if they thought they could get away with it, especially if they didn't have to do the dirty work themselves.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 13 2021, @08:08PM
"Everyone here deserves healthcare."
Health care paid for by extortion? Why do they deserve it? Their ancestors did not create that security for them. They deserve to die off, is what they deserve.
"I don't care what their status is."
That's because you are a weaponized, subversive, useful idiot.
"That's the standard in the rest of the civilized world that I would like us to be a part of."
No, that's the standard imposed on Jew slave states that the brainwashed slaves of those states stupidly accept.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 14 2021, @02:18AM
Nobody deserves anything.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @04:46AM (2 children)
Disliking a work of "art" called Piss Christ is somehow bad because Hitler also disliked degenerate art? Oh boy....
Hitler enacted the first animal cruelty laws. I guess those need to go, hmmm? Burning puppies alive might help keep the fascism ghosts away.
Hitler designed a Volkswagen car. That makes Volkswagen evil. Nobody should drive one.
Hitler drank water. Needless to say, drinking water makes you a fascist.
You aren't even consistent. Piss Christ is religious bigotry. Clearly, you are fine with bigotry, as long as the target is a Christian. Why don't you just admit that you want a final solution to the problem of Christians?
(Score: 3, Informative) by julian on Friday March 12 2021, @04:55AM (1 child)
I think you are what is known as, "triggered"
Please read some Dr. Seuss, eat some soy, and try to calm down.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 13 2021, @03:04PM
Nah, I think he's known as "logical". A rare and elusive condition now a days, treatable only with extensive reconditioning through critical theory therapy.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @02:06AM
What a pack of lies. What idiot modded this trash "Informative"?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @03:45AM
I rather enjoyed "Piss Christ", but then, I was raised Catholic. Seemed a fair turn of events, when previously it was the artist hanging upside down in a jar of Christ piss.
*Abstinence Makes the Church Grow Fondlers*
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @08:43PM
It's theft to aid sedition and they should all be killed. War is coming. Who can claim the most souls?
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @06:58AM (1 child)
The Democrats promised $2,000 if they won. The people in the $80,000-$100,000 income range who now won't be getting checks - but who received the $600 checks - were 100% fleeced and betrayed. The unemployment was cut from $400/week to $300/week for no reason.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @03:02PM
Yes, not to mention that the $1400 was supposed to be $2k and they didn't even try to get the money out the door immediately. Now that they had to use budget reconciliation, they suddenly no longer want the $15 an hour minimum wage or hazard pay for essential workers. But, they do have money for the unemployed and kids.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @07:35AM
How is giveaway to Democrook shitholes popular?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 12 2021, @08:35PM
goddamn you're a stupid motherfucker. 1.9 trillion dollars that can never be paid back, but the debt can be used to impoverish future generations, all to bail out thieves, under the guise of helping americans.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday March 12 2021, @09:59PM (1 child)
Well, seeing as how at least 1 Republican tried to take credit for the contents of the law they had just voted against, they're not expecting their voter base to remember who voted which way even 1 day, much less the better part of 2 years. Of course, to the right-wing media, the most important thing to happen this week involved a cartoon skunk.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday March 12 2021, @10:14PM
Which was amusing considering it was the one with the cartoon chink that got discontinued.
(Score: 2) by stretch611 on Saturday March 13 2021, @01:41AM
It does not matter if anyone remembers...
Every democrat running for office will make sure that their poolitical ads will remind people of this right before the elections.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Saturday March 13 2021, @01:45AM
Giving people money printed out of thin air that essentially taxes anyone trying to save money. And you think it's a good thing. I don't often call people retards, but you've earned it.