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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: 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]