Many people are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 yet continue to act as though they need to stay inside and socially distance. This behavior is every bit as irrational and unscientific as the red state conservatives who refused to wear masks last year.
How You Can Survive on $1400
A $1.9 trillion stimulus bill sounds like a lot of money, and it is, but a single payment of $1400 isn’t going to go very far for the 40 million people who lost their jobs over the last year and the millions of people who are facing eviction or foreclosure. Maybe all they need to survive is a little imagination.
True Horror, Courtesy of the Cabinet of Dr. Biden
Bernie Sanders proposed a monthly stimulus of $2000, hardly a king’s ransom when you consider that tens of millions of people have lost their jobs entirely. Instead, Joe Biden promised $2000, one time, and then reduced it to $1400 after taking into account $600 paid out by Donald Trump toward the end of his term. Now he’s caving in to moderate Democrats like Joe Manchin of West Virginia and subjecting the payments to increased means testing. The patient, the American economy, is dying. But there’s no sense of urgency whatsoever on the part of the White House or the US Congress.
It’s Not How Long It Takes, It’s How Big It Is
Progressives and centrist Democrats often seem to be speaking different languages. Currently centrists are defending Joe Biden by pointing out that fixing the mess left by Donald Trump will take time. But that’s not something progressives disagree with. They are complaint is that Biden isn’t ambitious enough.
If Previous Presidents Reacted to Crises the Way Biden Is to the Covid Economic Crash
Even if Joe Biden’s proposed economic stimulus package were to pass intact, it is way too small to have an impact and truly help out. In comparison, it is less than 1/4 per capita relative to unemployment than the package that failed under Barack Obama. This is a Band-Aid on a gaping wound. And that’s before the Republicans get to it.