This video, of Senator Sinema voting no on a bill to enact a $15/hour minimum wage caused some outrage.
Senator Sinema a little too happy for poverty wages to remain pic.twitter.com/ze2T2CGtML
— RootsAction (@Roots_Action) March 5, 2021
Do watch it, it’s short.
Perhaps it makes you angry. If you earn less than $15/hour or care about anyone who does, it probably should.
In our society we demonize negative emotions. The person who doesn’t get angry wins the debate. You’re not supposed to be scared.
And hate, well hate is the worst of all emotions, to us.
But all of these emotions have a purpose.
Fear is supposed to alert you to danger.
Anger is supposed to tell you someone has done something they shouldn’t have (which is why it often comes right on the heels of fear).
And hate, well, hate is supposed to tell you someone is a long term threat.
So, you should fear people like Sinema (she was one of eight Dems who voted no — she just got flack for taking so much joy in it) because they are a danger to you: They want you to be poor, and therefore always in danger of hunger, homelessness, and ill health.
People like Sinema should also make you angry, because they do inappropriate things. (See above).
And yes, you should hate them, because they are a long-term threat to your well-being.
Fear, anger, and hate are working when they ping the appropriate targets. When elites redirect those emotions to people who aren’t a threat to you (Saddam Hussein, say) then they are inappropriate.
They should also be graded appropriately. Even if you think, as an American, that Putin stole the 2016 election (uhmmm), he isn’t nearly the threat to you that your own politicians are. It isn’t Putin who spent 40 years dropping wages through the floor, sending young men and women to war, and destroying American civil liberties.
Likewise, it always amuses me when I talk to helicopter parents and they tell me, “But it’s so much more dangerous today than it was when you were a child.”
No, it actually isn’t. It’s much less dangerous. Moreover, almost all danger to children comes from trusted adults, including relatives, teaches, coaches, and family friends, not from strangers. But people hear on the news about exceptional cases (which are exceptional because they are very rare) where strangers hurt children and think it’s common, when, actually, it’s extraordinarily rare.
In a society where elites control the media, and media determines perception of benefit and danger, people’s fear, anger, and hate calibrations are way off. They fear people who are of little threat to them, and identify with their despoilers (Obama, Trump, Clinton, Bush, Pelosi, the list goes on).
They think spectacular bad events are common (stranger-child attacks) and discount the actual danger (Uncle Bob, or Dad.)
In this context fear, anger, and hate are bad. So are love and trust of partisan authority figures. Remember all the fools worshiping Cuomo, who has always been a vile piece of human garbage.
So one of the first tasks, for sanity, and in order to make good decisions, is to re-orient our emotions. To point hate at long term enemies (our politicians) rather than at our neighbors or foreigners who aren’t a threat. (Unless you’re Iraqi, or Yemeni, say, in which case, well….)
The world has a lot of dangers. They almost always come from the people you trust, whom you shouldn’t. Learn who’s actually trustworthy, and who is a danger.
All the content here is free, but subscriptions and donations do help, a lot.
Feral Finster
Once upon a time, any development that the Establishment of the day didn’t like was automatically blamed on Jews.
No evidence necessary or even wanted. Because Jews.
Today’s Establishment is far more enlightened. Slobo Milosevic or Assad or Putin or Russians are blamed automatically. And the “evidence” presented as at least as far-fetched as the old anti-Semitic libels were.
Eric Anderson
But, like the unfortunate dog, we love to kick the closest thing that won’t kick back. Rich people kick back — they’re called SLAPP suits.
lol
If they hadn’t vetoed that, the whole bill would have imploded . Cause that doesn’t fit into budget reconciliation.
Pryanka Patel
Perhaps instead of hating the politician, you should hate the people who voted her into office.
Senator Sinema is in office because, like it or not, she has a constituency.
You can hate Biden all you want, but it was a certain voting demographic in the southern states that pushed him over the top.
S Brennan
Great Vid Ian…
But, I am sure, however cruel the neoDs may be, the simple act of taking revenge by throwing them out of office would never be seen as an effective strategy because…the only way to do that is to temporary elect an R, or worse a rumpR*.
With revenge/punishment “off the table” in the “blue no matter who” voter’s mind, neoDs are free to proudly parade their savage inhumanity…as this video so clearly shows. And so it goes.
*the 35-45% of the R party elites that joined neoDs in supporting Hillary-16 & Biden-20. It should be mentioned, the elite have no problem crossing lines when it serves their purposes, unlike the proles, they know exacting revenge is far more important than the perception of virtue. Unlike the masses, every elitist, whether blue or red is made to understand and act on Machiavelli’s advice to the Prince.
anon
Sinema is trash who deserves everything that is coming to her, but she’s only bearing the brunt of criticism because of her Trumpian like behavior.
Your enemy doesn’t have to behave like an asshole for you to hate them. Don’t be fooled by virtue signaling and niceties. The other seven Dems who voted no should be voted out too. Here are their names:
Tom Carper of Delaware, Chris Coons of Delaware, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, and Jon Tester of Montana. Angus King, an independent from Maine who caucuses with Democrats, also voted no.
Willy
rumpR picked rumpRs for his Supreme Court. Speaking of being so consumed by hatred that one’s own 8th grade US history lessons have become irrelevant…
During his first term FDR had many of his New Deal programs struck down by “The Four Horsemen”, a quad of conservative Supreme court justices.
FDR was then angrily accused by conservatives of trying to “pack the courts” (as if they were the only ones allowed to). Yet only after he started appointing New Deal friendly justices was he able to more freely proceed to where the American Dream became an ever increasing possibility for the now growing middle class.
Modern conservatives prefer Reagan, who famously and somewhat angrily pooted: “In this present crisis (stagflation), government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” Of course, he then employed government in the form of Volcker and military spending to combat that stagflation. But nobody remembers that part.
someofparts
The funny thing about it is that, from my own experience, media that needs to create hate silos to fund itself runs off exactly the centrists they swear they are trying to reach. My oldest friend has been Republican all her life just as I’ve always been a Democrat until recently. Neither of us can stand the news these days so neither of us listens to anyone in our respective silos.
Kyle and Krystal interviewed Dylan Ratigan on their podcast last week and his summation of the corporate media pretty much nailed it as far as I’m concerned. He said it is only about making money for advertisers and offers no authentic information at all.
Ratigan pointed out that anyone in the news has a Twitter feed and following them on that platform can be a good way to get real information. I’m going to try it. Maybe start with Susan Rice and Angela Merkel and see what pops up.
Astrid
Pryanka Patel,
Hating on the heavily propagandized voters who were never given a real choice is pointless. Worse, it alienates potential allies and ensure that your side will never win.
But you should already know that. In fact you may well be one of the people who makes sure it happens time after time. All the while feeling morally superior to anyone less woke.
How about hating on people who rig the system to select the most awful (for 99 %) choice and pump it so full of noise that nobody even knows what a signal is anymore?
Hugh
Along with those 8 Democrats, all 50 Republican Senators voted against what was a very weak tea 5-year phase in to a $15 / hour, not a living wage.
What I would like to see is every one of these guys paid $7.25 / hour and forced to live on this and only this. They should get the same Medicaid that every other recipient receives. I wonder how long it would take for what they prescribe to others to turn them into Trotskyites.
Willy
Astrid, back in grade school I learned that if I just ignored the haters as some teachers advised, there’d be a good chance they’d see it as weakness and double down on the hate. In those cases where they got bored, they’d just go after the next target. Sometimes you just gotta fight.
When I visit conservative blogs I don’t expect to convert anyone. But I do expect that some of the seeds I plant will germinate, given time. But when Trumpism got too weird: Qanon, Biblical Cyrus, climate change hoax, Paula White, socialist DNC, Sloppy Steve, ever more overt alt-right racism… it became ever harder to just play the cynical citizen devils advocate anymore. Sometimes you just gotta fight.
Ever seen the movie “Ticket To Heaven”? It’s not bad. Maybe I should review that one for deprogramming ideas.
js
The whole proximate reason she got elected is she was running against a Trumpist and people were disgusted with Trumpism. A vote for her was literally taking revenge, it was already a vote against. The vote against isn’t in the future but already happened. Of course her Trumpist opponent also opposed a minimum wage increase.
Now it may or may not have ever have been a progressive’s seat to win, but this whole forcing ever more horrible Republicans (Trumpublicans even) on people, is a large part of the reason people vote garbage Ds. They want revenge, but the revenge in these worthless Ds doesn’t turn out to be all that much better. It’s a two-party and it is a system all right. Taking revenge until the whole world is blind and toothless.
Or is it only righteous revenge when people vote in rage for Republicans and not when they vote in rage against them? People are angry at their garbage leadership regardless but the GOP thanks you for your support.
js
“Along with those 8 Democrats, all 50 Republican Senators voted against what was a very weak tea 5-year phase in to a $15 / hour, not a living wage.”
I am shocked, shocked I tell you that Josh Hawley did not vote for a $15 minimum wage. Yea they are all worthless posers, even the “populist (yea and I have a bridge to sell you) right”.
I do think they should have tried to cut a deal to get some kind of increase in the minimum wage over absolutely none, but it doesn’t matter what I think.
edmondo
The next time you think that you absolutely, positively have to vote for one of these psychopaths because (Trump, Biden, Clinton) whatever strawman they throw out there, watch this video. These people couldn’t give less of a fuck if you live or die.
Z
Hey Feral,
In regards to:
Maybe it’s because a small subset of the Jewish people, which I call the Jewish Zionist Mafia (JZM), are now such a large part of the ‘Establishment” and they’re the ones primarily tossing the blame at everybody else except themselves for our society’s problems, which incidentally have gotten much worse during their rise to power.
Just thinking out loud here because you know none of the people and countries you mentioned as being today’s “fall guys” are/were exactly pals with all-blessed Israel …
Z
Jason
This is perhaps Ian’s most important piece, simply by virtue of the fact that this is the starting point. Get this wrong, and the proverbial all bets are off going forward.
Hate is not a sustainable state unless one is a psychopath I suppose. But hate – manifested as energy properly directed when it arises – is necessary both as a release on a personal level and in order to be an effective agent of larger change. Helps against cancer and helps fight the bad guys (if only we can all agree on who they are).
I would imagine that grown adults could agree to stop personalizing things and move on to the very important business of outing the psychopathic ruling class and holding them to the fire. Hell, it’s really a fun, creative endeavor when you get down to it.
It’s a big club and we ain’t in it. But it’s infinitesimal in comparison to our number. We, whose lives its decisions impact so mightily.
Speaking of clubs, my recent comment over at the Open Thread, concerning their Highnesses:
https://www.ianwelsh.net/open-thread-93/#comment-124860
S Brennan
“stop personalizing things and move on to the very important business of outing the psychopathic ruling class and holding them to the fire”
Great…what’s your plan? Wait…let me guess, same as the old plan, keep voting endlessly for neoD’s who pretend to give a shit while they sell believers out [see Sanders and the shiny new phony…Ms Cortez] and then? Spend four years complaining and then ?
Real World 101: If you’re unwilling to punish people for effing you over…you are going to get effed over.
I’d love to hear a plan that isn’t another retread of “vote blue no matter who”.
And please………….Biden/Kamala were the nominees PRECISELY because Bernie ran and throughout, he coordinated with the DNC to insure his flock of sheep had nowhere to go besides the knackers…er..ah..Biden & Kamala…sheesh.
Jason
Great…what’s your plan?
I’m not generally taken for one of the grown adults.
What’s your plan?
Oh god, here we go. On second thought, never mind. I’m sorry I asked.
Oh man, I just made it personal. I’ve become what I despise!
Jason
Voting is not an effective outlet for rage.
S Brennan
So…in short..you don’t have a plan besides “vote blue no matter who” do you?
Z
Fourteen Hundred Dollar and Zero Sense Joe. Now there’s a true, seasoned democratic party warrior for you. Never stops fighting for the working class. Tireless. From when the rooster crows until the hogs slumber he is working solidly on our side. So busy that he doesn’t even have time to do press conferences anymore.
Seventy-eight years old, that guy. Think of that. And a savvy democratic party operator too, I tell you. The living, breathing, dripping embodiment of savvy. And resolve, you might ask? Ha! He’s got it in spades. Royal Flush, in fact. Yep. Seventy-eight years old and the man still has the grim, stiff-lipped pride of a DC dem party vet who tells himself “Yeah, sure I may have tossed a few handies across the aisle in my time … and might just do so again … but I never went down on them”.
Z
S Brennan
“but I never went down on them”
Dementia can be a great comfort for those whose life is one long depravity…
nihil obstet
Ian, is it possible to explain briefly the relationship between acting on anger and meditating calmness?
Jason
Shut the fucking country down. General strike across major sectors, with provisions in place for necessities and emergencies, obviously, i.e. coordinated rolling strikes and the like. Take over workplaces where appropriate and initiate democratic work norms. Shit like that Brennan.
Assuming we’re able to carry this out to at least some degree – getting some very frightened politicians to start taking demands seriously – what are some things you’d like to see rectified Brennan?
Or are you still babbling about brett motherfucking kavanaugh, -abortion/lgbt and “neoD” blue-red kubuki theatre bullshit for chrissake?
S Brennan
“Shut the fucking country down. General strike across major sectors, with provisions in place for necessities and emergencies, obviously, i.e. coordinated rolling strikes and the like. Take over workplaces where appropriate and initiate democratic work norms. Shit like that Brennan…assuming we’re able to”
Yeah Jason, I’ve heard that song for over sixty years. So what you are saying is; “the answer, my friends, is blowing in the wind”.
Q: What did the protests of the last four years bring?
A: The most un-apologetically neocolonial/gilded-age-[sans mercantilism]/National-Security-State-[NSS] administration since Woodrow Wilson.
Heck-of-a-job…Mission Accomplished, the Bush/Romney Families alongside the Hillary, Obama, Pelosi et al families thank you for your minionship.
bruce wilder
Biden/Kamala were the nominees PRECISELY because Bernie ran and throughout, he coordinated with the DNC to insure his flock of sheep had nowhere to go
Bernie’s 2020 campaign manager, Faiz Shakir — deeply networked with Harry Reid, John Podesta, Neera Tanden, Nancy Pelosi — could hardly be expected to do otherwise.
Professional political operatives have a lot to do with how resistant the system is to admitting anyone into politics who isn’t a cynical manipulator.
bruce wilder
as someone said upthread, the bad guys have a constituency.
as long as professionally capable people can only have careers as servants of the oligarchy, and the furious masses, such as we may be, have the political memory of a mayfly, I doubt even the occasional riot will have any real, let alone good, effect. Nancy Pelosi will respond by taking a knee in Kente Cloth or drafting some bill instituting a star chamber and pre-crime, as the mood suits her.
Mr Jones
Jason is talking about the sort of actions that forced S Brennan’s aristocratic hero FDR and allied megalomaniac politicos to form coalitions to implement what ultimately amounted to much less than was asked for, and in some cases even previously agreed upon. These modest changes to the insane system ushered in S Brennan’s golden age of prosperity, which while not nearly as magical as S Brennan and others would have it, was nevertheless a decent period for many, and certainly something better to build from than what preceded it. Again, due to mass popular resistance and pressure, including from a quite active communist party – and all its accompanying offshoots – which, whatever one may think of them – were a more than minor player in politics back then. Needless to say, it was not some entirely unprovoked, unbridled enthusiasm for the masses on the part of FDR and other politicos that brought about the desperately needed changes at that time. There was…a lot more going on.
Wait a Sec
Oops, you forgot about the subsequent rise of the military-industrial-media-prison complex and the now all-encompassing intelligence apparatus and its ubiquitous operations, overt and covert – both abroad and increasingly here on the “homeland” – just a necessary part of the deal, no doubt. Have to wind that down too. What are we going to do with all those nukes?
C.
Mao may have started the Cultural Revolution, but who ACTUALLY killed my friends’ parents — Mao’s soldiers or their neighbors?
Fearing — and hating — both groups may be rational. But if I only have enough resources to defend myself against one enemy, it’s going to be the closer one. History, both personal and political, has taught me that my neighbors are the FAR more dangerous enemy.
Rebecca
Something along the lines of what Jason is talking about is the only thing that will work at this point. I believe enough coordination can be brigaded to really put a wrench in the gears. Incidentally, the revolution will continue to not be mediatized.
The most powerful politicians – as well as the supreme court bozos – are both architects for and conspirators with – the even more powerful.
The zeitgeist must change. It can only happen from below. Constant, sustained ridicule at the system accompanied by appeals to conscience. Show these clowns to be the misguided fools they are. People respond to that. It brings us together.
S Brennan
“Biden/Kamala were the nominees PRECISELY because Bernie ran and throughout, he coordinated with the DNC to insure his flock of sheep had nowhere to go”
Bernie’s 2020 campaign manager, Faiz Shakir — deeply networked with Harry Reid, John Podesta, Neera Tanden, Nancy Pelosi — could hardly be expected to do otherwise.
– Bruce Wilder
________________
Bruce and I don’t agree about much but…we manage to argue policies, not ad hominem and we often wind up agreeing on facts…what’s up with that? Is that like..totally old school..or what?
Willy
“With enemies like these, who needs friends?” …was never much of a strategy. Who exactly are our friends? And who are our enemies? “Everybody!” seems a very poor answer.
Synoptocon
Evolutionarily, hate is supposed to motivate you to walk away. Given that we’re not hunter gatherer bands, the physiological phenomenon has to be dealt with in other ways.
Impotent spleen venting seems to be popular…
Webstir
@someofparts
Check this. I use it. Never follow blue checks, just add them to your “List.”
It is, indeed, the best way to stay on top of the news w/o an algo trying to outsmart you.
https://caityjohnstone.medium.com/how-to-make-a-solid-customized-news-stream-that-isnt-manipulated-by-silicon-valley-43e7020a83a5
Give @TheRealWebstir a follow when you get set up.
Joseph E. Kelleam
@Feral Finster:
Forget it, Jake…it’s Gazatown.
Ché Pasa
The amount of sheer dishonesty and cowardice around the “$15 minimum wage” debate and determinations and votes was truly astonishing, and that’s what struck me about it, not Sinema’s stupidity and insensitivity.
At no point that I’m aware of did the amendment Bernie proposed get a clear and honest presentation. Maybe I missed it on the floor of the Senate (quite likely) but it seems more probable it was never done before the measure was defeated, and since then, it still hasn’t been made clear that there was NO ‘$15 an hour minimum wage’ before 2025. The R alternatives were never clarified, either, but the the implication was that they would provide an immediate (?) boost to $10 or $11 an hour (Bernie’s was $9.50 an hour next year) with future increases tied to inflation. But it may not have been that. Who knows?
That’s been the problem with this all along. Nobody knows — or will state clearly and honestly — just what is being proposed or how it will be implemented.
Bernie and AOC are just as responsible for the dishonesty and confusion as anyone else. They had ample opportunities to clarify and make a stink about the whole parliamentarian dishonesty, but they didn’t. The media had ample opportunity to report clearly and honestly, but they didn’t, they went with the $15 soundbite, and they’re still there. The Rs had a terrific opportunity to come in with something better and they started to, but then let it flounder, so nobody knows or will say what they were really proposing.
And marginal workers, minimum wage workers, once again got nowhere.
Numerous states have no minimum wage at all, and the federal law doesn’t cover all workers. So $7.25 is not necessarily the floor for wages in the United States. Indeed, many wages, particularly for tipped workers, are much lower. When Bernie says $7.25 is “starvation wages” he’s leaving out the millions who make less than that. Less than starvation…
$15 is a reasonable floor for all workers right now. It’s not enough to live well practically anywhere in the country, but at least it will get you by relatively decently. Every worker should be treated decently and receive at least enough compensation to live decently, and in this country, that hasn’t happened or been a policy goal for many years.
No, instead, most of our libertarian overclass believes in neither decent treatment nor decent compensation for those they deem unworthy — which is a larger and larger cohort. $7.25 is too much, in other words. Indeed, any minimum wage at all violates their “freedom”.
I’m waiting to see what Old Joe does about it. Obviously, it’s not a priority for him, but the pressure to boost the minimum wage isn’t going away. Just need to get it right, and get it fast.
As for Sinema, at this rate, she’s hated by all sides, and can pretty much dance her way right out of the Senate.
Hugh
On a lighter note, there is the whole Meghan Markle versus the British royal family fiasco. It’s not like we don’t have plenty of racism and class over here, but the royal family is both the exemplar of a toxic class system and a white man burden’s level of whiteness, and the various attempts to defend the indefensible is unintentionally hilarious.
Hugh
Kamala Harris could have simply ignored or overruled the parliamentarian’s opinion and the $15/hour wage could have stayed part of the Covid relief bill. The Democrats took it out because, as we saw, at least 8 Democratic Senators hate American workers and want them to die.
Astrid
I do appreciate Hugh being so consistent with taking the wrong side of any dispute. Whatever the problems of the BRF (I daresay I find them more public minded and down to earth than most billionaire clans), taking Markel’s victimhood routine is somehow exactly the sort of position I’ve come to rely on Hugh taking.
Willy
Everybody knows that a Habsburg jaw looks far more royal than does an easy tan. And so does a slight case of mental incapacity. Speaking of inbred retards, yes there are a few Habsburgian Democrats wanting to maintain their royal privileges.
“M’yes and well then. Let them eat cake. (*little fake curtsey while giving thumbs down*)”
But the Senate did pass the $1.9 trillion Covid relief bill with no Republican support. That’s no Republican support, a fact some still believe is worth mentioning. Instead of always trying to smear Bernie or AOC as not being scary enough, I’ll be talking about how scary the other side has become.
https://www.minimum-wage.org/
Astrid
By the way, if by some miracle we get someone who is decent and willing to fight for the 99 percent, as opposed to reenact their predesignated Charlie Brown routine, this is what will happen to them. https://fair.org/home/nyt-fails-to-examine-its-participation-in-brazils-biggest
Pretty sure Hugh will say something about Lula once taking money from Putin for something…
Hugh
Astrid, don’t you have a KKK meeting to go to?
Ché Pasa
And another thing. Nobody seems to comprehend much of what’s in the Covid Relief bill, so they fixate on what’s not there ($2000 “checks”, $15 minimum wage, etc.) and declare the whole thing worthless trash or yet another case of Dem fecklessness and corruption. Because everything is, right?
Bit by bit, information is dribbling out, though, that is causing some people to start to think this thing isn’t so bad. $3,600 per year per child paid monthly is getting damned close to a guaranteed income. Hm. Who’d a thunk? And that $14oo “check” — it’s for everyone in the household, children and adult dependents included. So a five person household nets $7000 up front. Wait, nobody said anything about that. Whoa.
Those hundreds of billions for state and local government? It means some of them get to hire back a lot of the people they laid off last year. What a concept. Putting people back to work at union jobs making decent money. Harumph. Then there’s lots more money for businesses that are still hurting from lost revenue because of the pandemic. Maybe not enough money, but more than they would have had otherwise, and it’s a lot easier to get than the failed programs of last year. $300 a week in additional unemployment benefits — not as much as the House passed, but the same as the December supplement, again a recognition that without the supplement, more people would be going hungry than already are.
In other words, this bill is starting to look like a good thing for many millions of Americans. Still not all, but better in the long run — and for many, better in the short run — than anything passed last year.
We can complain about what’s not there, and we should, but we should also be able to appreciate what is there.
It’s not nothin’.
S Brennan
Before The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA), individuals who lived in one place but had contract work in another used either split-rate per diem with their employer, or kept all their receipts to determine their deductions OR..they used the,
https://www.gsa.gov/travel/plan-book/per-diem-rates
To determine a standard daily-rate deduction for their taxes. The table adjusts for local differences in the COL and is seen as pretty fair across the political spectrum. Of course, that deduction is gone with the 2017 TCJA Bill*.
A national minimum wage bill based on the per-diem-rates would be fairer and gain far greater support than a flat rate. Businesses have an incentive to keep the per-diem-rates honest as they use them for tax deductions..although, some additional “stiffeners” may be required.
And because so many of the “blue no matter who” crowd come here to dissemble on a daily basis, I note for the record, I have criticized this TCJA Tax bill for four years. Although, in fairness, it actually increased tax collection on the 2nd tier of this nation’s obscenely rich people like Pelosi, Clinton, Schumer because it limits their use of personal deductions…and that’s a good thing.
BTW…criticism of specifics, of specific policy is healthy, unfortunately, it requires adult effort, it’s much harder than just childishly screaming some version of “ORANGE HITLER” over and over in a crowded theater.
*[And here’s where Hugh or Willey will google the vote and find out it occurred on party lines ~ 52/49 and then declare, “see..all blue people good, all red people evil, Amen” conveniently ignoring that had neoD’s really opposed it they wouldn’t have let it come out of committee, would have stalled it and got numerous concession or just filibustered the shit out of it. They did none of these things, because their donors didn’t want them to. The only thing neoD’s didn’t like in the bill was the elimination of their tax deductions for living the high life…that did offend them and they aim to fix that, it’s their highest priority.]
Willy
This place is starting to look like Cleveland Browns blogs from days of old:
“Our team’s gonna screw up yet again, because that’s what they do, that’s what they always do.”
“Haslam is getting paid off by the Steelers to ruin the team!”
“They’ll be charging at the stadium for paper bags. I’m gonna hurl in mine.”
Idiots.
The Browns finished 11-5 in the 2020 season, wrecking the Steelers in the playoffs and challenging the champs. They’re now considered a contender. They accomplished this one draft pick at a time, slowly but surely, and by ignoring the pouty whiners. Had the fans abandoned the team to cheer for the Steelers as part of some kind of protest, it’d be the San Diego Browns by now.
Willy
Always voting Blue so that young conservative Supreme Court justices won’t dominate national policies for the rest of our lives, is reason good enough.
Climate change is another.
Desperately trying to smear commenters who think your methods foolish, is projection.
Desperately trying to smear commenters who think your methods disingenuous, is evil.
Feral Finster
Unlike the Cleveland Browns, Team D is positively thriving, in spite of the fact that the only results it ever seems to be able to achieve are “coulda” “shoulda” and ‘woulda”. Along with “maybe next year” and a never-ending litany of excuses furnished by loyal Team D fans.
A better analogy is the Washington Generals (designated opponent for the Harlem Globetrotters).
Willy
Yes, Jimmy Haslam still made a profit during the down years but his fan base was eroding so he had to do something about it to maintain that and save some face.
And the Washington Generals would lose their jobs if the Harlem Globetrotters weren’t so popular with the fans. But the Generals only purpose for existence is to play the foil, and not provide reliable competition.
Would popularizing the idea that the DNC is only ever a foil for the GOP work, to light a fire under their asses? Maybe. Many are trying to do just that. But I think it’s a good idea to also popularize the idea that the GOP is playing 99% of their fans for fools too.
Willy
S Brennan, if you weren’t so high on Trump then maybe I’d be with you. Is that too much for you to handle?
I already explained to you in the clearest possible language, that I was with Trump when it came to border enforcement. 100%. For many Trump voters that was their single issue. Had I been a single-issue voter I might’ve voted for him.
But let’s put me into that POTUS position. Lowly poor me. If lowly poor me had been in his position, a citizen without any public service experience (except that I’m a lowly poor loser instead of a glorious MAGA Ubermensch Winner, then I would’ve demanded (and parsed) a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis of illegal immigration. What’s the bottom line for our working class? What’s the bottom line for our tax system? What’s the bottom line for our culture and our American way of life?
Had the results come back negative, I would’ve proceeded to step 2 and demanded a list of prospective actions we could take and analyzed them all. If a border wall is too expensive and ineffective, then how about going after employers? Would a snitch system be considered too unamerican? Would reviving the old Cheech and Chong act with skits about Mexicans terrified of la migra help? What about using them in our commercials? “Anything is on the table people! I want ideas!!”
Instead, with Mr. MAGA Ubermensch Winner, we got a circus clown show complete with bouncy cars, honking noises, and crying children. Not very compelling.
Astrid
I would say they’re the guys fake fighting on the street, while their accomplices pick the pockets of distracted passers-by.
js
There is a lot in the stimulus, but it’s a coronavirus stimulus, a one time thing mostly, it’s not some move toward social democracy, if that’s what one wanted, and yes of course it’s the minimum we actually need, then they are surely barking up the wrong tree. Even a minimum wage increase would have been a more permanent legacy.
The problem is not so much with the stimulus itself, but that everyone correctly figures the Dems will get two bills through reconciliation and that is all they will get in 2 years period. Because of the Dems that are blocking removal of the filibuster! And yes it’s Dems blocking that. And the stimulus is one bill, they only get one more shot to do anything. It better at least be a broad bill. If they waste it on an unpopular narrow constituency bill they are toast.
Astrid
Hugh,
Truly, you are a comic gem. If calling la Markel a shallow narcissist and serial terrible dresser qualified me for the KKK. Does thinking Jeremy Corbin a decent man make me an antisemite? Does not wanting to start a “humanitarian” WWIII with Russia/China make me an authoritarian oppressor of Sunni Chechen cross dressers?
Why the heck not, words can mean whatever the hell you want them to mean. We’re all post modernists here!
Willy
There is a lot in the stimulus, but it’s a coronavirus stimulus, a one time thing mostly..
Morning Joe (“Joke” to some) called it something like the biggest prog thing since FDR. Majority Report did a better job of discussing the pluses, minuses, and shortcomings. I don’t get my news from corporate cable news (and advertisement for old boomers) channels anymore so my info along those lines is second hand.
Ché Pasa
Wow.
The understanding that nothing is really permanent with Congress seems to be in very short supply. This goes with the whole notion of hating politics and of course politicians as a fundamental principle. Authoritarianism is very attractive under the circumstances, even better, I suppose is totalitarianism. Why bother with politics when our system ensures you’re not going to get everything you want, and most of the time, you’re not going to get anything because of system capture by a libertarian overclass. Which cannot be dislodged without… more effort than anyone is willing to apply.
The idea that feckless, corrupt Democrats are solely responsible for this state of affairs is deep-seated, so deep-seated that when they actually do something worthwhile — even if temporary — the anti-Dem rage only intensifies. Because… of course it does.
Willy
The idea that feckless, corrupt Democrats are solely responsible for this state of affairs is deep-seated, so deep-seated that when they actually do something worthwhile — even if temporary — the anti-Dem rage only intensifies. Because… of course it does.
Are they actual independents? Some of them, no matter how many times you explain “the nuance” of your position, they don’t budge one bit. You’re still a DNC-enabling hack. The only public figure of any kind who I can think of who’s anything like that would be Jimmy Dore. And he recently bought a two million dollar home. Doesn’t seem very populist to me.
Willy
Mr. Jones, I’m a Seahawks fan, though I did live in Ohio long ago. The Browns management had to do something for reasons I already clearly explained. The question is over what constitutes “intelligent leverage” over our national politicians to get the results which most Americans citizens seem to desire, as suggested by the polling.
Interested Observer
I agree that having negative feelings towards people and systems that are fucking you over is a perfectly normal and healthy response. The question then is, what to do with those emotions? Right now the people getting shafted have next to no political power. That’s why Biden can promise a $15 minimum wage and a $2000 check and not follow through on any of it.
This happens regularly because enough suckers will “vote blue no matter who” every single time regardless of how often they are shit on and gaslit and lied to by the Democratic Party. It’s bizarre seeing all these tools on Twitter who counselled people to vote Democrat get angry at the Biden administration for doing what Democrats always do. And you know these idiots are going to shuffle off to the polls in 2022 and 2024 and vote Democrat all over again. It’s irrational and it’s masochistic. I wonder if this kind of thing happens in any other country?
The second thing is it takes more than just voting in elections to effect significant political change. Neoliberalism is deeply entrenched and ideologically opposed to things like a minimum wage boost because that’s considered “government interference” in the market. Power concedes nothing unless it is compelled to do so. The welfare state was an anomaly that only existed because the ruling elites were afraid that if they didn’t give the workers something they might be overthrown and lose their power. After unions were broken and workers atomized they were no longer afraid and bye bye welfare state. The collapse of the Soviet Union was the final nail in the coffin and neoliberalism went into overdrive after that.
People today forget that anger and hatred without collective action to back them up doesn’t change anything. Our forbears had to risk their freedom, wellbeing and even their lives to fight for the basic labor rights we take for granted. Many of these rights are currently being dismantled. Without the labor movement that sprang up after capitalism replaced feudalism working twelve hours a day, six days a week in atrocious conditions for a pittance would still be a thing. Yeah they were scared of dying at work, hated being ruthlessly exploited and they were righteously pissed off at a system that allowed all that to happen. So they hit together, organized themselves and literally fought and died for those conditions to change. That’s how unions began.
Today things are different. The anger and negative emotions at being exploited are there but people are far more atomized than they were then, the nature of work has changed and they are too busy fighting each other, thanks to the identity politics psyop. Being in thrall to a corporate controlled that is replacing physical life doesn’t help either. The best they can do is beg politicians for crumbs and complain on the internet when they don’t get them. They can’t even bring themselves to hold the Democratic Party to account by not voting for them and putting them under pressure.
The civil rights era was the last time a mass movement forced the ruling class to listen to people’s demands. People were injured and killed, there were political assassinations and covert intelligence agency operations to thwart their will. The people prevailed not just because they were pissed off, scared and hated the authorities but because they got channeled those emotions, worked out a strategy and risked life and limb to put their plan into action.
That spirit doesn’t exist today. People want change but don’t want to put any effort into making it happen. They have no concrete demands. Defund the police? Please. There’s a reason the elites were so enthusiastic about that. Without a plan, without demands and without sustained effort riots, burning shit down and LARPing is all that’s going to happen. Just like a “revolution” without knowing what comes next can only lead to chaos.
Simply copying the labor movement of the late 19th and early 20th century or the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s isn’t going to work either. Society has changed and a new plan and new strategies are needed. For younger people today, weaned on individualism and identity politics, universalism is a bizarre concept. Why should I care about the rights of some deplorable “white supremacist” or inner city “welfare scrounger”? But without a universalist perspective society-wide change isn’t possible. The idea of giving up some individual rights in exchange for collective rights is also anathema today.
So, yeah, I’m not optimistic even though I often act like I am. I think things will keep deteriorating and the country will continue becoming more authoritarian until we have a managed pseudo-democracy cum techno surveillance state. Red versus blue will continue and most Democrats will continue letting themselves be gaslit into voting for their oppressors. There will be lots of complaining and writing on the internet but that’s basically just entertainment that provides an illusion of “doing something.” Fear, anger and hatred will increase and continue to be channeled by the ruling elites into dead ends. Periodic civil unrest is likely. Foreign countries (primarily China, Iran and Russia) will be blamed for many of our problems. And most people will keep their heads down and do what is expected of them. Transgressors can expect to be ratted out by their colleagues, neighbors and strangers online.
It’ll be like 21st century reboot of Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’ with elements of 1984 and Neuromancer. I hope I’m wrong. The best option is hope for the best, prepare for the worst.
nihil obstet
Should we quit griping about the lack of a $15 minimum wage requirement in the CARES act and the reduction of $2000 checks to $1400 because its defense is true and logical? No.
Joe Biden campaigned on those issues. Those were promises he made over and over again, especially in Georgia. Those of us who can spend hours a day learning and thinking over politicians’ acts may judiciously conclude that the act is better than might be expected. Well, ffs, it should be! Meanwhile, the great majority of Americans just keep living their lives without politics as a hobby or means of self-actualization. And what they know is that the Democrats broke their promises. Democrats lied.
In two years when the man making $8.50 an hour and the woman needing the whole $2000 for rent, utilities, transportation, and food realize that elections are coming up, they may stay home because politicians can promise but deliver nothing or they may take their ballot and vote for someone other than a Democrat because Democrats lie.
And all the liberals and centrist Democrats will wail about the stupid electorate, wondering what you can do about voters who judge your integrity based on whether you lie, rather than basing it on what they would learn if they just spent a few hours every day on Democratic websites.
bruce wilder
NPR reports the passing of Allan McDonald, the Morton Thiokol engineer who refused to sign off on the Challenger launch. Executives at Morton Thiokol under pressure from NASA executives overruled him.
Executives.
Ché Pasa
Yeah, and what happens when that woman (and her three children) discover she got a “check” for $5,600 (not $2000, not $1400) for her household, and she’s getting $900 a month in child tax credit? What happens when that dude making $8.50 discovers he’s eligible for Medicaid when additional subsidies to states make expansion possible? Maybe he can even get his teeth fixed. Wow. Who’d a thunk, right? What happens when he finds out he’s getting a big “check” on top of the $1400 one for expanded EITC? And so on and so forth.
Absolutely make a big stink about $15 an hour and accept no more excuses or lies from anyone about it. Say what you want about the $2000 “check” lie, but realize that if Warnock and Ossoff hadn’t been elected from Georgia, the likelihood is that nobody would get “checks” at all except the fattest of fat cats.
Broken promises from politicians may be routine, but we don’t have to just roll over about them (Rs do it all the time, though.) We need a much more equitable economy and society, and it’s going to take a huge push to get there, and it will require (probably) jailing many of the libertarian overlords.
Biden, for all his many faults and failings, appears to be operating at least in part from the framework of Catholic Social Justice teaching (he’s old enough to know what it is). As a senator and vice president it seemed like he forgot about it, though, to serve the interests of the banks and overclass. Now? There’s something distinctly different in his approach to policy. He’s still failing in many respects — student loan debt for example seems to flummox him — but as some are starting to realize the American Rescue Plan will make a real and almost immediate difference to millions of people’s lives, and it will continue to over an indefinite term.
Arguments over broken promises will certainly continue and should.
But any D plan put forth with an R senate majority would essentially have gotten nowhere, and there likely wouldn’t have been an R plan at all — as everything’s fine now, remember?
S Brennan
Thanks for that posting Bruce…
__________
“Mr. McDonald continued to press the case in Florida. Not only might the O-rings fail, he said…
…but [in precedence of Columbia] ice hanging from the launch tower could fall off and damage the shuttle’s heat shield. And even if the takeoff was successful, choppy conditions in the Atlantic Ocean might make recovering the reusable rockets impossible.
The NASA team pushed back. Could Mr. McDonald actually prove the rings would fail? And why was he bringing up his opposition now, just hours before the flight?
After 30 minutes, the Ogden team returned, saying they would give their approval after all. It later emerged that company executives, wary of upsetting their customers at NASA, had pressured the engineers to comply — and that the executives were in turn pressured by NASA officials, who had planned a record 15 shuttle missions that year and did not want delays.
But Mr. McDonald refused to go along, and when NASA asked the company to fax over a letter stating their approval, he declined to sign it. His supervisor at Morton Thiokol signed instead.
The next morning the Challenger broke apart 73 seconds after liftoff, the result of an O-ring failure that caused one of its booster rockets to spin out of control. All seven on board were killed”
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/09/us/allan-mcdonald-dead.html
_________
BTW, all survived the explosion, all in a conscience state and all, until impact sought solutions…nobody panicked, nobody failed in their duty to their fellow traveler…
The Space Shuttle was a political creature in it’s inception and a political creature in it’s end, it did advance technology but…failed to advance science.
nihil obstet
@che pasa
what happens when. . .? They will research who brought it about and be able to assert that all this and the tax credit (which they will understand despite needing H&R Block to fill out their 1040Z form) come from the Democrats? That must be why the Republicans have kept winning elections.
Trust is a delicate thing. I think the benefits the bill brings are great. I also believe in democracy where the people choose policies and leaders based on knowledge. Even if the bait-and-switch is from weak-tea bait to high-octane switch, it doesn’t develop the kind of governance we should be wanting.
I think the odds are good that in two years more people will remember the broken promises than will understand that the good things came from the same people.
Willy
Good stuff Che. It seems there’s an unusually large gap between opinion polls telling us what the citizens want, and what the elected actually do. But we should still give credit wherever it’s due (such as it usually is).
But I’d rather talk about rockets. I knew as a kid watching cartoons that all rockets want to land on their fins. But no, Nixon wanted that space place he’d seen in 2001 Space Odyssey. When they finally wheeled out the model with the ridiculously gigantic fuel tank and the two big ass strap-ons, he said “Fuck it, just keep going”.
And then years later the lawsuit lawyer called the settlement for the families “woefully inadequate”. Maybe somebody else can post a story about why NASA execs weren’t made to fly in those recoverable boosters to give their perceived reliability more of a “boost”. I still remember Ians post about a culture where our PTB rarely ever have to deal with the consequences of their own decisions.
I knew some people from Morty T. That place started out making glue. Decades later Northrup Grumman bought the company that bought the company that bought the company that bought the company (and/or some equivalent shit), which used to be Morty T. Asking them about solid rocket casings was a little like asking the Minnesota Corps of Engineers about bridges back in the ought years. “We don’t talk about that around here.”
I’d go into my story about my friend who knew a guy who got ruined by the most famous national senator from my state, just so the senator could have a scapegoat and evade personal responsibility for a major fiasco of he sponsored, but it’d just bore you.
S Brennan
File this under; What a F’n Idiot:
“But I’d rather talk about rockets. I knew as a kid watching cartoons that all rockets want to land on their fins. But no, Nixon wanted that space place he’d seen in 2001 Space Odyssey. When they finally wheeled out the model with the ridiculously gigantic fuel tank and the two big ass strap-ons, he said Fuck it, just keep going”
The original Space Shuttle was meant to be a horizontal take-off, two stage to orbit demonstrator, it became the nation’s preeminent SSTO because Nixon wanted to wipe the slate clean of JFK and by extension FDR..something a great number of elite in both parties seemed eager to do. The only part of Willey’s fantasy that’s correct is the mentioning of Nixon as a man without any scientific guile.
The damage Nixon did to science was to the Nuclear Power Industry by eliminating the LFTR development in favor the now completely discredited “fast breeder reactor” and that was only outdone by the other moron of the 70’s…Saint Jimmy Carter who made sure Nixon’s idiocy was not reversed…kinda like Obama was to Bush [the 2nd]…not that Carter was anywhere near as foul as Obama…and in fairness, Nixon [and Carter] was a Saint compared to the foulest of my life, Bush/Obama.
But I am so sorry for interrupting the narrative, Trump is the ultimate evil…yeah, yeah..yeah..as Hugh says, completely ineffectual and yet, the greatest evil of all time. It’s hard to reconcile the two, but when you have to always vote blue, you don’t care about what’s true………..do you?
Willy
Nixon wanted to wipe the slate clean of JFK and by extension FDR.
Trump made bringing back anything New Deal FDR that much harder with his Supreme Court picks, fool.
Willy
Regarding the US Space Shuttle program, while Sad Brennan prefers to pull “information” straight out of his ass, here’s two better sources:
https://www.nixonfoundation.org/2017/01/dawn-space-shuttle/
https://www.space.com/12085-nasa-space-shuttle-history-born.html
Willy
SSTO was well known to be a technical impossibility back in the 1960’s. Instead of Sad’s especially sad confusing of science with his irrelevant science fiction sources, Von Braun’s most realistic idea for a spaceplace required 3 stages. But he preferred not to abandon his successful monster rockets nor his quest to keep going to Mars, so left NASA about the time Nixon wanted to economize it. Back then, this is what Republicans did. I think most people know what Von Braun was for NASA. His IQ was said to be 180, at least a hundred points higher than Sad’s.
But my primary point from that comment was well beyond the senile, apparently. My primary point was that I was agreeing with bruce when he suggested that unchecked executives can practically get away with murder, just because they’re “executives”.
someofparts
Webstir – Thanks! Your feed is on my list already.
This comment from Johnstone stood out for me –
“Decentralization is where the real revolution is at, since wherever things are centralized you’ll find the fingers of power working to herd us all into supporting the oppression machine.”
If the rulers are better at manipulating centralized power than we are, that is a tricky thing to fight. Building mass movements from the grassroots up seems like playing on their terms in their ballpark. Guerilla tactics are the only real option, power disparities being what they are.
When we play in their arena by their rules this is what happens –
https://theintercept.com/2021/03/08/nevada-democratic-party-dsa/.
We win, they take all the money and run a shadow party. Nevada – a cold cup of coffee for anyone still harboring the fantasy that electoral politics has a shred of legitimacy.
The orchestrated enmities we are manipulated into perpetuating exist to distract us from the end game, which is this –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0mZvS25AAg
Start watching at about 16 seconds. It is a first-hand description of what our economic sanctions are doing in some of the places where we are inflicting them. This is the real face of terrorism and it is what the reptiles in Congress are bringing home for domestic application. Notice how they always start stoking public hysteria about gun-toting terrorists just before they unleash real economic terrorism.
someofparts
I think of our economy as a body riddled with the cancer of corruption. Government stimulus won’t fix the place for the same reason you can’t cure cancer by making the person who has it healthier. Feeding the body just feeds the cancer, while the body continues to sicken. The cancer has to be killed before the body has a chance.
I used to work for a public utility where a vice president embezzled millions from the real estate group. He terrorized the staff. Out of an entire floor in a large high-rise complex, only half a dozen people managed to avoid getting fired. When top management finally asked him to leave, it took a while just to reconstruct basic functions in the department. Only then did they discover the embezzled millions, long after he and his ill-gotten gains had undoubtedly left the country for some non-extradition juristiction.
T Simmons
The corruption within the economy is a cancer of the economy. The economy itself – even fastidiously regulated – is a cancer on earth’s vital systems.
The fight against a given cancer often destroys the host before the cancer ever would, if it would have at all. It’s better to live with some cancers than to attempt to eradicate them.
Life-denying systems of any sort are a breeding ground for more cancers.
John
The Futility of Fear, Anger, and Hate is more appropriate.
Plague Species
Excellent argument from Ché Pasa. The perfect rebuttal to S Brennan & Co. who’s purpose is to campaign for McDonald Trump. It’s not going to work this time around, S Brennan, and Ché Pasa clearly delineates why. Something is better than nothing and something is certainly better than less than nothing. You’re supporting less than nothing. Biden and the Dems are something at least, even if that something is far from adequate in addressing the root of our issues.
Ché Pasa
Yes, it’s far from enough, and it doesn’t get to the root of the economic problems the US faces, but seemingly for the first time in a long time, the bulk of the benefit doesn’t go to feed the richest and their hangers on.
That’s where a lot of the complaining is coming from, too. The rich aren’t benefiting — but they aren’t being taxed into oblivion either which they should be. The merely well-off who haven’t been impacted financially by the pandemic aren’t getting much out of this either — no $2,000 checks for them, not even $1,400, not if they make or made $80,000/$160,000 last year. But guess what? They might just get the child tax credit. Up to $300 a month per child. What? How can that be?
And so on. We don’t know yet how all the elements work in the package, or even necessarily what they all are. But the signs point to substantial benefits available to or going directly to people who have been largely left to fend for themselves for too long.
It will put a dent in poverty, but there’s a long way left to go. It will go farther in getting control of the virus than anything prior, but given the urge among some state politicians to let the virus run rampant among selected populations, it won’t be a cure-all.
Some will focus on what’s not there, and if Dems are smart (ha) they’ll get to work on the missing elements (like increasing minimum wage, reducing/eliminating student debt, more steps toward universal health care, justice reform, and many other things) right away and get some of it passed by the end of the year (good luck with that…). Next year, they’ve got to go big again if they want to keep control of the congress (never a certainty) in the face of intense gerrymandering and voter suppression.
Z
One reason for optimism on the likelihood of any success of an uprising is that there probably aren’t a hundred people in the U.S. who would go out into the streets to defend Fourteen Hundred Dollar and Zero Sense Joe and Kamalala who aren’t paid in some way to do so. So, if our rulers’ hand-picked duo deals poorly with some upcoming issue that pisses off both the Left and the Right, such as Wall Street corruption, it has the chance to become a movement that has more unity and force to it.
Trump and Obama had their fervent defenders … the MAGA crowd and Obama’s supposedly anti-racist following … that were counterweights to any protests against them, but the current crew only has the organic support of folks who are economically comfortable and essentially just want their brunches back. Don’t expect them to leave their table.
Now, we can be sure that the paid divisionists in print at the Grey Jezebel, “our” nation’s paper of propaganda, are going to do their best to try to create schisms between us. That’s what they do, that’s what they’re paid very well to do.
We can also expect that there will be an on-line brigade that will try to stir up racism and misogynism divides between us that center on Kamalala and they will post both the attacks against her based upon those grounds and then also the outraged responses to them.
Z
kråke
Shaheen and Hassan have local reasons, esp. since the Dimwittest of the dumfuk Sununus is def going after Hassan’s seat.
NH has an insulting min wage, but it’s a third rail around here, because of the way the General Court is structured. NH flips between D and R roughly every two years, but because the enormous legislature only pays $100 a year, and because most offices are appointed, the Statehouse has a heavy weighting towards people who can afford to do politics on their own dimes, regardless of party. Even the largest city, Manchester, only compensates Alderman at about $8k a year (last I ran a candidate), which means everyone who runs has means.
NH is, therefore, run by people who own businesses, and there is no entry for anyone who works for subsistence wages. Institutionally, gunning for the min wage increase turns the entire political apparatus against you. (We are a state with almost no abortion, gun or business restrictions, because of it.)
If Hassan votes to effectively double NH’s min wage, Sununu will eviscerate her as anti-business, and all the franchisees and non-union shops will throw money at the effort.
S Brennan
https://www.cnet.com/personal-finance/stimulus-bill-unemployment-benefits-this-new-tax-break-could-save-you-money/
“Allowing a deduction or exclusion for UI benefits for tax purposes would not help the lowest-income workers and it would not be as progressive as simply giving people more UI benefits,” said Steve Wamhoff, director of federal tax policy at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. “Workers with the lowest incomes pay federal payroll taxes but they earn too little to owe any personal income taxes. So if you give them a deduction for their personal income taxes, that does not help them at all.”
The people who would benefit the most from the changes are people who have a good income and are unemployed for only part of the year, or someone who is unemployed but has a spouse who makes a decent salary, “because a tax deduction will provide the most benefit to people in the highest personal income tax brackets”
_____________
Which should personally please the majority of commenters here. And that is indicated in the self-serving arguments above. Especially when you tie it to the numerous tax provisions, including the recovery rebate credit of $2,800 for married taxpayers plus $1,400 for each dependent for 2021.
All of these benefits accrue to middle income people who did not lose their jobs, indeed, it will help the comfortably retired the most. The vast majority of the state aid is headed for Pelosi & Schumer’s states of California and New York, the two wealthiest states with the lowest % of job loss due to tech & finance being immune because of the ability to perform both job functions as remote work [something Ian pointed out early on]. This bill favors remote workers [largely blue] and throws spare change from the carriage to those left behind.
Also of benifet to the “well to do” is the 7.5 billion allotted to lobbying firms who were shut out of the first two bills, yep, seven figure lobbyist need help too. Then there is the $500,000,000.00 allotted to art institutions…because the wealthy people of East Hampton and Connecticut are looking for the huge tax deductions that Art Institution can render, their six figure administrators must be maintained…no?
All that said, there are good things in this bill, just like the other two, which were also heavily favored toward the wealthy, the only thing that’s really changed is the “blue no matter who’s” support for it…now that the neoDs are in power they can find the “good side” of anything. That’s nice, hypocritical as hell but, nevertheless, nice.
To remind our daily dissemblers.
Pelosi’s mendacity combined with her miserly treatment of workers was applauded here because it was seen [correctly] as helping Biden/Kamala obtain power. Likewise, Trump’s attempts to get more money for workers was jeered here because it was seen [correctly] as an attempt to win re-election. Very few here argue for what is best for the vast majority, most argue their class/personal interests and esthetics. The latter being an offshoot of class elitism.
https://benjaminstudebaker.com/2021/03/01/are-declassed-professionals-in-the-united-states-like-surplus-song-dynasty-civil-servants/
Feral Finster
“And the Washington Generals would lose their jobs if the Harlem Globetrotters weren’t so popular with the fans. But the Generals only purpose for existence is to play the foil, and not provide reliable competition.”
That is pretty much Team D in a nutshell. Notice how when they get power, they never seem to be able to turn back the horrible terrible no-good very bad things Team R does when they have power?
Willy
Alright Feral Finster. Maybe it’s time for a thought experiment.
I saw the Globetrotters once. It’s a bunch of basketball stunts MC’d by a guy yelling into a mic so highly volumed that you can’t understand what the hell he’s saying and you just wish the show would end already so you can take your nephews to the quiet ice cream place.
Now what if an orange narcissistic incompetent nutjob took over the Globetrotters? Meadowlark MAGA. Not only would he grab the spotlight, he’d grab the mic as well. He’d run around the court yelling about how great his crappy stunts were and how awful and the Washington Generals are, while otherwise ignoring everybody else except for Sean Hannity.
You’d think that every fan in that place would eventually wish the Generals would steal the ball or steal the mic or just beat the crap out of Meadowlark MAGA to shut the guy up. But you notice that a lot of the fans seem to love him. A lot. Plus they see Meadowlark as a hero for basketball because something called Qanon says he is. And so do a bunch of prosperity preacher scammers. And you notice that the Generals whine a lot but never actually outplay Meadowlark because they’re all owned by an amusement park company called Herschend Family Entertainment or some shit. God this is depressing.
Forget the thought experiment. I concede to your point. I would certainly try to humiliate the DNC by calling them the Washington Generals of the political world then. But still, they do seem to have a few honest players on their team. And I think that player called Biden may be corrigible. We just need to get more reality through his thick skull.
Ché Pasa
It’s rough for the rightist loyalists right now. The R talking points are falling flatter than ever, as a wide range of tangible benefits for the working classes have been actually enacted by the feckless and corrupt Democrats and soon will be going out the door and fattening the bottom lines of people who have been left to fend for themselves for far too long. They never would have seen anything like this from an R dominated congress and White House. So the Rs whine about “our grandchildren’s debt!” and “sugar highs” and the usual claptrap. Oh well.
There’s still plenty to criticize Dems for, but for once they seem to have realized that they can’t keep shoveling bags of money to the Overclass while leaving the rest of the population to starve — figuratively or literally. It helps that both Yellen and Powell were outspoken in the immediate need for relief for the underclasses, and no necessity to continue fueling the Overclass’s greed and rapine. Had they not been so firm in their requirements this time around, I have no doubt the feckless and corrupt Dems would do what they always do: give up before they begin to fight and hand over everything to their sponsors.
They didn’t do it this time which is a good indication that their owners told them to get money to the underclasses NOW before there’s another uprising.
js
But there is a fair amount of grift in the stimulus bill of course. What anyone expected anything else? This is the kind of thing a conservative party that wasn’t a lunatic fringe off in it’s own private Idaho might improve by compromise, but nevermind.
And unlike the much smaller Obama stimulus none of the money goes to anything tangible, you saw roads being repaired there, maybe regardless of whether they needed it, but nonetheless. Yes the rental assistance, the unemployment assistance are badly needed even though intangible. But lots and lots and lots of money to the nonprofit industrial complex, that stuff is going to evaporate on contact with not even an aura left, money to study the effect of closing schools on kids – really to study it?, of course the 3rd massive bailout for the airlines, bailout for private pensions.
S Brennan
That’s a thought experiment? WTF?
That’s a rant from a babbling idiot. And you had the temerity to ask me if I was drunk…Lord…I certainly hope you were when you wrote that.
Yeah..yeah..”Orange Hitler”…”fascist”…KKK..and all those other ad hominems, I getcha. What a nut.
Joseph E. Kelleam
Sir, the library is closing…time to put your deetures back in your mouth and leave.