Biden signs $1.9 trillion stimulus bill into law on U.S. lockdown anniversary

Well, I guess that's how it works - you print the money and success will follow. "Build it and they will come", as they say. Or may it was "bread & circuses". I'm confused.

 

I hope this stimulus will come in handy for so many people who are hurting during this pandemic.

P.S. The snow is melting and the birds are chirping over here in the Midwest. I can't believe I'm sitting here looking out at a mostly quiet world and it's been a year already.

 

Has the ice in Texas melted? How are people recovering?

Yeah. I lost 2 neighbors and a few acquaintances. It's been a year really.

 

Perhaps the most partisan worthless piece of trash every passed by a Congress. Only 10% goes for COVID the rest payoffs to political allies and spending that doesn't even occur for years to come. This is a repeat of the Obama/Biden/Rep policies in 2007-2015 and they were total failures. Print the money and the votes will come but the economy doesn't necessarily follow.

Biden ran on being bipartisan and to be able to work with the other side and it was time to come together and they cut the Republican's completely no even allowing any of their amendments.

And once again Biden runs off stage instead of like any other President would have sat there and taken questions about the bill, what is in it and why he supports what is in it. OH the excuse is he's going to speak again tonight. Will he open the floor to questions afterwards, random questions from random reporters...............don't count on it.

 

I'm in Chicago.

I have a friend in Texas and he says things are getting back to normal. They are just trying to figure out how to resolve the outrageous utility bills and prevent something like that from happening again so they are better prepared.

Sorry for your losses. I lost two family members.

 

I was looking for your threads on the last two stimulus bills

 

These complaints are very vague. What specifically do you object to?

 

Hopefully next is voting reform, then tax reform, then a healthcare bill followed by an infrastructure bill

 

It is impossible to be bipartisan when one group exists only to stop progress.
F*** Republicans didn’t have the same positive impact with liberals as “trolling the liberals” had with the cons — Republicans are free to introduce amendments and several items were removed to placate the right but they are still the “party of no” (progress, integrity, logic, truth, goodwill). Republicans have been welcomed to govern but not just obstruct.

 

What lock down? The left rioted all spring, summer and fall.

 

Calling something progress doesn't mean it benefits society. Keep in mind, government is not responsible for progress, only hindering it.

 

False. Government does a ton of good. It provides world class education (in some countries), produces world class scientists (in some countries), provides the best healthcare on Earth (in some countries), lands humans on the moon, create a world wide internet, produces advancements not previously imagined — your idea of government though — it absolutely produces nothing but greed, corruption, stagnation, revokes women’s rights, hinders rights of sexual minorities, imprisons people for possessing a weed.

Conservative government produces nothing, it exists only to hinder progress, and be on the wrong side of every issue known to man.

 

Is this a case of Quid Pro Quo?

Are the people being paid for all the harm done to them by cruel, pathetic and illegal government policy?

 

You’re thinking of the farm welfare needed by trumps trade way.

 

You are incorrect.

Government does not provide world class education. Tax payers pay for world class education and the government takes the money and delivers poor results. They funnel our tax dollar to those with good connections. One example is text books. Living in the information age, text is free to all with a computer or a phone, yet government contracts for text books costing $1000.00+ that contain codes making it so it can not be used twice, add to the debt many claim to be concerned about.

Our government turns our tax dollar into illness. Americans are consuming subsidized corn products at record levels and are fatter and sicker than ever. PepsiCo is doing great, Americans not so good. Once symptoms show, subsidized pharm products are prescribed to mask symptoms so that the patient may comfortably continue their unhealthy habits. We spend more per patient than the rest of the world and results show that in spite of record profits for pharm industry, Americans are sicker than ever.

Your claim (In bold) calls for the operation of the mind and is false. Instead of creating a position for me and arguing with yourself, you can just ask me. oppose abortion laws, oppose putting people in prison for any act that does not create a victim, and support gay marriage.

Not everyone that notices the damage your party is known for is a Republican. The only difference between the two parties is what kind of damage they do and who profits from it.

 

Which party primarily supports corn subsidies?
Which party protects sugar industry?

And I do apologize, I should have specified some conservatives. Many of you are great people with just a different perspective on life — but it seems like y’all are in a slimming minority.

I am far from a Democrat but I will side with them 10 to 1 over what the Republican Party has become.

You are correct, government doesn’t do anything it is the taxpayer but it does seem to amplify the voices of the taxpayer. What does that say about our government?

 

Both parties trade our health for power. No politicians in either party will stand up to food giants of the pharm industry. What it says about our government is that we have allowed it to grow far too powerful. As long as Americans fight among each other, they will continue to spend our money like thieves with stolen credit cards while Americans grow fatter and sicker.

I am not a conservative. They are no less slimy than Democrats.

 

I think it was quite clear enough.............try again.

 

You
A federal take over of elections.
Tax hikes that will wreck the economic recovery
A federal take over of healthcare
Another failed "infrastructure, shovel ready jobs" bill

All Biden has to do is get out of the way of the economic recovery that is taking place, stop sending out money so people don't have to work if they don't want to and the federal government can keep it's hands off my state elections.

 

Here's a taste... and that's just a taste.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/adaman...on-coronavirus-stimulus-bill/?sh=5e2c1cf539db

• $1.5 million earmarked for the Seaway International Bridge, which connects New York to Canada. Senate Leader Chuck Schumer hails from New York.
• $50 million for “family planning” – going to non-profits, i.e. Planned Parenthood, or public entities, including for “services for adolescents[.]”
• $852 million for AmeriCorps, AmeriCorps Vista, and the National Senior Service Corps – the Corporation for National and Community Service – civic volunteer agencies. This includes $9 million for the AmeriCorp inspector general to conduct oversight and audits of the largess. AmeriCorps received a $1.1 billion FY2020 appropriation.
• $200 million in the bill to The Institute of Museum and Library Services (FY2019 budget: $230 million). This agency is so small that it doesn’t even employ an inspector general.
• $270 million funds the National Endowment of the Arts and the Humanities (FY2019 budget: $253 million) – In 2017, our study showed eighty-percent of all non-profit grant making flowed to well-heeled organizations with over $1 million in assets.

• $350 billion to bailout the 50 States and the District of Columbia. The allocation formula uses the unemployment rate in the fourth quarter of 2020. Therefore, states like New York and California –who had strict economic lockdown policies and high unemployment – will get bailout money. States like Florida and South Dakota – who were open for business – will get less
• $128.5 billion to fund K-12 education. The CBO determined that most of the money in education will be distributed in 2022 through 2028, when the pandemic is over.
• $86 billion to save nearly 200 pension plans insured by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. There are no reforms mandated while these badly managed pensions are bailed-out. Many of these pension plans are co-managed by unions.
• $50 billion goes to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). A portion of these funds is earmarked to reimburse up to $7,000 for funeral and burial costs related to Covid-19 deaths.
• $39.6 billion to higher education. This amount is three times the money – $12.5 billion – that higher ed received with the massive CARES Act funding from last March.
• $1.5 billion for Amtrak – the National Railroad Passenger Corporation. In FY2020, Congress appropriated $3 billion for Amtrak ($2 billion in annual appropriations, plus an additional $1 billion in the CARES Act COVID relief bill). In the three years before the pandemic, AMTRAK lost $392 million – even after a $5 billion taxpayer subsidy (FY2017-FY2019).
• $100 Million for Silicon Valley rail expansion for the richest of Americans.

 

They weren't even allow to have a part of it even after 10 went to the White House to try to come up with bipartisan measures. The three amendments they proposed weren't even allowed This is a whole leftwing bill that is a complete sham on the taxpayers and a payoff to unions and Democrat state and local government and pet issues. Only 10% going to COVID and we don't even need that we have plenty of COVID money that hasn't even been spent. Why do you think the Dems refused to have a complete and through legislative process on this, because they know it's just a HUGE money grab on their part to buy votes.

 

Even those on the left who claim to be politically involved and aware don't even know about these things because the leftwing media his complicit in this pully the wool over the taxpayers eyes.

 

Na. We tried that

Our turn

 

Exactly right. I knew from the moment the MSM and their "journalists" refused to share these facts with the public, that it was going to pass. The really stupid people were all happy with receiving scraps, while the giant Democrat donor class received $1.7 Trillion.

 

I have mixed feelings on the bill. I think people definitely need it, and it will help out a lot of people who are trying to pay their bills and get by. On the other hand, this is more money created out of thin air, "money by decree". Deficit spending is basically stealing from the future. It fuels greater consumption, which must be paid for in energy, where energy returns on investment are dropping rapidly as the quality in fossil fuel sources drop rapidly. Where we once had energy returns on investment of 30-1 they are now down to less than 11-1. The global economy today is modeled only on social sciences, and not on biophysical sciences at all. Economies act in basically the exact same fashion as an ecosystem, but modern, neoclassical economists always ignore the reality of energy costs, and instead focus on the invisible hand of the market to make everything work out. It was a model that worked fine 150 years ago, but now we have hit the planet's limits to growth.

I love the quote by Kenneth Boulding: "Anyone who believes that exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist". I love that people are getting some relief from the difficulties of covid, but I think this entire economic system is contributing to the madness. I think future pains are going to make these covid pains seem like nothing if we don't have a drastic change in how the global economic system works.