I like to think the very best of people.
However, we’re about to enter a weasel wonderland. Every grifter, hack, scammer, and moocher
smells free money – lots and lots of it – and nobody, but nobody, is going to
get in their way. It’s going to be a mad rush of various pigs racing to the
trough.
That means much of the $2 trillion supposed to help those
put out of work because of the coronavirus pandemic is going to be squandered
on people who don’t deserve it and businesses that don’t warrant our financial
support. Count on it.
Republicans and Democrats in Congress decided to just flood
the economy with money. They didn’t really care who got the money, who deserved
help, or whether this was even a smart idea.
Much less how to police the grab bag so people and businesses didn’t
just rip us off.
And you can depend on it:
we will get ripped off. The way the bailouts were structured they were
intentionally designed for the American taxpayer to be ripped off.
Seriously. The drafters of this pile of
crap on both sides of the aisle went out of their way to make sure it would be
as easy as possible, as effortless as they could, to rip us all off.
Let me just start on the primary flawed premise: We need to put extra money in the pockets of all
Americans. That’s extra money in
addition to boosted unemployment comp for those who lost their jobs. Why?
Honestly, why? Nobody can answer that.
Some say so people impacted by the pandemic can still pay
their rent, their car payments, and buy food – you mean, in two short weeks a
large portion of the country had run out of food, and blown through any money
to cover rent and car payments due in another two weeks? Equally dumb is when others say it’s to help
the unemployed pay for childcare. Huh?
If you aren’t working and already home all day can’t you watch your own
kids?
Tell me who, specifically, this program is supposed to help.
And why. Nobody can, beyond the usual push
back that most Americans live paycheck to paycheck already and couldn’t come up
with $400 in an emergency – which is all complete bullshit.
Okay, so for no apparent reason we’ll give every citizen
$1200, plus $500 for each child (limit 2). That means a couple with two kids
gets $3400 for doing absolutely nothing. Makes no difference if they live in
East Jabip, Mississippi – where an extra $3400 is a lot of money – or in New
York City, where that’s worth a lot less.
I’m also betting it makes no difference if they are still
working and getting paid from their job.
Surprised? Nobody wants to talk about that, do they?
Let that sink in for a moment. What’s the largest group of
workers still employed?
Do you think Federal employees lost their jobs because of
the pandemic? Of course not. What about state and local government employees?
Think they’ve been laid off? What about public-school teachers – they’ll still
keep getting paid, as well as school administrators.
So will all the first responders, EMTs, police,
firefighters, garbage collectors, nurses, hospital workers, etc. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying that they
shouldn’t be paid – health workers, especially – but if the rationale for shot gunning out billions
upon billions is to offset workers’ lost income, then why are we giving it to
people who’ve not lost a dime of income?
Face it: it’s a stupid and wasteful way to pad the pay of
everybody who is already being paid, most with our tax dollars. Democrats love it, Republicans love it; it
makes both sides seem really generous and compassionate and “doing something” to bring back the
economy.
But here's the other big question about this scheme: you
give people a lot of free money, but you’ve closed most of the businesses where
they’d usually spend this windfall. And
because they can’t patronize those businesses, those firms laid off their
employees. Great plan.
How in God’s name is this helping the economy?
And what do you do as an encore? If you feed the squirrels,
there will be more of them. If you take away parental responsibility to feed
their own kids by having schools do it, the kids will now be wholly dependent
on free meals at school to survive and parents won’t bother anymore; when
schools shut down for holidays and breaks you still have to feed those kids or
they won’t be fed at all. If you set a precedent of just handing out billions in free
money to everyone every time there’s a crisis, where does that end, or can it
ever be stopped? Plus, who decides when it's necessary?
Now, before you think I’m overreacting, think about this: Bernie
Sanders and many Democrats have been promoting a $2000 a month payment to every
American family for some time. It would be a minimum income for every family,
forever. A floor, in other words.
I can hear the argument now – you didn’t have any problem
giving $3400 to everyone. We’re just proposing much less than that. Oh, and BTW, we must extend this to all
residents – not just citizens – in this country, or you’re a bigot and a
racist.
Wait for it. It’s coming.
Next up, I’ll discuss the new scam for
unemployment benefits and corporate welfare.
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