Deficit Hawk Joe Biden Sabotaged Pandemic Relief Efforts
The recent negotiations about a pandemic relief bill are a preview of Joe Biden's presidency.
U.S. President Donald Trump asked for a $2,000 check for every U.S. citizen. 'Moderates' rejected to send checks. Some people on the left and right kept pushing for them.
Washington Post, December 9
Trump has privately indicated a willingness to send another round of stimulus checks of as much as $2,000, according to one person in direct communication with the president. Congress in March approved a round of $1,200 stimulus checks that the Treasury Department disbursed to more than 100 million American families in a matter of weeks.A second round of stimulus checks was left out of the $908 billion bipartisan framework unveiled last week by a group of moderate lawmakers hoping to break the months-long impasse over stimulus negotiations. Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) have been pushing for the checks to be included in the final package, with Sanders going as far as saying he will vote against the relief legislation unless they are approved.
“While the amount is yet to be determined, direct payments to American workers continue to be a high priority of the president’s,” a White House spokesman said in a statement.
Congress compromised on a paltry, means tested $600 check.
USA Today, December 20
The measure contains a $600 direct payment to Americans who earned up to $75,000 in 2019. That is less than the $1,200 checks approved in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act in March.It provides $600 per child, up from $500 in the spring. The bill also includes $1,200 for couples making up to $150,000 a year.
Some lawmakers on the left and on the right are furious over the meager result.
Newsweek, December 22
Democratic Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard criticized the COVID-19 economic stimulus bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on Monday, calling the amount of direct assistance payments a "slap in the face."
...
"This bill dished out hundreds of billions of dollars going toward special interests, going toward the military-industrial complex, going towards foreign countries meanwhile saying, 'Here's what's left for you. You get 600 bucks,'" Gabbard said in a video
...
In a Sunday floor speech, Missouri Senator Josh Hawley said the $600 checks were "hardly adequate and we should not pretend otherwise." Hawley forced a vote on Sunday to raise the amount of the direct assistance to payments to $1,200, the amount of direct payments allocated after the CARES Act passed in March, but that attempt failed.
Turns out that President-elect Joe Biden had sided with the 'moderates' who favored not to send any check. He thereby successfully sabotaged those Democrats who were pressing for a bigger one.
New York Times, December 21
[T]he agreement on a new pandemic aid package showed the ascendance of moderates as a new force in a divided Senate and validated President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s belief that it is still possible to make deals on Capitol Hill.
...
“I’m glad we forced the issue,” said Senator Susan Collins, the Maine Republican who, along with Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, were leaders of a monthslong effort to break the impasse over pandemic aid even as the virus exacted a growing economic and health toll on the country.
...
Mr. Biden on Sunday applauded the willingness of lawmakers to “reach across the aisle” and called the effort a “model for the challenging work ahead for our nation.” He was also not an idle bystander in the negotiations.With Republican and Democratic leaders in the House and Senate far apart on how much they were willing to accept in new pandemic spending, Mr. Biden on Dec. 2 threw his support behind the $900 billion plan being pushed by the centrist group. The total was less than half of the $2 trillion that Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, had been insisting on.
Mr. Biden’s move was not without risks. If it had failed to affect the discussions, the president-elect risked looking powerless to move Congress before he had taken the oath of office. But members of both parties said his intervention was constructive and gave Democrats confidence to pull back on their demands.
Biden and the Democratic leadership have now settled for half of what they had been offered three months ago.
Matt Taibbi, December 15
In September, as time wound down toward Election Day, the bipartisan “Problem Solvers” group released a $1.5 trillion aid plan which they pitched as a version of that theoretical compromise between Democratic and Republican positions. Though the group contained some Democrats, it was dismissed by Party leadership.
Trump continues to demand $2,000 checks.
NBC, December 22
President Donald Trump is demanding lawmakers raise the second round of stimulus checks to $2,000 per person, from $600."I am asking Congress to amend this bill and increase the ridiculously low $600 to $2,000, or $4,000 for a couple," Trump said in a video posted to Twitter Tuesday night.
While the president did not outright threaten a veto of the $900 billion Covid relief bill, he did call it an unsuitable "disgrace."
Three years ago the Republicans enacted a $1.5 trillion tax cut for the rich. Now, pushed from presidential power, they are again becoming deficit hawks.
The 'moderate' Joe Biden and the 'moderate' leadership of the Democratic Party will support them in that.
Posted by b on December 23, 2020 at 11:24 UTC | Permalink
« previous pageOhh Noze!
Trump and Dore anti-Nancy $2000 co-conspirators?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVKzpLjB-xc
Posted by: gm | Dec 25 2020 0:03 utc | 102
Yet more indication in support of my hunch above at post #20 that the $25Million 'grant' to Pakistan in the COVID-19 relief bill was really just a thinly disguised blackmail [1st installment(?)] pay-out to keep them (Pakistan's ISI, Iwan, others?) quiet about all the corruptocrats' dirt and kompromat that Imran_Awan had most likely collected and squirreled away as 'insurance' [hey we're talking about the 'Deadly DC Swamp' here] during the 7+(?) years Awan held his job as the Congressional Dems' IT Manager.
Outrage After Pakistani Court Releases Convicted Murderer Of Journalist Daniel Pearl
In 2002 38-year-old Wall Street Journal reporter and California native Daniel Pearl was abducted and the US embassy in Pakistan was subsequently mailed a gruesome beheading video.The main suspect in Pearl's Murder, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, has been ordered released from prison by a top Pakistani court on Thursday after he was acquitted of the murder earlier this year. He had been held in custody pending an appeal by the family.
[...]
Sheikh along with three alleged accomplices was acquitted last April in a ruling that shocked and angered US officials and Pearl's family. The main suspect had initially been handed a death sentence while to others were given life in prison.
Okaay...So if US Officials were so *outraged* by the Pakistanis' judicial rulings letting Omar Saeed off the hook,
Why did the deepstate pandemocrats and corruptlicans *still* send them a $25 Million kiss in this Covid relief package?
Posted by: gm | Dec 25 2020 1:30 utc | 103
@ Posted by: Paul J | Dec 24 2020 19:48 utc | 93
MMTers are fundamentally wrong because it isn't money that makes the capitalist economy to develop its productive forces, but profit. Profit presupposes value, whose existence the MMTers - as neoclassical economists - deny.
If the creation of a moneyed exchange system was enough to generate capitalism, then capitalism has always existed: we can detect it in the Bronze Age, the Roman Empire, even in some cities of the Middle Ages. But that's not the case.
and thus biden immediately reveals himself to be as bad as trump on everything but handling the virus, even trump was at least paying lip service to the need of a 2000 payment, while biden was working with republicans to sabotage it.
Posted by: pretzelattack | Dec 25 2020 3:09 utc | 105
profit is just a bookkeeping artifact, in many cases, and doesn't drive productivity. corporations just use profit to buy back shares and the like. and i didn't see kelton deny value anywhere in her book.
Posted by: pretzelattack | Dec 25 2020 3:16 utc | 106
@ gm | Dec 25 2020 1:30 utc | 103
As you can see the Pakistani CIA called ISI is not on the radar of the Western left, right or center. They can murder opponents anywhere, including Canada, be they Americans, Canadians, any nationality https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/fatah-karima-fled-pakistan-for-her-life-only-to-see-it-end-in-canada
Why this free pass for an Islamic nation armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons too?
Posted by: Antonym | Dec 25 2020 3:20 utc | 107
chu teh @99--
Yes, several excellent books exist telling the tale of how Capitalism got its start with the "discovery" of the Western Hemisphere. Three fundamental forms of Capital were expropriated to make that occur--Gold & Silver, Land, and Human Capital--as close to freely as one can get.
---
Posted by: karlof1 | Dec 24 2020 22:34 utc | 100
And drugs! Tobacco, sugar, and rum in the west; coffee, tea, and opium in the east.
Posted by: Bemildred | Dec 25 2020 3:56 utc | 108
@102 gm
Pelosi brought the $2000 amendment to the floor for unanimous consent and Trumplicans shot it down!
Then the Trumplicans took the Bill that was hammered out for weeks on end and flew it to Trump's mansion.
The ball is now in Trump's court, but whether he vetoes or not is now moot. Instead of making calls and demanding that his Trumplicans vote the $2000 in on unanimous consent and send him the amended bill to sign, he played golf all day. Never mind that! Instead of leaving later for Florida and staying back in D.C. to ensure the bill passed with the $2000 stimulus; he did squat and took off!
Will Jimmy Dore help Trump overturn the election too?
What fools people are to believe Trump cares about anyone but himself!
Posted by: Circe | Dec 25 2020 5:50 utc | 109
@105 pretzel
Bullshit. One prez at a time. The Dems brought it to the floor Christmas Eve and Trumplicans shot it down! Get it dum-dum?
Posted by: Circe | Dec 25 2020 5:53 utc | 110
karlof1 | Dec 25 2020 6:12 utc |Just checked in n your still here!
Thanks your reply,
o I say to you...now you have got me started on Veblen and I'm thrilled!
Thanks and await Leisure boom.Instant like for his business v industry view...who could resist?
Posted by: chu teh | Dec 25 2020 6:31 utc | 112
Jimmy Responds to AOC Gate Keeping Medicare 4 All #ForceTheVote
Very effective takedown of supposedly M4A espousing 'liberal warriors' who scold pandemic-hit Americans and JD that 'now's not the time' to hold Pelosi's feet to the fire on M4A.
Posted by: gm | Dec 25 2020 11:27 utc | 113
bullsh.. circe biden cooperated with mcconnell to shoot it down. read the matt taibbi article linked to if you aren't just a shill. shills shill, and the ones for the democrats are every bit as bad as the ones for the republicans. 2 competing scam organizations, who only exist to serve their donors.
dore doesn't give a shit about overturning the election circe, and it is dishonest to throw that red herring out there. why do you support biden and the republicans demolishing the social safety net circe, during this pandemic. "one president at a time"--yeah trump is on the way out, and the new boss is just like the old boss. one crook at a time, hail to the new crook.
if you support this bipartisan effort to screw ordinary americans you're just another right wing shill, much like biden himself.
Posted by: pretzelattack | Dec 25 2020 12:18 utc | 114
Nice try Circe@Dec 25 2020 5:50 utc | 109,
but you and most of the mockingbird media hide the fact that deepstate pandemocrat house leader Pelosi employed, with the willing collaboration of like-minded bad faith House corruptlicans the underhanded
*UNANIMOUS CONSENT* maneuver.
If Pelosi had called for a *floor* vote on the $2k payment boost, the underhanded Uniparty leadership knew the measure would pass overwhelmingly, and they knew the Overlords don't want that to happen.
So this is how Pelosi/repugs killed the $2000 boost measure, and tried to point the blame at Trump
Did notice that Pelosi did not come out to announce the $2K measure had been strangled? Hoyer did it.
I guess even Pelosi could not muster sufficient chutzpah to lie about her crime and keep a straight face while doing so.
Posted by: gm | Dec 25 2020 12:33 utc | 115
@115 gm
That's pure bull and spin. If Trump doesn't sign the bill Trumplicans sent him; then we'll see what happens on Monday. Before then; you know squat.
@114 pretzl
Oh, and suddenly a 4-year Trump bootlicker is a leftist purist? 😜
Posted by: Circe | Dec 25 2020 14:37 utc | 116
Arby @ 98:
"Peter [Schiff] reminded us that every American is on the hook for their share of all of the money that was borrowed in their name."
If you want to understand why this is wrong read the book I mentioned. The economists behind MMT have analysed the financial system and describe how it actually works. The notion that every US citizen is burdened by debt because of the federal government is putting out treasuries is juist plain wrong. Kelton explains it very clearly so please read the book and educate yourself. It may be hard to believe that people like Schiff, who have worked their entire career in finance, have got it completely backwards, but he's in 'good' company (mainstream economists Like Krugman, Blanchard, summers ets. Again my advice is you read the book.
Posted by: Paul J | Dec 25 2020 17:00 utc | 117
I would like to thank all world leaders for saving 7 billion lives during the last year. Hopefully even more draconian measures can be brought to bear in the future as everyone can clearly see it is the only way to vanquish a severe influence.
Posted by: humperdink | Dec 25 2020 23:05 utc | 119
At the time of the first 2 trillion 'stimulus' with $1200 a month, the unemployment and the rest of the grift for airline management bonuses and the rest, I looked at a 'bottom up' alternative. That 2 $Trillion$ could have paid every single human being (age no matter) $1200 a month. Every month. FOR OVER 29 F*CKING YEARS. EVERY SINGLE MONTH. FOR TWENTY-NINE YEARS.
So, no increased unemployment. No evictions. But no. First came banks, airlines and every other payoff to the 1% people who can't spend the money they have in this lifetime. The stupidity of the wealthy will bring about their ruin. They won't be able to buy enough bullets to save them from the parents of starving and dead children who will be storming their 'estates'.
Posted by: TominAZ | Dec 26 2020 0:02 utc | 120
I didn't make clear, that $1200 every month to every human being -in America - not the entire planet.
Posted by: TominAZ | Dec 26 2020 0:04 utc | 121
think you will find that every American has been getting 1200 quid a year for the last 300 years from plundering the rest of the planet.
Posted by: humperdink | Dec 26 2020 0:21 utc | 122
Posted by: humperdink | Dec 26 2020 0:21 utc | 122
1/3 of taxes of your average Yank goes into funding war crimes, and the rest into god-knows-what into other leeches embedded in the system.
In saner places like China, people will have long revolted for much less outrage.
Posted by: J W | Dec 26 2020 0:36 utc | 123
@ Posted by: Paul J | Dec 24 2020 19:48 utc | 93
It is only because the public is so misinformed that the deficit myth seems revelatory that government books are not analogous to household budgets. Governments that print/digitally create money run deficits routinely, no problem. But the ruling classes and their servants indoctrinate the public to think there’s no money left — for housing, health care, education, infrastructure, cultural affairs, and so on.
The system of finance capitalism as it is today is incapable of building systematically because the planning is done by the financial sector which only cares about capital gain returns, not industrial productivity or social reproduction or overall societal health. Money artistry, as one critic puts it, does not get to the heart of our problem. The system must continuously expand to survive, which means it imperials the rest of the world too. It is the cause of more inequality, poverty, immiseration, cultural deprivation, suffering and death, not a cause of societal well being.
€£¥€£¥
MMT and Kelton do not touch on the important issues of the failure of [finance] capitalism to deliver social needs and the underlying exploitation of the many by the few. On those questions, MMT has nothing to say and different MMTers have different views. I’m sure most, if not all MMTers (like traditional Keynesians), want governments to intervene to meet social needs. Some (like Bill Mitchell) support socialist measures to replace the law of value and the capitalist mode of production; some (like Kelton) don’t. Ah, says Kelton and MMTers, that is not the point of MMT. We just want to show that it is a myth that the state cannot run up deficits without consequences. Again, that does not seem very new, radical and not even correct in all circumstances.
https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2020/06/16/the-deficit-myth/”
Posted by: suzan | Dec 26 2020 4:33 utc | 124
circe you're lying again. dore is not a 4 year trump bootlicker, or a 4 minute trump bootlicker. he just exposed the people who foisted this russiagate propaganda on us, assisted by bootlickers like you. 2 bowls of crap, and you're very very sad that dore doesn't support your favored bowl.
that doesn't mean he supports the other bowl.
Posted by: pretzelattack | Dec 26 2020 5:35 utc | 125
i don't see where kelton claimed she was espousing something new; she's just exposing the lies both parties use to justify screwing everybody who isn't elite in america.
Posted by: pretzelattack | Dec 26 2020 5:38 utc | 126
Biden's policies, by leading to an economic collapse of the yankee imperium, will benefit everywhere else, since the yankee regime, viewed as illegitimate by an increasing proportion of the population due to the evidence of electoral fraud successfully suppressed by the legal system, will then have to expend its efforts defending its domestic power base rather than attempting to rule everywhere else.
Posted by: exiled off mainstree | Dec 26 2020 9:46 utc | 127
Posted by: TominAZ | Dec 26 2020 0:04 utc | 121
Right. Now when you understand that the reason they don't want to give you any money is to keep you impotent to take all "their" money back and put it to better use, you are getting the picture. It is not an accident that they are rich and you are not, and it is not your lack of industry either. The first rule of being rich is you have to keep most everybody else poor, or YOU don't get any special treatment. We all know that The Donald and his friends needs lots of special treatment.
Posted by: Bemildred | Dec 26 2020 11:48 utc | 128
@ Posted by: pretzelattack | Dec 26 2020 5:38 utc | 126
I get the position of the MMTers.
The problem here is that, as philosopher István Mészáros once said, two wrongs don't make a right: they're still two wrongs.
Exposing a lie with another lie isn't constructive. It makes you look like a snake oil salesman (which I think the MMTers deep down are).
There is one thing interesting about MMTers, though: they are a sign of the times, a sign of Late Capitalism. At its most sophisticated form, MMT essentially covertly advocates for a socialist economy as a solution to the problems of capitalism. And they do that over a purely neoclassical theoretical base, not a Marxist one (that is the true novelty). I don't think they're aware of that, as they surely must never had read Marx, so it means they came to the conclusion independently. Which means neoclassical economics is finally surrendering to Marxist Economics, even if unwillingly.
I certainly am no economist and have not read this MMT stuff.
Modern Monetary Theory sounds to me like "it's different this time."
When I was a kid an order of fish and chips was 25 cents. Not sure what it is now but I think it is around 12 bucks.
IMO the value of an order of fish and chips has not increased but the purchasing power of money has decreased.
That I believe comes from too much printing of dollars.
I did read the one star reviews of that book on Amazon and they say it is all very nice but it is bulls*it.
Gold was 35 bucks at the time, it is now 1800 bucks.
If printing money made no difference then several countries that have tried that have watched their currencies collapse into dust.
Posted by: arby | Dec 26 2020 14:37 utc | 130
@97 Kooshy
I am not stating that Johnstone and b are always wrong and have nothing good to contribute. I'm stating that they were usually wrong on Trump, and b was wrong on predicting the Dems would lose the House in 2018, wrong on Trump getting a 2nd term, wrong on a no-deal Brexit, wrong on Biden not wanting a greater stimulus payment when he is on record this week committing to a third relief package and another stimulus.
Both b and Johnstone have their biases, blindspots and infatuation with Trump and I'm not going to give them a pass when they're judgment is skewed by those flaws and they're then proven just plain wrong by the facts, not fully truthful or spreading biased propaganda, the latter mostly done by b as in this article here.
I don't give anyone a pass when it comes to being less than truthful or influenced by anything else but the truth; I don't care who they are.
So you think that people should only come here if they agree with b? If there were only echo chambers everywhere the truth would be non-existent.
Posted by: Circe | Dec 26 2020 14:39 utc | 131
Posted by: Circe | Dec 26 2020 14:39 utc | 131
"So you think that people should only come here if they agree with b? If there were only echo chambers everywhere the truth would be non-existent."
No I don't, but apparently you are "Instead, she now scolds everyone else from her usual high and mighty perch."
she don't need to scold anyone nor should you. The truth is Biden like his old boss obama is as piece of shit as trump and his whole cabinets are, that's the point b, Johnston and most of bloggers here have been making all along. why you don't like that sounds like is more political than factual. $600 is a bone to dog that Biden stood for it. As Iranian proverb goes " a good (harvest) year can be expected from it's spring (being the beginning of the year) BTW 2020 was a testament to this saying, sice corona started in spring. Think of $600 and Biden as US spring.
Posted by: kooshy | Dec 26 2020 15:11 utc | 132
@ Posted by: arby | Dec 26 2020 14:37 utc | 130
Printing money works - as long as it is unevenly distributed.
Let's say you earn USD 2,000.00 per month as a salary. Is it a high, low or medium wage? The answer is: it depends. Depends on how much the vast majority of the population is earning per month on average.
If the vast majority of the population is earning, say, USD 1,000.00 per month, then your hypothetical USD 2,000.00 is a high salary. Reversely, if the average is USD 4,000.00, then it's a low salary. Since everyone is competing on the free market for the same set of commodities (macroeconomically speaking; of course there are products not everybody needs), then that means you purchasing power is conditioned to how much your competition (i.e. the other salary earners) can buy. This facet of the system is mostly visible to services: a middle class person can easily hire a house maid because the woman who provides the service has much less money than him; she will then sell herself as a house maid to the middle class person because his salary is above her availability of money. Also notice how the concept of meritocracy disappears here: the house maid's "cap" is the middle class person's salary, minus his cost of reproduction; you'll never be middle class by being a house maid (unless you serve a capitalist).
For goods it's simpler: you pick up the total amount of goods available in the free market and divide by the total amount of money summed from the hands of the people who need them. There are other factors in play that distorts this, but this is the underlying factor. When productivity rises, there's pressure to lower the prices of the goods produced (per unit); when money is printed and given at the hands of those who need it, there's pressure to rise the prices of the goods produced (per unit). A simple exercise you can do is this: assume the USG gives every American - everyone, even the vagrants - a UBI of USD 5,000.00 per month, unconditionally. In this case, there will be a race to the basic goods of subsistence (food, house utensils, cleaning products, clothes etc. etc.). The supermarkets will then realize (not immediately, but they'll eventually will) that every body is earning at least USD 5,000.00 per month and rise their prices accordingly. Soon, USD 5,000.00 will be the new USD 0.00, and everybody will need to earn USD 5,000.00 + x in order to not be a de facto vagrant.
Also notice this logic only applies to the working classes and the petite-bourgeoisie: the capitalist class is immune to this because they own the means of production; they'll always receive what they need + the surplus value from the working class, so they'll always receive an excess wealth produced socially. They are, therefore, above the monetary system - be it the gold standard or the fiat currency system.
Posted by: arby | Dec 26 2020 14:37 utc | 130
[Arby says about the Difici myth by Stephany Kelton:]
"I did read the one star reviews of that book on Amazon and they say it is all very nice but it is bulls*it."
You're silly
Posted by: Paul J | Dec 26 2020 21:10 utc | 134
Posted by: suzan | Dec 26 2020 4:33 utc | 124
You write:
"It is only because the public is so misinformed that the deficit myth seems revelatory that government books are not analogous to household budgets. Governments that print/digitally create money run deficits routinely, no problem. But the ruling classes and their servants indoctrinate the public to think there’s no money left — for housing, health care, education, infrastructure, cultural affairs, and so on."
That's completely right (I agree).
That the Marxist economist you cite does not agree with MMT is not surprising. If you believe in the Marxist laws of economic development, then MMT will be highly incomplete, I understand that. MMT does incorporate insights from Marx but builds on other strains of economic thought as well. That is what MMT-ers constantly point out, so much of the criticism by your Marxist guy is just a rehash of the stuff thrown at MMT by the mainstream economists. MMT primarily is a reaction to the dominant narrative provided by neoliberal orthodoxy. How exactly it relates to Marxist thought is complex issue, I suppose. What I like about MMT is its empiricism: where Marxism aims at deep laws of economic development (which may or may not exist, personally I don't think they do), MMT just looks at how things actually work in practice. Doing this, they have come up with many surprising new insights and they show the orthodox neoliberal economists to be wrong on fundamental points. Taking into account MMT provides you with a very practical program for change. What's not to like about that? About the deep Marxist stuff I'm always doubtful. I've read some Marx and I think he is very verbiose in his writings; he often needs many many words for making seemingly simple points. For what it is worth: I would say the economic system is so complex, depends on so many forces and human decisions, which will change from decade to decade, that the existence of fixed laws of economic development is highly uncertain. Anyway, I think reading Kelton's book will give you a very much more clear picture of how our present-day economic and financial system actualy works. To show, as MMT does with chapter and verse, why austerity is the wrong approach is a very valuable and highly topical contribution. So MMT in fact demonstrates exactly what you wrote (citation above).
Posted by: Paul J | Dec 26 2020 21:52 utc | 135
The comments to this entry are closed.
Only adding another trillion dollars to the annual budget for this month is being "moderate" now.
The only bipartisanship Biden offers is being certain everyone in Washington gets their 10% too, like the Big Guy always does.
Posted by: Liberty Blogger | Dec 24 2020 23:52 utc | 101