Progressives Renew Push for $2,000 Monthly Stimulus Checks but Economists Are Skeptical

[Nexus2]

Amid the ongoing debate over a new coronavirus relief package, progressives in Congress are advocating for $2,000 stimulus checks—not just once but every month until the pandemic is over.

More than 50 House Democrats, led by Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, sent a letter to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday urging their administration to back recurring direct cash payments.

"One more check is not enough," Omar wrote, likely referencing the $1,400 payment included in the president's $1.9 trillion relief package.

Source: Newsweek

I think this has about as much of a chance of happening as I have becoming to Professional Unicorn rancher. But the idea, IMO, has merit especially after seeing the 'compromise' offering like reducing the stimulus payments to 400 dollars. Which won't cover one month's rent in most places.

[Fiendish Thingy]

1. Which economists are sceptical? The corporatist neoliberal ones? Yellen says more $ is better

Krugman favours more stimulus, as do other economists.

Sloppy reporting by Newsweek.

[R B Garr]

3. Wow, just because "progressives" is in the title, a knee-jerk petty

holdover nonsequitur insult about “corporatist neoliberal” can’t be far behind.

The article names who was skeptical and why. It’s not just a chance for cheap shots at other Democrats just because a Bernie fan says something. The article talks about the efficiency and methods of providing relief and contrasts the Send Cash method and that realistic longevity vs. possibly more sustainable methods such as increased unemployment benefits and rent relief.

It’s really not another phony and unnecessary intra-party war.

[My Pet Orangutan]

4. There is a serious debate to be had about a UBI

but this ain't it.

[R B Garr]

7. Exactly. The article brings up other successful countries

that did UBI in the beginning of this mess and it was successful. This is not about an opportunity to create a war on the Biden administration to build political brands. The article talked about how or whether the UBI option is as workable now considering the sustainability. I remember reading how UBI was very successful—that was close to a year ago now.

[Hugin]

6. There are far too many rules created by Republicans attached to unemployment benefits...

for that to be a route for general relief.

I personally know many people who have lost their jobs and livelihoods who for a constellation of reasons are not eligible.

[R B Garr]

8. That was just one example. But at least you brought up

predictable Republican opposition instead of recycled inane and unnecessary insults about corporate neoliberals.

[Hugin]

9. I've been watching the Republican assault on the unemployed for years...

It's always the 'if it's easy to get unemployment, there's no incentive to work' refrain. Which has been pulled out and dusted off by these same Republicans as a justification for not providing any sustained COVID relief. When indeed, unless it's an essential service, people should not be forced to work to keep a roof over their heads and food for the children (who will never be eligible for unemployment) on the table.

[R B Garr]

10. Yes, but they used the same argument about the

Send Cash relief checks. Unemployment was just one example in the article.

The article was more about whether relief like UBI vs more governmentally sustained programs might help more.

[Hugin]

11. To be honest, right now I'm more for a sustained COVID specific program.

These 'one offs' are not going to cut it. Dirty bandages at best.

To conflate the COVID crisis with UBI does both a disservice. However, I see the motive for Democrats to finally take a cue from the Republicans typical response of not letting any crisis go to waste to advance their goals.

[Demsrule86]

14. UBI is a non-starter. It does not have broad support even among Democrats. Can we please work

to get policy that we need right Now. Covid is going to explode. People were promised the 2000...give it to them. The states desperately need money. Pass the Covid bill and go from there.

[Turin_C3PO]

16. Exactly.

No way will we pass a monthly payment plan with the Senate we have. It’s best to get this package passed as quickly as possible.

[Demsrule86]

20. It needs to be done fast. I doubt Biden has any thought of 'negotiating' with the 10.

It is not enough.

[Fiendish Thingy]

15. The article was one sided, with no comments from economists who support stimulus. Nt

[EndlessWire]

29. I agree. n/t

[Fiendish Thingy]

12. Neoliberal is an accurate, defined descriptor, the opposite of a non sequitur

You might want to look up definitions before you cast epithets.

[Demsrule86]

17. Neoliberal is an insulting term that some have adopted to use against those who don't agree with

them and should not be used on Democrats period. Unless we stick together, we will have another term where we don't advance our policy. Obama 's term was squandered by those who stabbed him in the back in 10 and 14. Lets support our president this time and the bill he believes is needed. The second guessing by some (not saying you) is wrong.

I will point out that I see no chance of getting UBI and the states must get some money or we are going to have millions dead of Covid. So pass the Covid bill in reconciliation and be done with it. Now is not the time to refuse the good in order attempt to get the perfect which I believe in this situation is unattainable.

[Turin_C3PO]

18. Technically

the term neoliberal is valid and means something very different than what Obama stood for. But I agree that it’s been used wrongly against more moderate Democrats. Really, people like GW Bush are “neoliberal”.

[Demsrule86]

19. I have not doubt it is in the dictionary but is used mostly now to insult Democrats.

So you are correct.

[Fiendish Thingy]

22. I used the term to describe economists opposed to stimulus, not against Democrats

It was an accurate use of the term, since Neoliberal is not a form of right/left ideology, but of economic theory.

[R B Garr]

25. Thanks for your informed post. I won't take the time

now to respond to the other poster about how “corporate neoliberal” is just an empty and worn out catch-all insult towards Democrats, and it’s downright silly to claim a couple random people quoted in an article make it “progressives” vs”corporate neoliberals”, even though words are in the dictionary.

No Democrats I know, know of, or read about think screwing people over at this time is the way to proceed. It just shows the emptiness of the insults to even try and insinuate any such thing. The primaries are over and Biden is President. I appreciate his inclusiveness, and he certainly doesn’t deserve the shade.

[R B Garr]

23. That's laughable since you had to force that staleness into

the article, and we all know why.

[Fiendish Thingy]

24. Tell me why, then I'll know too.

Economists opposed to Keynesian spending and stimulus programs are, by definition, Neoliberal at best, Austrian in the extreme.

[R B Garr]

26. Did you read the article? This isn't an article about

abstract economics and the names people used in the primaries. It’s about the Covid relief packages.

[Fiendish Thingy]

27. It's about economists who oppose the blanket stimulus payments supported by 70% of Americans

Yellen and Krugman have supported spending “more rather than less” to stimulate the economy; the economists in the article (most of whom have ties to Wall St.) support smaller, narrower targeted payments- just the kind of austerity proposed by Neoliberals and Austrians.

[R B Garr]

28. LOL, that is quite a stretch. Your ad libbing sounds

familiar, though.

This is not a “progressives” vs “corporate neoliberal” discussion.

[Fiendish Thingy]

32. Economically speaking, it is Keynesian vs. Neoliberal/Austrian School

The progressive legislators, and most Americans, support the Keynesian approach.

I get the distinct feeling you have no idea what the actual definition of Neoliberalism is.

[R B Garr]

34. The article talks about the best targeted ways to get

Covid relief delivered. A couple people are quoted.

Yet, you are fighting some abstract economic war trying to drag “progressives” vs “corporate neoliberals” into it because it’s an old primary fight. It’s laughable to call random people neoliberals when you consider how that has been used to slime Democrats. So, the definition of neoliberal has become so superficial and just an arbitrary wedge word thrown in to create phony wars. Honestly, now it just means anyone who didn’t vote for Bernie.

The article you commented on isn’t about progressives vs corporate neoliberals.

[Cha]

37. Mahalo, RB, for your replies!

[Hugin]

5. It's amazing how fast the 'economic' reporting has returned to any Democratic idea is a bad...

idea norms.

It's like any swing to the more humane and liberal is to be avoided at all costs. Mainly, a cost to their bosses.

[obamanut2012]

30. Newsweek is also now a RW rag owned by a cult leader

Literally.

[Fiendish Thingy]

31. I knew that, but apparently some on this thread do not. Nt

[My Pet Orangutan]

2. DOA

If we are going to have a UBI, this is not the way to do it. Omar needs to put work into a serious proposal.

[Demsrule86]

13. He is the deal. We are not going to get UBI. We will be fortunate to get the Covid bill through...

I know some don't recognize that we have a 50 50 majority with seven moderate Democrats who we would get nothing without. No on should split the party by making demands that are not possible.

[Takket]

21. Get the $1400 done first.

Let’s at least get that in people’s hands before we bog down Congress debating what happens next. I’m okay with additional payments later but the scope would have to be VERY narrow. People below the poverty line, this disabled, the unemployed for starters. Those that really need it.

[Celerity]

33. Newsweek has become a right wing rag with a RW agenda and pushing RW tropes and CT

I would suggest a self-delete, as this article is pushing RW tropes and ideologies on a very one-side basis.


Newsweek and the Rise of the Zombie Magazine

How a decaying legacy magazine is being used to launder right-wing ideas and conspiracy theories.

https://newrepublic.com/article/158968/newsweek-rise-zombie-magazine

Writing in The Columbia Journalism Review last year, Daniel Tovrov depicted Newsweek, once one of America’s most distinguished magazines, as a shell of its former self. All that was left was clickbait, op-eds from the likes of Nigel Farage and Newt Gingrich, and a general sense of drift. “Nobody I spoke to for this article had a sense of why Newsweek exists,” Tovrov wrote. “While the name Newsweek still carries a certain authority—remnants of its status as a legacy outlet—and the magazine can still bag an impressive interview now and then, it serves an opaque purpose in the media landscape.”

Last week, Newsweek suggested one possible purpose: The legitimization of narratives straight out of the right-wing fever swamps. An op-ed written by John Eastman, a conservative lawyer and founding director of the Claremont Institute’s Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, coyly suggested that Kamala Harris, who was born in California, may not be eligible to serve as vice president because her parents were immigrants. It was, as many pointed out, a racist attack with no constitutional merit, on par with the birther conspiracy theory that claimed Barack Obama was born in Kenya. Within a few hours, Eastman’s op-ed was being brandished by President Trump, who told reporters he had “heard” Harris may not be eligible to serve.

Three days after the op-ed was published, Newsweek apologized, sort of. In an editor’s note signed by global Editor-in-Chief Nancy Cooper and opinion editor Josh Hammer, the magazine acknowledged, “We entirely failed to anticipate the ways in which the essay would be interpreted, distorted, and weaponized.... This op-ed is being used by some as a tool to perpetuate racism and xenophobia. We apologize.” Still, the magazine refused to recognize what was obvious—that the op-ed was intended to spark questions about the eligibility of a Black woman running for high office. Newsweek’s editors merely feigned horror that the op-ed was taken in the only possible way it could have been taken.

The publication of Eastman’s op-ed says a great deal about the state of Newsweek’s opinion section, which has become a clearinghouse for right-wing nonsense. But it also points to a larger crisis in journalism itself: The rise of the zombie publication, whose former legitimacy is used to launder extreme and conspiratorial ideas. Even by the volatile standards of journalism in the twenty-first century, Newsweek’s recent problems are extraordinary. There are the usual issues: a sharp decline in print subscribers, Google and Facebook, the difficulty of running a mass-market general interest news magazine in an age of hyperpartisanship. But Newsweek has also been raided by the Manhattan district attorney’s office (a former owner and chief executive pleaded guilty to fraud and money laundering charges in February) and has been accused of deep ties to a shadowy Christian cult, amid many other scandals.

snip

[Rosco T.]

35. If Canada can do it, we can do it

[Nexus2]

38. Not if you listen to some of the louder voices which make our like 1,400 checks will cripple the US.

One month of a sum that barely covers rent in some areas, let alone expenses like utilities and food is too much and God forbid anyone get a dollar that doesn't 'deserve' it. The idea of ongoing payments seems to have little chance in that atmosphere.

[Nexus2]

36. It never made allot sense to me to mail out one time checks that won't cover the rent in areas

When it's probably going to MONTHS before they get around to another. I guess people with more in savings than some earn in a decade+ and/or multiple revenue streams don't get it.

[JI7]

39. 2000 is not going to happen. But try a much lower amount for people who make under a certain amount

It would have to be less than a thousand . Less for people who make over a certain amount and excludes those who make a certain amount .

I'm just talking about what could have a more realistic chance of passing . I don't see 2000 monthly happening right now. If we had done it when the virus first started then it might have worked .