Changing the Target on the stimulus is stupid

[Proud liberal 80]

Just heard on CNN that Biden is open to a more targeted stimulus checks....making this move just to appease a few Republican senators and to claim bipartisanship is dumb and a reason why Democrats did so poorly in 2010....pass the damn bill as is and let the Republicans cry partisanship and live with the consequences...Democrats will be rewarded for passing a big bill that helps Americans and the people who will cry partisanship will cry that anyway....but if you pass a watered down bill (I.e the 2009 stimulus bill) the Democrats will get blamed for passing a bill that didn’t help and still get blamed for partisanship


Edit - before the Georgia runoffs, this had bipartisan support and oases the house with 40+ republicans voting for it, and in the senate there was 10+ Republican Senators who said they supported it...the only reason it didn’t pass is because McConnell didn’t let it go up for a vote....so I don’t know why this piece if the legislation is now even debate

[AZ8theist]

1. Unfortunately, Manchin is standing in the way of that..

[Miguelito Loveless]

8. Then lay the whole thing at his feet

I am tired off people like him screwing up the whole project. Tell him that if he wants to be the "one vote", then go for it, and live with the consequences. I can't think that will go down well with his constituents in WV.

[Midnight Writer]

14. Exactly. Take the vote on what 98% of Democrats want.

If he refuses, let him take the heat.

I reckon the voters of WV would like to see some relief checks going to people who are hurting.

We can always rejigger the bill to appease him if that becomes necessary. But that should be a last resort.

[Demsrule86]

15. No he said he would vote for the package.

[AZ8theist]

17. Really? The last thing I saw was he was totally against anything that wasn't bipartisan.

Maybe pressure from the WH changed his tune?

Citation please if you have something...

[Demsrule86]

19. Yes, he said he would vote for it...pressure from Biden and Governor in my mind caused this

shift. In general, folks like him are not publicly outed and that is a shame because they need to be responsible for their votes...the filibuster protects them against consequences...but when people heard that Manchin might not vote for relief in WVA...his phones were jammed by the right and the left.

[roamer65]

2. Just send it out to people at this point.

Get it in the hands of those who need it and those of us who will spend it...like me.

[RANDYWILDMAN]

3. lets go to much and not too little

Not hard to figure out.

This will be a targeted loss if we go too little

[Walleye]

4. Targeted. I hate that word. News people get a hold of something and they can't let it go

Got something to do with our gun culture?

[redstatebluegirl]

5. The GOP wants to target rich people and large corporations.

They can't do that with this bill.

[LizBeth]

6. I guess I will have to hear what Biden is thinking BEFORE I say it is stupid. Do you have any actual

information on what Biden is talking about targeting and how much? I am thinking that would matter, seeing you are calling Biden stupid. I mean, really. Did I miss something cause I am a little behind.

[LakeArenal]

7. They act like this one more stimulus will be enough.

The Pukes just won’t recognize the needs of the people. Even their own constituents.

[Make7]

9. It's already targeted (the direct payments).

At some income level the payments taper off to zero. Changing that income level, or the rate the payments decrease, doesn't suddenly make the payments targeted - it just changes the target.

[Proud liberal 80]

11. I guess my point is it should be left at the current target level

before the Georgia runoffs, this had bipartisan support and oases the house with 40+ republicans voting for it, and in the senate there was 10+ Republican Senators who said they supported it...the only reason it didn’t pass is because McConnell didn’t let it go up for a vote....so I don’t know why this piece if the legislation is now even debate

[Make7]

13. I don't think it really had bipartisan support - Trump blindsided them with the $2000 demand.

They were boxed in trying to hold on to the Senate majority.

The last round of $600 checks were negotiated by the Secretary of Treasury on behalf of the Trump Administration. In fact, Mnuchin thanked Trump for his "leadership" in getting that bill passed at the end of the year on the Treasury website (and I believe Twitter) - right before Trump announced to the world that the $600 amount was a disgrace. The amount the Republicans and his Treasury Secretary insisted on (instead of another round of $1200 checks the House had passed in May). A bunch of Republicans changed their position to support the new Trump position - but it was political. Now the politics are different.

It's disgraceful that much needed help to state and local governments has been held up by Republicans and they are still trying to block pretty much all of it - along with lowballing just about everything else. But that's who they are, everything can't be passed by reconciliation so at some point compromise will be necessary.

I think they should just send checks out to everyone and modify the tax code to get the money back from those who don't really need it based on their 2020 income. Targeting these payments based on 2019 income is leaving out lots of people that were doing fine the year before the pandemic hit but need some assistance now. But I'm not a member of Congress, so I don't get a vote.

The income targets should probably be what they were for the last round of $600 checks, for speed in getting the money out and to make the $1400 a second part of the initial $600.

[Chainfire]

10. Lets spend months setting up a process to "target" the proper folks

The Republicans want to drag their feet until the issue goes away.

[Hoyt]

12. Personally, I think it is smart. If GOPers stick to $700 B, Biden won't budge. If it gets to $1.6 T

or so, that's not a big deal.

[mvd]

16. I agree

The people who it is going to aren’t exactly rich. And as someone said, what if the income level of some people changed? The people deserve to get something back. I would only agree to the target change if it was that or nothing with no sign of budging.

[Liberal In Texas]

18. You are correct! Adjusted gross income in 2019 for a LOT of people is significantly lower or just

gone in 2020. I for one was not able to work at all in 2020. We're OK because of pensions but if we were younger we might be looking at losing our house.

Just get the money out and the fact some rich people might get a check is a drop in the bucket compared to the need out there.

[dawg]

20. This would be a huge mistake.

People who didn't get the check this time would assume they would've gotten one if only Trump had been re-elected.

[RANDYWILDMAN]

21. It's targeted at me

We are at the very upper range of the stimulus. The funny part is we also spent our stimulus in the local economy.


And I know it's coming back on the taxes anyways.

Joe, the marketing optics suck on this. Remember the 2017 Tax cut, just push it through