A very good Twitter thread from @EricLevitz about the current aid legislation
Twitter thread by @EricLevitz
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1368233889823678464.html?fbclid=IwAR2hYQgW20uILkQvLyWXzQDO8zmQfUy-TuttzfS4bULfnu2TQZtMXta4xCQ
1) Despite having only a 50-vote Senate majority, Democrats are about to pass a nearly $2 trillion bill that puts more than $7,600 into the bank account of the typical family of 4, establishes America's first proper child allowance (on a temporary basis for now)...
2) makes ACA plans much more affordable, provides $27 billion in rental assistance, improves the left's prospects for winning progressive reforms at the local level by leaving states in better fiscal health than they were pre-pandemic, and cuts poverty in the U.S. by one-third...
3) None of this remotely commensurate with what working people are owed. But it is going to make the lives of hundreds of millions much better than they are now, and much better than they would have been had Democrats not come to power...
4) There is a sound and righteous impulse on here to direct attention towards those places where elected officials are betraying the interests of their constituents, and to raise the costs of such betrayals for those perpetrating them, to whatever extent we can...
5) And Democratic senators must be made to answer for their opposition to the $15 minimum wage, or the extension of $400 UI benefits through September, when comparable benefit levels exist on a permanent basis in other wealthy countries...
6) But I think it is important not to let that imperative fully occlude partial victories. A lot of progressive and socialist organizers, staffers, and intellectuals, along with trade unions, Black churches, and other working-class organizations helped bring us to a point...
7)...where *Joe Biden* is going to deliver the largest direct increase in worker purchasing power in U.S. history. Imo, to look at that and decry Democrats as indistinguishable from Republicans is both mendacious and more conducive to advancing nihilism than progressive change
