It’s definitely helpful to have cash. I’m not sure how pension bailouts and things like that are going to be helpful moving over if there isn’t serious reform. I fear it’s just going to increase moral hazard and costs to society in the long term.
I would have liked to have seen a modern CCC instead of just cash.
Desired inflation rate? Hmm. Lump food, fuel, housing, education, and medical costs into that inflation index and I wonder how strong the dollar really is.
I’m puzzled as to why you’d think it’s horrible for poor people to get ahead. That’s great. A one, or two, or three time trillion dollar give away is going to accomplish that? Or is it going to help pay off a few small debts, an electric bill, and some rent?
Not a few.
The markets will tell us how strong the dollar is. It has been too damn strong for a while.
Fuel is too volatile to base much policy on. Housing is more region specific than many things.
The relief bill could cut the poverty rate in half.
Nothing to sneeze at.
I’m truly hopeful. We personally won’t be getting a relief check nor did we qualify for any stimulus check. But we don’t begrudge those who do. I just hope it helps more than it hurts.
In one of Obama’s worst moves, the money supply has been exploding for a decade, something disgraced ex-president Trump’s Fed chief (Yellen, appointed by Obama) was actually ameliorating until she was replaced by Big Money Powell:
ht tps://flic.kr/p/2kKfQjj
Regardless, inflation won’t be caused by this bill alone. Not even close.
I’m not an economist so you’ll have to help me with this one. What was the inflation rate while the money supply was exploding and if it was low, as I seem to recall, what problem was the explosion causing?
Modding: What is the source of your picture of the graph? It doesn’t appear to actually be from FRED. Maybe it is out of context? Maybe it is garbage that has been falsely attributed. I’m going to break the link until I find out it is valid and in context.
Seriously? Why don’t you go and edit some more apostrophes out of thread titles and stop being a citation monitor?
You don’t recognize it? Oh, the horror. You think FRED is the only source for M supply data? Lol.
Don’t modify for content, WE. If my cite is wrong, let the Board members deal with it. Your job isn’t to modify our arguments to meet your specifications, thanks.
I mean, my God, what you could have done with 2 seconds of Googling. Here. The same chart, this time with the secret FRED code word you require:
Wait! My original picture DID cite FRED! WTF?
My God, to be called a liar by one of the mods and them have them take it upon themselves to modify my argument. WTH?
Ohhh boy…
You weren’t called a liar. Your picture was suspicious and possibly wrong. My 2 minutes of Googling didn’t show the same charts. Thank you for the actual link to the site instead of to flickr.
In an opinion piece in the NY Times (probably paywalled), Jamelle Bouie says the relief bill:
is, with no exaggeration, the single most important piece of anti-poverty legislation since Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society, itself the signature program of a man who sought to emulate F.D.R.
Some additional details:
The bill scraps this in favor of a de facto basic income for children. Instead of a $2,000 credit, parents will receive an annual payment of up to $3,600 for children 5 and younger, and up to $3,000 for those ages 6 to 17. Families with no taxable income will still be able to claim the full benefit. All but the highest-income families will receive something from the government.
This change, alone, would slash child poverty by an estimated 40 percent. But this change isn’t alone. The American Rescue Plan also triples the value of the earned-income tax credit for low-income workers without children, providing a benefit of roughly $1,500 to more than 17 million Americans and fixing a tax code that, as it stands, punishes childless workers in low-wage jobs.
Biden’s relief plan also includes a major expansion of the Affordable Care Act in the form of greater subsidies for Americans who purchase their health insurance on the marketplaces established by the law. This would, according to an Urban Institute estimate, reduce the number of uninsured people in the United States by more than four million.
Or those who actually voted against it.
Maybe for voters who were already leaning blue, but my guess is that the average red voter will forget all about it by the next election cycle and happily continue to vote (R) based on their personal wedge issues, or because they’ve drunk the propaganda that Democrats are the root of all problems, as wolfpup aptly described in the Texas pit thread.
One of Democrats big electoral disadvantages is that content voters are less likely to vote than angry voters. When Democrats are in office, people tend to be more content.
Hopefully, those who lean blue don’t forget about this, and get out and vote.
The stimulus checks are the least important part of this, being one time and not particularly target to the poor. My kids make too much to get them. I am since my official income is way lower than my actual situation, so I donate mine to the local food bank.
The child credit and enhanced unemployment are far more important in fighting poverty and income inequality than the stimulus check is.
You are describing the upper middle class and rich Republicans, and even they didn’t come out for Trump. This bill benefits people that need it the most at the lower end of the economic spectrum in this country. They remembered when they were able to go to the doctor again because of Obamacare, and they will remember this bill. The Democrats don’t look any better than the Republican when they are engaged in the culture wars or doing nothing, just like the Republicans, but these two benefits delivered by the Democrats are just all that congress has done for anyone but rich Americans for a long time. The voters who need it will remember it, will remember who voted against it, and will remember who has done nothing for them in their lifetime.
Where is this money coming from?