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Another Reason Against Additional Stimulus Payments

Proposed legislation in Congress has at its core the addition of $1400 per person (on top of the $600 already passed in other legislation) creating a $2,000 per person payment. Its purpose is stated to be to “stimulate the economy” even though what we actually need to focus on is getting more people back to work. 

The prospect of giving out an additional $1400 payment is absolute insanity. We don’t need it, as we have the highest rate of savings right now that we’ve had in a long time. The vast majority of “stimulus” funds go to working people who are in as good or maybe even better financial shape than before COVID, so the money is going into savings or to reduce debt. This is NOT stimulus. (Note that  having to repay the money borrowed to make the stimulus payments 1) slows the economy by having to service this debt, and 2) adds extraordinary burdens to our children and grandchildren who must pay it back.)

However, the most egregious element of this stimulus fiasco are amounts going to non-working – but being paid – public service employees.

In the private sector, employees who could not or would not do their jobs would have been furloughed or fired, as a private business would do out of necessity. But the public sector can just abuse taxpayers by keeping them on – and even giving them raises! So many of them are home because there has been no productive work to do. In a horrific economy like ours, businesses simply can’t afford to carry people who are not performing work. Just like a hurricane hitting a factory, we have to furlough even public service employees because there is nothing to do.

But public service employees, in an absolutely unethical and immoral way, have, with help of unions, have put themselves in an undeserved place in society:  they neither have to work, nor get furloughed.  On top of it, we give them “stimulus” funds even after being already unjustly rewarded? To the detriment and abuse of everyone else who is paying them to do nothing? It’s an affront to all taxpayers.

Alan Blinder’s Blunder

Alan Blinder is a distinguished economist who insists on misleading the public about economic matters. The latest affair is found in Blinder’s Op-Ed, “A Speedy Recovery Depends on More Aid: Will Trump Deliver?” wherein Blinder deliberately misleads his readers about the economy and the road to recovery. Here are some of his statements:

  • “Mr. McConnell is a roadblock to more relief funds.”  It wasn’t McConnell, but Pelosi who refused to talk. McConnell put forth a relief package but because it did not include the extra state and local bailout funds desired by Pelosi, Pelosi would not even consider it. Yet, Blinder omits this. The assertion that McConnell is the one who is a “roadblock” is not only a difference of opinion, it’s an outright lie.
  • “Senators and the public need to understand that it was CARES and the rest that propped up the economy “artificially” as the virus was pulling it down.”  The economy is not artificially propped up. It is well on it’s way back to where it was prior to COVID.  In fact, just a paragraph prior to this one, Blinder notes that the recovery has been V-shaped, yet he suggests here that the relief given by CARES somehow wasn’t real relief. And if relief packages are indeed “artificial props”, why does he want another one? But what’s even worse is that Blinder, an economist mind you, believes so much in the CARES Act, but if anything, CARES restricted economic growth in the economy by paying people not to work and reducing incentives to work, so the recovery that we have experienced is despite the CARES Act, not because of it. 
  • “Americans are suffering from the tragic results of the Trump administration’s malign neglect of the virus.” Nothing could be more politically upside down. Trump was the first to restrict travel while the Dems screamed it was wrong to do so. Likewise, his vaccine programs have been aggressive enough to produce multiple vaccines that are now being implemented in the public. Blinder puts the blame on Trump, yet it was the states, not Trump, who imposed the lockdowns — many excessive and some still ongoing — that have shuttered industries and businesses. Some of these will never recover, yet the economic consequences of prolonged shutdowns are real, and rest squarely on the shoulders of states.   
  • “State and local governments, which are on the front lines in the battle against the virus, urgently need several hundred billion dollars in federal aid. They must balance their budgets.” Here’s the biggest falsehood. Blinder fails to mention that many states and local governments were in economic dire straits prior to COVID as a result of profligate spending and fiscal mismanagement, and this irresponsibility directly affects those particular governments’ recovery efforts today. The states with the biggest budget problems pre-COVID are the ones begging for the biggest bailouts. They are also the ones who have implemented some of the harshest and irrational lockdowns that have made things even worse. What’s more, these same governments have steadfastly refused to institute common sense restrictions on themselves such as freezing pay, furloughing workers, etc. It’s egregious, but Blinder just wants to paper over that part by calling for “balanced budgets.” None of these people who spent recklessly never cared for balanced budgets prior to now. And without changing spending habits nor making drastic cuts to the budget in the future will go right back to being in the hole.
  • “These folks have pretty straightforward needs: cash income, food, shelter and health care. The federal government knows how to provide these things.” This is cringe-worthy. Blinder forgets that it’s the American people who are the source of economic prosperity and he forgets that it is their taxpayer money earned through hard work and ingenuity. 

This article reveals that Blinder really is a shill for the Democrats, and used his column to mislead people into believing that bailing out states and local governments is the only way our economy is to be “saved.”  But it makes virtually no economic sense to spend massive amounts of taxpayer funds to cover up fiduciary irresponsibility. It would be reckless for Congress to commit any more money to such endeavors. McConnell knows this. We know this. Just about everyone knows this except for those leaders and governments who have never shown themselves to be accountable with someone else’s money — which is how they got in their financial budget shortfalls in the first place. 

Those are not leaders.  Blinder does a disservice to his readers by espousing some of the worst economic fallacies that will ultimately hurt, rather than help, fellow Americans.

Blinder’s COVID Relief Blinders

I was annoyed to read an article as ridiculous as Alan Blinder’s “Will Congress Ever Break the Covid Relief Standoff?” in which Blinder puts the blame on Senate Republicans. In fact, the entire premise of the article is that “Senate Republicans resist passing a new bill, even though it’s needed and politically expedient.” But this is simply untrue, and shows the great lengths to which Blinder omits key facts in order to advance the narrative that the Republicans are at fault.

A few days ago, Senate Democrats declined to consider a $500 billion COVID package put forth by Senate Republicans. 52 Republicans (all except Rand Paul) voted to advance the bill, but without one single Democrat vote, the measure died.   According to the rules of the Senate, having a majority that included nearly 100% of the Republicans isn’t enough to pass the bill; by invoking cloture (requiring 50 votes to override) they prevented the bill from even being debated. But did Blinder mention this at all in his article? Absolutely not. Instead, he describes how the Senate Republicans “resisted” passing a new bill, because not caving to the $3 trillion relief package offered by the Democrats is somehow an act of resistence. 

Blinder continues this ridiculous idea, saying “progress has been blocked” by McConnell. How? The Democrat $3 trillion relief package version (the Heroes Act) contained “items that Republican abhor,” and this somehow makes it the Republican’s fault?  And yet, in the very same paragraph, Blinder describes how the Heroes Act itself “was just an opening bid, which House Democrats never expected Senate Republicans to embrace.” This brings to mind two questions: 1) why are the Democrats crafting a bill that they willfully acknowledge they didn’t expect to pass; and 2) why are the Democrats given a free pass to craft a bill (they don’t expect to pass) at the high end of the spending spectrum, but when the Republicans craft a bill at the low end of the spending spectrum, it’s considered a “political stunt.”  

Blaming Republicans for causing problems (resisting) because their bill, which the Democrats described as “emaciated,”  did not have the right kind of Democrat spending, is outrageous. Such nonsensical hypocrisy and patent lies should not be tolerated.

Left Behind Logic: Raising Taxes Hurts the Economy, So Let’s Have More Stimulus!


President Obama has all but admitted that raising the tax margin on the top 2%/”millionaires and billionaires”/the wealthy might, just might, affect the economy negatively. Anticipating increased economic decline when he pushes up the rate from 35% to 39.6%, Obama has proposed another successful round of stimulus.

What might this new stimulus look like?

Extending the 2 percentage point Social Security payroll tax cut, boosting a tax incentive to businesses, establishing a $50 billion bank for long-term infrastructure projects, and extending unemployment benefits.

And the cost to taxpayers?

An estimated $255 billion total — which the GOP would surely need to demand that it be matched dollar-for-dollar in extra spending cuts.

So, let’s recount the logic of the Left:

Raise taxes –> Economy falters due to less consumption spending —> Need to spend $255 billion in government money to prop up the economy.

How about some other logic?

Keep tax rates the same as they’ve been for 10 years —> Economy gets a chance to recover without government interference and economic uncertainty —> No need to spend another $255 billion of taxpayer money

Some have suggested these are merely bargaining chips for the budget discussions. However, if Obama was so sure about his economic policies, and if these policies were really so good, he wouldn’t need to “spend” more or bargain any.

Bailout Nonsense


As Obama keeps pushing his (non) jobs bill that looks like another stimulus package, I’m tired of hearing that the bailouts worked. One of the amazing non-stories in the country is that when the bailouts occurred, what the government was doing was taking those companies and their employees who were totally solvant (ie Ford, Chrysler, etc) and rewarding their achievement by having their competitor bailed out (GM). If there has ever been unfair competition in this country, it was then. Those companies competed unsuccessfully, and then were given government money so they could produce again. This is pure hypocrisy — and practically discrimination — toward those successful companies.