The Democrats are Addicted to Fucking This Up
Great news, folks: the checks that were already cut back are being cut back again!
I am running out of new ways to repeat what has become the Discourse Blog mantra over the past year: JUST. GIVE. US. THE MONEY. But here we go again, because the White House and Senate Democrats have now made the exciting announcement that the stimulus checks they already cut back are being cut back further thanks to the demands of Joe Manchin, Susan Collins and other "centrists."
Here are the numbers:
The New York Times reported that at least 9 million households who received a check in the last round of COVID relief—you know, the one that happened while Donald Trump was president—wouldn't get one this time around under these new plans, even though the Democrats have explicitly said that this round of stimulus checks is meant to be coupled with the last round to give people a total of $2,000 from the government.
So the official message the Democratic Party is currently sending people is, "We will send you $2,000 checks! By which we actually mean two checks that add up to $2,000. Well, except that for 9 million households, we mean that even though you got $600 when Donald Trump was president, and we promised you that you were going to get an extra $1,400 from us, sorry, you're out of luck, because your 2019 tax return says that you made a little too much money. Have fun with the $600 the Trump administration gave you!"
Great job, folks. The Democrats are as addicted to political malpractice as they are to needless austerity.
There is no real reason for this to be happening—the stimulus checks are overwhelmingly popular and limiting them is barely even saving any money!—except that the political philosophy of Joe Manchin and co. amounts to little more than "uhhhh make everything slightly worse because that's what bipartisanship is." The White House could have pushed back, but the White House is fine with this turn of events, and so the rest of us are held hostage to this intellectually bankrupt, performative miserliness.
It now remains to be seen whether anyone on the left of the party puts up a real fuss. In a 50-50 Senate, anyone can be Joe Manchin. The House is almost evenly divided. It would not take many people to tell the White House that it would be wise to rethink this decision. Bernie, AOC, over to you.
Oh, and GIVE US THE MONEY JESUS CHRIST WHAT IN GOD'S NAME IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE.