AquaCityBoy
Veteran
Of course it does. Stimulus checks would be going to millions who don’t need them, in addition to those who do. Unemployment is an urgently needed form of assistance for people who have no jobs in an economic environment fraught with uncertainty because of the pandemic. To risk the failed passage of a bill assisting the unemployed because of a preoccupation with stimulus checks makes the progressive caucus look like a bunch of shortsighted a$$holes who’re posturing.
No. To even suggest a stimulus bill without the direct payments is to be inherently unserious about it. Like I said before, people who have kept their jobs may have had their wages cut due to the reduced hours and business of the pandemic, not to mention all the essential workers who never go the hazard pay they deserved.
Never mind the fact that the unemployed also get those direct payments. Suggesting congress should forego them in their talks is nonsense. They threw the $600 a week enhancement in the bushes months ago. That's not even on the table anymore. They're currently debating between $300-$400 a week, a cut of a third to a half of what they were getting before July. Did it not occur to anyone in here pretending to care about the unemployed that the extra $1200 check might help them make up the difference for a few weeks?
It's easy not to concern yourself with such things when you only care about abusing unemployment to buy Jordans, but people who actually care about the people struggling should at least consider these points. It's obviously all too little too late at this point in the game, but that should not be discounted and no bill without the direct payments should be taken seriously.
