USA Politics
- Thread starter Genghis Khan
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Yax
Ancient Mariner
I don't think the point of it is to reward or as monetary condolences. It's to help people survive this financially as well as to make them keep spending money as to not halt the economy.
As just a means of stimulus, it amounts to a lot of use when you throw them in as a boost when things are already recovering. Some fringe-level economists flaunted that idea here during the summer.
Yax
Ancient Mariner
This is true, it's a blunt instrument.
The rollout of the first stimulus check was such a disaster. Making it so that each person receives a different amount based on needs just adds an extra step to an already broken bureaucracy. These things also tend to result in poorer people getting screwed over. So in this situation the blunt instrument approach is probably the cleanest and most effective.
Jer
A window to the west, a blazing star above
That’s a nice applause line, but it’s also a gross oversimplification.
With a $600 spiff on unemployment benefits, it made more financial sense for anyone making less than roughly $100K/yr to stay on unemployment rather than work. We’re not talking about just keeping unskilled labor above the poverty line (~$20K), or even above the “no financial stress” line (~$75K), but we’re fully into Jack Valenti’s definition of “poor” people here.
How much should a person earn for doing unskilled labor? In a perfect world they should be able to support themselves at some modest and reasonable standard of living, but they’re one person offering a commodity service with plenty of market supply, so they can’t expect a premium price on their time. You can’t seriously be suggesting a minimum wage of $100K/yr (~$48/hr) unless you’re a fan of massive inflation.
Nah.
What? The avg. unemployment in the USA is just under $400. A $600 spiff would increase this to on av. $975 (varies by state) weekly. That works out to about $51k a year. In the USA, this is taxable income, so the "staying on unemployment at 100k" doesn't really make sense. As a short term benefit to keep people afloat while COVID greatly impacts people's ability to earn, then yeah, I would say that makes sense.
Again, this suggests a minimum wage of $50k, which is very close to the median income anyway. Anyway, this is a short term thing that would exist until post-COVID, aka, 9-12 months depending on immunizations. It has nothing to do with long term alterations, other than making people think that maybe the price of their labour is significantly undervalued.
If you want to talk about why I support UBI of around $40-50k a year, that's a different conversation, but it comes down to "wealth taxes on the mega rich to transfer back to the people from whom the modern robber barons looted their wealth".
Jer
A window to the west, a blazing star above
You’re right, I misremembered the calculation. In MN it’s a bit different, as unemployment coverage pays you 50% of your previous working income up to a max of $762/wk, so the break-even point for someone with the $600 spiff would be $1200/wk income, or a little over $62K/yr (~$30/hr). Still more than double minimum wage, which made it difficult to motivate people to work when they could make more money by staying at home. Probably made sense in the early days of the pandemic when people needed to be encouraged to stay at home, but once you needed labor available as things started to reopen it made it difficult to get temp help until that benefit expired.
...except for your applause line to just “pay more”. In order to get temp labor during the $600 spiff period you’d have to pay $30/hr or more for unskilled labor to compete with the government benefit. For that to make any kind of business sense you’d have to raise your prices to offset the exorbitant labor cost, and you can only do that so much while still increasing your revenue due to supply and demand. If everyone raises their prices to offset increased labor cost, then everyone needs more money to buy the same stuff and you have inflation.
UBI and minimum wage are different things that have different consequences. A UBI that high is going to drive the bottom quarter of your workforce out of the job market entirely, and good luck ever filling all your unskilled labor jobs at that point no matter how much you pay. I suppose a guest worker visa program might fill some of that gap, assuming you didn’t give the guest workers UBI.
A minimum wage as high as current median income would keep most of those people in those unskilled jobs, but lead to massive inflation as described earlier, which would screw with the broader financial market. That money soon wouldn’t go anywhere near as far as it does today, and enjoy getting home loans at 15% interest again.
A UBI of poverty line level income with the elimination of the minimum wage would be an interesting experiment that might actually work out pretty well for all involved, as that would achieve the redistribution of wealth you’re advocating and eliminate poverty without removing the incentive to work, and without automatically introducing inflation.
If you all didn’t get enough US elections for one year, there’s a special election in Georgia next week that will decide who controls the senate. Two seats are up and Dems need both to gain control (50-50 split with Harris as the tie break).
The possibility of a runoff was discussed before the general election and my opinion was that the opposite party of the presidential winner would win in Georgia (i.e. Dems win if Trump won re-election and Republicans win if Biden won election). With that said, I am not sure if anyone realistically expected a scenario where senate control hinges on both Georgia seats. Personally, I figured they would either be extra pickups for Dems or they would prevent a greater than 51 seat majority for Republicans. With all these things in mind, this race is anyone’s guess and I don’t even want to attempt a prediction. Both of the democrats (Ossoff and Warnock) are up in the polling averages, but it’s so close that it might as well be a tie. Georgia polls were actually pretty accurate in the general, but this particular race hasn’t been polled very much.
One of the republicans, Loeffler, is proving to be a particularly bad candidate. It’s looking like a similar situation to the Arizona senate race where an appointed senator can’t win their election. Perdue seems a bit stronger and is facing a weaker democrat (Ossoff), but I could easily see a situation where Loeffler drags him down with her. On the other hand, a split decision would be extremely interesting. I would say Georgia is still a red state until proven otherwise though and the conventional wisdom tells me that Republicans should win both seats, but it will be close.
This whole thing will also serve as a litmus test for Georgia going forward. If other Dems besides Joe Biden can win there without Joe Biden on the ticket, we can probably call it a reliable swing state. If both democrats win this election, there’s an outside chance that Georgia will be like Virginia and Colorado: two former red states that almost immediately went blue.
The possibility of a runoff was discussed before the general election and my opinion was that the opposite party of the presidential winner would win in Georgia (i.e. Dems win if Trump won re-election and Republicans win if Biden won election). With that said, I am not sure if anyone realistically expected a scenario where senate control hinges on both Georgia seats. Personally, I figured they would either be extra pickups for Dems or they would prevent a greater than 51 seat majority for Republicans. With all these things in mind, this race is anyone’s guess and I don’t even want to attempt a prediction. Both of the democrats (Ossoff and Warnock) are up in the polling averages, but it’s so close that it might as well be a tie. Georgia polls were actually pretty accurate in the general, but this particular race hasn’t been polled very much.
One of the republicans, Loeffler, is proving to be a particularly bad candidate. It’s looking like a similar situation to the Arizona senate race where an appointed senator can’t win their election. Perdue seems a bit stronger and is facing a weaker democrat (Ossoff), but I could easily see a situation where Loeffler drags him down with her. On the other hand, a split decision would be extremely interesting. I would say Georgia is still a red state until proven otherwise though and the conventional wisdom tells me that Republicans should win both seats, but it will be close.
This whole thing will also serve as a litmus test for Georgia going forward. If other Dems besides Joe Biden can win there without Joe Biden on the ticket, we can probably call it a reliable swing state. If both democrats win this election, there’s an outside chance that Georgia will be like Virginia and Colorado: two former red states that almost immediately went blue.
Jer
A window to the west, a blazing star above
I think every American should listen to that phone call in full. It really captures the rambling, petty, irrational mindset of this President and shows that he is completely immune to facts. Listening to the Georgia officials patiently waiting to explain that they’ve already investigated every claim he’s making and that they’re all bogus, only to be cut off after a few words so Trump can go back to restating the same falsehoods — it’s pretty amazing, even if it’s not surprising. Trump appears to actually believe his own right-wing echo chamber, even when confronted with loyal members of his own party standing up for objective reality.
The mental contortions required for people to continue to support his claims are appalling. You’d have to believe that there were multiple layers of massive fraud across a giant swath of states, including local election officials from both parties across all of these different districts in all of these states, and that the vote tabulations were both remotely manipulated by Venezuelans or something, and then the physical ballots were manipulated to match the remote tabulation manipulations in time for all the hand recounts. And large numbers of Republicans would have to be in on this conspiracy, as well as the overwhelmingly conservative Supreme Court. It’s completely preposterous, of course, and applying the tiniest bit of critical thinking to it makes the whole house of cards fall down. And yet so many people continue to buy into it.
The mental contortions required for people to continue to support his claims are appalling. You’d have to believe that there were multiple layers of massive fraud across a giant swath of states, including local election officials from both parties across all of these different districts in all of these states, and that the vote tabulations were both remotely manipulated by Venezuelans or something, and then the physical ballots were manipulated to match the remote tabulation manipulations in time for all the hand recounts. And large numbers of Republicans would have to be in on this conspiracy, as well as the overwhelmingly conservative Supreme Court. It’s completely preposterous, of course, and applying the tiniest bit of critical thinking to it makes the whole house of cards fall down. And yet so many people continue to buy into it.
Black Abyss Babe
I live for my dreams and a pocket full of gold
The entire world waits with baited breath to see what he will actually do on January 20th.
To be honest, if he just walked out meekly now I think I'd be a bit disappointed ...
To be honest, if he just walked out meekly now I think I'd be a bit disappointed ...
Dr. Eddies Wingman
Brighter than thousand_suns
I just caught myself wondering, just how decisive are the runoffs in Georgia? I get the numbers. If both Democrats win, the Senate is split 50-50 and the vice president has the decisive vote. But ... do the Senators always follow the party line? I would think the answer is no.
Biden would certainly need a clearer majority in the Senate to pass more progressive policies, as some Democrat senators could go against those. And on the other hand, he would still get something through a Senate with a slender R majority, but obviously that would be "compromise" politics that would not please the more progressive elements in the Democratic party.
But say, something like Green New Deal - would that be guaranteed to pass a 50-50 senate, giving Harris the final say? I'm not sure.
Biden would certainly need a clearer majority in the Senate to pass more progressive policies, as some Democrat senators could go against those. And on the other hand, he would still get something through a Senate with a slender R majority, but obviously that would be "compromise" politics that would not please the more progressive elements in the Democratic party.
But say, something like Green New Deal - would that be guaranteed to pass a 50-50 senate, giving Harris the final say? I'm not sure.
Jer
A window to the west, a blazing star above
A 50-50 Senate means Puerto Rico and Washington D.C. probably become states, somewhat offsetting the Republicans’ ridiculous rural state advantage in the upper house. It also means that Democrats would control the committees and have a big say over process issues, which is a big deal.
I believe the last time there was a 50-50 Senate there were some power sharing agreements so the “minority” party had a larger say in things, but I doubt we’d see that sort of comity any time soon.
You’re correct that any majorly progressive agenda would be DOA in a 50-50 Senate, though not quite as DOA as in a Republican majority Senate.
I believe the last time there was a 50-50 Senate there were some power sharing agreements so the “minority” party had a larger say in things, but I doubt we’d see that sort of comity any time soon.
You’re correct that any majorly progressive agenda would be DOA in a 50-50 Senate, though not quite as DOA as in a Republican majority Senate.
There’s definitely a limit to what can be done and the agenda is going to be set by the more moderate wing of the party. The house majority is also too narrow for there to be any error.
IMO if Dems win in Georgia they should operate under the assumption that they will lose the house in 2022 and that 2021 will be Biden’s only opportunity to pass meaningful legislation. I think one of the bigger failures of Obama’s time in office is that they made too many compromises on the ACA with the expectation that voters would reward them and in the end Obama never had a democratic congress again. This time around, Dems should not make compromises with republicans, make sure they get every dem vote in the senate, pass as much as they can in the first year, and accept that the house is probably gone in 2022 and might not be back until there’s a Republican in the White House again. That’s just the way this works now.
Statehood for DC and PR should be first priority, but I think institutionalists like Manchin will oppose the move on the premise that it’s meant to give Dems a senate advantage. I also think the filibuster probably stays unless they can bait republicans into opposing something so uncontroversial that’s even Manchin has to vote to get rid of the filibuster. In general it’s going to be a lot institutional legislation that works on restoring norms or strengthening institutions that were exploited by the Trump administration. Meanwhile Biden’s cabinet can do everything it can on the federal level with regards to climate change, healthcare, and education.
Of course we’re getting way ahead of ourselves here. That Georgia election is going to be super close
IMO if Dems win in Georgia they should operate under the assumption that they will lose the house in 2022 and that 2021 will be Biden’s only opportunity to pass meaningful legislation. I think one of the bigger failures of Obama’s time in office is that they made too many compromises on the ACA with the expectation that voters would reward them and in the end Obama never had a democratic congress again. This time around, Dems should not make compromises with republicans, make sure they get every dem vote in the senate, pass as much as they can in the first year, and accept that the house is probably gone in 2022 and might not be back until there’s a Republican in the White House again. That’s just the way this works now.
Statehood for DC and PR should be first priority, but I think institutionalists like Manchin will oppose the move on the premise that it’s meant to give Dems a senate advantage. I also think the filibuster probably stays unless they can bait republicans into opposing something so uncontroversial that’s even Manchin has to vote to get rid of the filibuster. In general it’s going to be a lot institutional legislation that works on restoring norms or strengthening institutions that were exploited by the Trump administration. Meanwhile Biden’s cabinet can do everything it can on the federal level with regards to climate change, healthcare, and education.
Of course we’re getting way ahead of ourselves here. That Georgia election is going to be super close
Manchin will be the most powerful person in a 50/50 Senate, for sure. He's already said he's against killing the filibuster, and he's equivocated hard on statehood for DC/PR:
BERMAN: What about D.C. statehood?
MANCHIN: Well, first, let me just go with packing the courts. I'm not voting for that. That's what they're looking for right now. They're looking for basically, OK, are you going to stack the courts. No, I'm not. I'm not going to vote for that. That means there's no tie.
The D.C. statehood, I don't see the need for the D.C. statehood with the type of services that we're getting in D.C. right now. We have representation. They say no vote, you know, without representation. They have no voice, but they do. I'd have to hear more that, but right now I'm not convinced that's the way to go.
BERMAN: Puerto Rico statehood?
MANCHIN: Still not convinced that's the way to go. And I would say that with that I'm absolutely agreeing to sit down and listen to the debate. I don't believe that is the direction we should be going right now.