Every American: “It’s been six months since the last stimulus checks. Why haven’t we gotten a second stimulus check?”
Well, it’s pretty simple BUT I’m not surprised people don’t know given that our media hasn’t told them: it’s because Republicans don’t really believe in a stimulus that includes government payments to individual Americans…period. There is a reason that the only Senators and House of Representatives people you see talking about a real stimulus are Democrats.
White male Heritage Foundation horde on social media: “They have passed a stimulus! They tried to pass a stimulus but Pelosi won’t accept it because it didn’t have enough ‘pork’!”
The “pork” that they’re referring to are the individual payments for Americans.
What typical Americans call a “stimulus” includes the individual payments. What Republicans call a “stimulus” is a payroll tax cut and corporate subsidies. They are both called “stimulus” but they are NOT the same thing.
Republicans have never gone over a 1 trillion for their “stimulus” “plans” and that’s obviously not enough money to supply every man, woman, and child in the United States with individual checks of $1,200 or more…in addition to all the corporate subsidies and payroll tax cuts Republicans actually want.
The closest they have ever come to passing an actual stimulus is when Trump tried to tie the vote to his foolhardy efforts to defund the Post Office in an attempt to mess up mail-in balloting…obviously, Pelosi turned this down.
But when she did this, the Republican propaganda machine kicked into overdrive saying “see, BOTH sides can’t agree.” This is a little like saying “I want to murder this person, and they disagree. Why aren’t they willing to come to an agreement?”
But why are the two parties so far apart?
Republicans do not fundamentally believe in the idea of the government giving individual middle-class, working-class, and poor people money (note: their animosity towards social security, medicare, medicaid, WIC, food stamps, disability, non-”right to work” states, unemployment bonuses, and the social safety net generally).
They never have wanted a second stimulus. And they were largely forced to give out the first one because of the tanking economy.
Once they saw the economy did not completely collapse from May onwards, they’ve delayed, delayed, delayed because they’re just hoping to ride out the election without giving one. And the fact that Republicans have a lot more to lose in the Fall (twice as many Senate seats and Trump’s reelection) and STILL aren’t being proactive, should tell you WHY this Do-Nothing Republican senate must be voted out.
Also, it’s even more revealing that Republicans could find the votes to give out a 2-trillion dollar tax cut in 2017 during a boom economy (thus adding 2 trillion unnecessary dollars to the deficit) but they won’t approve a 2 trillion dollar stimulus now during extreme unemployment, retail bankruptcies, store closures, shutdowns, and economic anxiety. [Even though Jerome Powell himself has said this is NECESSARY to avoid a Great Depression.]