Day After GOP Senator Blocked Direct Payments Twice, Poll Shows 88% of Likely Voters Support More $1,200 Checks

Day After GOP Senator Blocked Direct Payments Twice, Poll Shows 88% of Likely Voters Support More $1,200 Checks

“Maybe—just maybe—it’s time Congress listened to the American people,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders.

By Jake Johnson

88% of likely voters say they would support Congress sending out another round of one-time $1,200 direct payments, data that came a day after Republican Sen. Ron Johnson twice blocked passage of a bill to provide such relief to working-class Americans.

Conducted by progressive think tank Data for Progress, the poll (pdf) finds that 93% of Democrats, 83% of Republicans, and 87% of likely independent/third party voters would support the distribution of “another one-time payment of $1,200 to most Americans as a coronavirus relief measure.” Just 9% of likely voters say they are opposed to another round of $1,200 direct payments.

“At this point, we should all wonder what it would take for members of Congress to listen to their constituents and support this. I support it, call your member to find out if they do too.”
—Rep. Ilhan Omar

“At this point, we should all wonder what it would take for members of Congress to listen to their constituents and support this,” Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) tweeted in response to the new survey. “I support it, call your member to find out if they do too.”

On Friday, Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) attempted to obtain unanimous consent to pass legislation that would provide direct payments of $1,200 per adult and $500 per child, with eligibility modeled on the CARES Act.

Sanders and Hawley were both rebuffed by Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican who complained about the impact the direct payments and other coronavirus relief spending would have on the budget deficit.

On the Senate floor Friday, Sanders called out Johnson for objecting to direct relief payments but not President Donald Trump’s tax cuts, which blew a massive hole in the deficit for the benefit of wealthy Americans.

 

“The senator from Wisconsin talks about the deficit. Yet the senator from Wisconsin voted for over $1 trillion in tax breaks for billionaires and large, profitable corporations. That’s OK,” said Sanders. “The senator from Wisconsin voted for a bloated military budget, $740 billion. That’s OK. The senator from Wisconsin supports hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars in corporate welfare.”

In a tweet Saturday following the release of the Data for Progress survey, Sanders wrote, “Maybe—just maybe—it’s time Congress listened to the American people and sent $1,200 survival checks to working-class Americans who are in so much desperation right now.”

The poll confirming widespread support for $1,200 direct relief payments among the U.S. public came as Congress continued negotiating the final details of a nearly $1 trillion coronavirus aid package that includes direct payments of $600, an amount Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) called an “insult” to Americans who are struggling to afford food, housing, and other basic necessities.

“Our families deserve real survival checks. Six hundred dollars is hardly sufficient,” Pressley said in a speech on the House floor Thursday. “We must act to save lives now.”

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Source: Day After GOP Senator Blocked Direct Payments Twice, Poll Shows 88% of Likely Voters Support More $1,200 Checks | Common Dreams News

 

 

 

 

Fewer Jobs, Rising Poverty: Scathing Report Finds Trump Economic Legacy ‘One of the Worst Among All US Presidents’ 

Fewer Jobs, Rising Poverty: Scathing Report Finds Trump Economic Legacy ‘One of the Worst Among All US Presidents’

“American businesses and workers are struggling to survive because President Trump refused to listen to advice from public health experts and economists about the best way to handle the coronavirus.”

By Jake Johnson

When President Donald Trump departs the White House next month, he will leave in his wake a nation devastated by a pandemic he failed to confront and an economic scene characterized by rising poverty, widespread hunger, a looming eviction tsunami, and mass layoffs that have left the U.S. with fewer jobs than when his administration began.

And for that, a scathing new report (pdf) by Democrats on the congressional Joint Economic Committee (JEC) argues, the outgoing president “only has himself to blame.”

Released Friday in response to the 2020 Economic Report of the President (pdf), the assessment of Trump’s economic performance during his four years in office runs directly counter to the rosy depiction frequently offered by the president himself, who seldom missed an opportunity to boast about the state of the stock market even in the midst of nationwide material suffering brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.

“American businesses and workers are struggling to survive because President Trump refused to listen to advice from public health experts and economists about the best way to handle the coronavirus,” Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), the incoming JEC chair, said in a statement. “In fact, his handling of the coronavirus will hurt the economy for years to come. That is President Trump’s economic legacy—one of the worst among all U.S. presidents.”

The new report examines Trump’s economic record dating back to the beginning of his administration, which began with soaring promises on jobs, trade, wages, healthcare, and other key policy matters.

While Trump inherited an steadily improving economy, the president “failed to pursue policies that would sustain and strengthen the economic expansion,” the JEC report argues.

As many analysts predicted before its passage and implementation, the $1.5 trillion Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that Trump signed into law in December of 2017 delivered most of its benefits to the rich and failed to produce anything resembling an economic boom.

“President Trump’s televised claim that the tax cuts would be ‘one of the great Christmas gifts to middle-income people’ proved to be deeply misleading,” the JEC report notes. “Analysis reveals that the tax cuts heavily favored the very wealthy, with the top 1 percent of households—those with average incomes of almost $2 million—projected to receive an average tax break of nearly $50,000 in 2020.”

“This is approximately 64 times the average tax cut of the middle 20 percent of households, who were projected to receive an average tax cut of $780,” the report continues. “The poorest 20 percent were projected to receive an average tax cut of just $60.”

 

Trump’s trade promises were similarly empty, the report finds. The president’s oft-touted trade war with China “resulted in hundreds of thousands of lost U.S. jobs.”

“A study by Moody’s Analytics found that by September 2019 it had cost the U.S. economy nearly 300,000 jobs,” the JEC notes.

While the president’s economic performance prior to the coronavirus pandemic was far from successful, Trump’s handling of the Covid-19 crisis and resulting economic collapse was catastrophic, pushing millions more into poverty and leaving countless Americans unable to afford basic necessities. At present, the U.S. has around 10 million fewer jobs than it did at the start of the pandemic.

The JEC observes that after Congress and the White House approved the $2.2 trillion CARES Act in March—providing a temporary $600-per-week boost to unemployment benefits and a round of one-time stimulus payments to many Americans—”the administration and Senate Republicans refused to work to negotiate another package until a few weeks before the expiration” of the unemployment supplement, a lapse that dramatically slashed the incomes of millions of people.

“The administration’s mismanagement of the coronavirus, and its grudging response to limit the resulting economic damage, have exposed and widened vast structural inequalities,” the report states. “Low-income workers and people of color have been most harmed by Covid-19 and the ensuing recession. They are more likely to be exposed to the virus, to be hospitalized and to die from it.”

The JEC Democrats conclude that “by all objective measures—job growth, unemployment, gross domestic product—President Trump leaves the economy in much worse condition than he found it.”

“However, the numbers do not tell the whole story—his failure to use the power of the presidency to fight the coronavirus will weigh down the U.S. economy for years to come,” the report says. “His successor will be left with an extraordinary challenge—to reverse the failures of the Trump administration. He must also move beyond them to ensure that the United States builds back better from this crisis, fully utilizing the talents and resources of all of its people to build an economy that is fairer, stronger, more inclusive, and more resilient.”

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Source: Fewer Jobs, Rising Poverty: Scathing Report Finds Trump Economic Legacy ‘One of the Worst Among All US Presidents’ | Common Dreams News

 

 

 

Democrats Urged to Fight for Bigger Relief Checks as Lame-Duck Trump Privately Backs Payments as Big as $2,000 

Democrats Urged to Fight for Bigger Relief Checks as Lame-Duck Trump Privately Backs Payments as Big as $2,000

“Pro-tip for Democrats: Don’t ever let Donald effing Trump be pushing for bigger direct relief checks than you are,” said one progressive activist.

by Jake Johnson

In the wake of news that lame-duck President Donald Trump on Thursday was dissuaded by White House aides from publicly demanding stimulus checks as large as $2,000 in the next relief package, progressives called on Democratic leaders to use the leverage offered by Trump’s behind-the-scenes push to demand more than the $600 payments currently on the table.

The Washington Post‘s Jeff Stein reported late Thursday that the outgoing president “was in the middle of formally drafting his demand for the larger payments when White House officials told him that doing so could imperil delicate negotiations over the economic relief package.”

“Trump is privately demanding $2,000 stimulus checks. McConnell is quietly fretting over Georgia. Democrats control the leverage, they should demand larger stimulus in the package being negotiated.”
—Sawyer Hackett, senior adviser to Julián Castro

Trump was preparing to demand one-time direct payments of “at least” $1,200 per person and as large as $2,000, according to Stein. “Trump ultimately did not call for the larger stimulus payments,” Stein noted. “His only public comments on the matter came in the morning when he wrote that ‘stimulus talks [are] looking very good.'”

Direct payments of $1,200 per person would be double the size of the checks congressional negotiators are currently considering in a relief package that could be finalized and passed within days. Progressive lawmakers, and one Republican senator, have been vocally urging congressional leaders to include larger direct payments as tens of millions of people across the U.S. struggle to afford basic necessities.

Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) introduced an amendment last week calling for payments of $1,200 per working-class adult and $500 per child; members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus are publicly demanding checks of “at least” $2,000.

 

While a substantial change in the size of direct payments is unlikely at this stage of the relief negotiations, Democrats are facing pressure to use Trump’s apparent desire for larger payments and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) expressed need for a deal to fight for the inclusion of bigger checks.

“Trump is privately demanding $2,000 stimulus checks. McConnell is quietly fretting over Georgia,” Sawyer Hackett, senior adviser to Julián Castro, tweeted Thursday, referring to the Kentucky Republican’s warning Wednesday that Sens. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) and David Perdue (R-Ga.) “getting hammered” over the GOP’s opposition to direct payments.

“Democrats control the leverage, they should demand larger stimulus in the package being negotiated,” Hackett said.

Others lamented Democratic leaders’ failure to push for larger checks earlier in the process and argued they have let McConnell walk all over them in the latest round of relief talks.

 

“Democrats are supposed to be party of the people and yet it’s Trump who is asking for bigger stimulus checks,” tweeted Murshed Zaheed of Megaphone Strategies. “Unacceptable that neither Biden nor Pelosi/Schumer are pushing publicly for bigger stimulus checks ($2,500) when they have leverage over McConnell.”

Progressive organizer Kai Newkirk added:

Adam Jentleson, public affairs director at Democracy Forward and former aide to retired Sen. Harry Reid, said Thursday that “with Mnuchin endorsing a $1.8 trillion proposal in October that included $1,200 checks, $400 UI, and $300 billion in state/local, and with Trump still actively trying to increase direct checks, there is simply no way to argue that Dem leaders secured the best deal possible.”

“McConnell ate their lunch,” Jentleson argued, warning against the assumption that Congress will be able to pass another relief package under a Biden presidency. “Republicans will repeat the obstructionist playbook they ran under Obama.”

“Thanks to ⁦⁦Bernie Sanders’ stand and progressive advocacy, we will get checks for the American people. But let’s have the honesty and decency not to spin this package as a kind of victory or negotiation success. People have the right to expect more.”
—Rep. Ro Khanna

While the details of the relief agreement are not yet final, The Hill reported Thursday that McConnell is “getting much of what he wants in an emerging coronavirus relief package, after months of digging in his heels against a demand by Democratic leaders to pass a multi-trillion-dollar package that would shore up the ailing finances of state and local governments.”

“The GOP leader isn’t getting liability protection for businesses and other organizations but McConnell himself last week proposed dropping that controversial item along with another large tranche of funding for state and local government,” The Hill noted. “McConnell is getting a deal a lot closer to what Democrats dismissed as the ’emaciated’ plan he pushed in recent months than the $2.2 trillion HEROES Act that Pelosi and Schumer said should have been the ‘starting point’ of the talks.”

Congressional leaders have voiced confidence that they are close to finalizing a coronavirus relief deal and sweeping spending legislation to keep the government funded through next September. Lawmakers are likely to work into the weekend to complete both measures.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), one of few lawmakers who urged the Democratic leadership to run with the White House’s pre-election offer of a $1.8 trillion relief package, tweeted Thursday that “thanks to ⁦⁦Bernie Sanders’ stand and progressive advocacy, we will get checks for the American people” in the upcoming agreement.

“But let’s have the honesty and decency not to spin this package as a kind of victory or negotiation success,” Khanna added. “People have the right to expect more.”

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Source: Democrats Urged to Fight for Bigger Relief Checks as Lame-Duck Trump Privately Backs Payments as Big as $2,000 | Common Dreams News