How Pandemic-Era ‘Stimulus’ Screwed Americans While Boosting The RichWe may seriously begin to ask if leftwing America is a massive oligarchy cloaked in identity politics.
By Joe Popularis
February 28, 2022
U.S. inflation is nearing levels not seen since the 1970s and early 1980s, at 7.5 percent year-over-year as of January, the largest rise in four decades. The issue is a major concern for voters, and Democrats face historic midterm losses. Inflation has even killed the Biden agenda thus far—Sen. Joe Manchin’s primary reason for nixing “Build Back Better,” a mess of largely corporatist priorities from a disjointed Democratic base, was his fear that it would push up prices further.
The left, however, is making a ridiculous effort to say that inflation is not a problem or even good for working-class Americans. CNN has run articles to this effect. New York Times writer Sarah Jeong says inflation concerns are “driven by rich people … because their parasitic assets aren’t doing as well as they’d like and they’re scared” that government stimulus—supposedly directed at the bottom half of earners—is why.
The idea that somehow government spending benefits the poor or working-class more than the rich is ridiculous. Just look at the stimulus since 2020, and its effects.
https://twitter.com/RepThomasMassie/status/1244255601171054594Stimulus Directly Caused the Current InflationInflation took off in the second quarter of 2021, after a new Democratic Congress poured a $2 trillion in federal overspending they called “stimulus” on an economy that had already received a combined $2.8 trillion in stimulus in 2020. Republicans can blame Democrats, with some justification, but the seeds of higher inflation were already sown.
History should judge the federal government’s pandemic response harshly. A several-week lockdown may have been acceptable without hindsight, given concerns about mass deaths and an overwhelmed medical system. But as soon as the virus was known to be much less deadly than feared, and that there was no great strain on the medical system, the federal government should have punished states needlessly maintaining activity restrictions.
The original stimulus bill, passed by congressional Republicans and signed by President Trump, was ill-conceived. The payroll protection program (PPP) ended up lining the pockets of business owners with taxpayer dollars far more than protecting payrolls. Large chunks of it were stolen by fraudsters, while many employers then had incentives to not seek or call for a return to normality.
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Source:
https://thefederalist.com/2022/02/28/how-pandemic-era-stimulus-screwed-americans-while-boosting-the-rich/
