Quote from: figmentofmyass on April 16, 2020, 05:49:48 AM

more helicopter money on the way?! everybody over age 16 would get $2k/month, no questions asked:

Quote

Washington, DC – Today, Representatives Ro Khanna (CA-17) and Tim Ryan (OH-13) introduced the Emergency Money for the People Act to provide additional cash payments for hard-working Americans who have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. While the CARES Act was an important first step, its one-time payment does not provide nearly enough support for American families.

The Emergency Money for the People Act expands relief to more Americans and includes a $2,000 monthly payment to every qualifying American over the age of 16 for up to 12 months. It also fixes a bug in the CARES Act to ensure college students and adults with disabilities can still receive the payments even if claimed as a dependent. The Emergency Money for the People Act additionally recognizes that not everyone has a bank or a home address to receive a check – so it allows individuals to get this money through direct deposit, check, pre-paid debit card, or mobile money platforms such as Venmo, Zelle, or PayPal.

Under the Emergency Money for the People Act, monthly cash assistance payments would be guaranteed for at least six months and would renew for another six months unless the employment-to-population ratio for people ages 16 and older returns to the pre-covid crisis employment level of 60%. These payments would not count as income in order to protect eligibility for any of the income-based state or federal government assistance programs.

Reps. Khanna and Ryan proposed the first cash infusion plan a month ago, which the Administration and Senate Republicans embraced, and was passed into law with the CARES Act. But as a record-number of Americans have filed for unemployment in the past weeks, it’s clear a one-time payment will not be remotely sufficient. In some places, this doesn’t even cover a month’s rent.

https://khanna.house.gov/media/press-releases/release-representatives-ro-khanna-and-tim-ryan-introduce-legislation-send

could this pass? 17 co-sponsors and counting. i never thought UBI would be on the table so soon, but with the economy on the verge of collapse, unemployment skyrocketing, social unrest around the corner.....it doesn't seem impossible anymore.

thoughts? what are the limits of money printing? Shocked

The proposal is still under consideration, but I strongly doubt it will happen.

Then again, I strongly doubted the initial $1200 payment was going to happen, but it totally did.

It’s not as bad an idea as it seems at first appearance. It’s expensive, sure, but this is effectively a world war (it will kill a world war’s worth of people and every nation is fighting the enemy together, because we all collectively have no choice), so the appropriate question is not “is this more expensive than your average Tuesday” but more “is this more expensive than World War II was?”

It seems reasonably obvious to me that if you order people not to work, you must also provide them a way to feed their families.

You cannot do one without the other or there will be riots, and not without justification.