[throwaway_USD]

Easy Congress put on bandannas and robbed the tax payers of about $18,000 each.

Congress then turned around and gave taxpayers $1,200 each, of their own money, that total amount can be doubled that to account for the temporary unemployment benefits increase. The rest of the taxpayer money went to the FED so they will guarantee the prices of shit stock...the market can't lower because as many rich CEOs and investors cash out their shit stock the FED is there to buy at these artificial prices.

Its not healthy obviously, its just another in a long line of scams on taxpayers who paid for the golden parachutes and will be left holding the bag. There is about $4.2T the FED has to buy stock at artificial prices so it will be sometime before this bubble pops.

[thieving_magpie]

I'd really like to read more about how tax payers are paying $18,000 each but all I can find as a source is some twitter comment and a reddit thread where the claim is disputed. Do you have something more substantial I could read? At first glance it seems extremely exaggerated so I'd like to get my head around it.

[svachalek]

I think this is simply dividing the cost of relief packages by the number of taxpayers. It’s oversimplification of government budgeting to the point that it doesn’t mean much of anything other than to give a sense of scale.

[ttul]

Over-simplification in the extreme. Much of the stimulus was in the form of lending. The government will get most of that money back over time.

[BoiledCabbage]

Presumably the 6 Trillion collectively authorized, divided by the population of the US.

Or we could've all just worn masks and saved most of that but ya know...

[scruple]

I liked Robert Brenner's take on this situation, personally [0].

[0]: https://newleftreview.org/issues/II123/articles/robert-brenn...

[beervirus]

> Congress put on bandannas and robbed the tax payers of about $18,000 each.

On average, sure. But people who don’t earn much money aren’t going to be responsible for that bill because they pay no (or almost no) income tax.

[schwartzworld]

We've proven that the US can write a check whenever it wants, and yet whenever we talk about helping regular Americans with free college or healthcare or UBI the national conversation is "how are we going to pay for it?" Writing a check to wall street to bolster profits while leaving Americans to mostly fend for themselves is still theft.

And if you are working and don't pay income tax it's because your employer is legally allowed to pay you poverty wages.

[throwaway_USD]

>But people who don’t earn much money aren’t going to be responsible for that bill because they pay no (or almost no) income tax.

Maybe, but the devaluation of the dollar as a result of this additional and significant debt is only going to effect the daily lives of people "who don't earn much money."

[GrinningFool]

> Easy Congress put on bandannas and robbed the tax payers of about $18,000 each.

I think you're under the mistaken impression that the debt incurred by the aid packages will somehow get repaid.

[ac29]

The US doesn't have a history of defaulting on its sovereign debt, and I haven't heard any serious claims that that is going to change anytime soon. In fact, its a great time for the government to take on debt, since even very long term debt costs less than inflation - 30 year debt is 1.4%, and 10 year debt is <0.7%: https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/i...

[GrinningFool]

Historically the US debt balance has gone up for longer and by higher amounts than it goes down. I don't see how this pattern leads to a zero balance in the future?

[throwaway_USD]

Whether it gets repaid or not has no bearing on the fact that taxpayers were robbed and their future taxes were used in large part to prop up an historically overvalued stock market completely detached from traditional P/E ratios.

Plus the working class will be made to suffer as their measly incomes, taxed at significantly higher rates than capital gains, will be worth even less due to devaluation of the dollar and inflation.

[ed25519FUUU]

And state and city governments went ahead and took 80% of their covid money to pay themselves or their sinking pensions, etc.

> As part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act signed in March, Sacramento County received $181 million to fund necessary programs or expenses tied to the COVID-19 pandemic ... Of the nearly $148 million that the county has already spent in the last few months, more than $104 million went toward paying for salaries and benefits

1. https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article244813632.html

[jshaqaw]

You mean to pay for teachers, first responders, etc...? Yes it takes humans to provide services.

[throwaway_USD]

>You mean to pay for teachers

This is going to be a very interesting and telling litmus test for the future of the Country in the next few months.

If public schools go the route of remote teaching, which I think they will...then I don't see much choice but for State, County and local governments to go to war against the Teachers Unions and lay waste to upwards of 75% of the teacher workforce. Lets ballpark about 3M teachers losing their jobs and the entire educational system reformed where there is very limited public school in person attendance. As bad as losing 3M jobs would be to the economy, there will be untold negative impacts on children and parents that will have to leave their children unsupervised during the day.

[ghaff]

Why do you think remote teaching takes markedly fewer people?

[tsherr]

It should take one really good "lecturer" and then a bunch of TAs. The TAs would be lower paid off course. Would it be fewer overall all? Maybe not, but salaries would change.

[giantg2]

It should be interesting.

In a lot of states, it's not legal to leave your kids unsupervised depending on their age. I would guess that if they laid off teachers (which I think is unlikely on a massive scale due to them facilitating the online classes), then those laid off teachers might be hired as tutors or baby sitters.

[jshaqaw]

I'm not so sure of this. First of all, remote learning takes just as many teachers as in-person learning unless the education plan is just "watch Khan academy and check in with us in a year." In fact under the hybrid models being proposed in areas like NYC it will take more teachers as the teacher doing in-class learning cannot simultaneously handle remote instruction. There are some decent ed-tech products out there but they can't put education on autopilot.

Second, even if you had the technology to automate remote learning during the crisis, are you going to fire all your teachers only to rehire them in Spring/Summer? No I don't have a crystal ball on the future but I'd be surprised if by Spring we didn't have some form of viable if not 100% effective vaccine. We won't be locked inside forever.

[giantg2]

Yep, most expensive part of local budgets by far.

[ed25519FUUU]

Weird, how did they pay these people without emergency covid funding??

[jshaqaw]

Tax revenues which have been decimated by the crisis. Unlike the Federal government which can effectively borrow/print whatever it needs, states and municipals are limited by the real world and either have balanced budget requirements or de facto requirements imposed by the bond market/fiscal realities. The equation is simple. Tax revenues have plummeted while expenses have risen due to the costs of coping with the crisis (unemployment, medical services, etc..). Am I saying all of these tax dollars are spent with great efficiency? Of course not. But imposing unnecessary austerity in the middle of a crisis has proven time and time again to do nothing but prolong and deepen economic pain. It would be arbitrary and destructive if say US defense spending can remain immune because it has access to infinite credit while our school district and firefighters will be cut because they are state/local funded.

[giantg2]

Also, they are paying a lot of overtime in health related workers or to make up for workers who test positive and for increased cleaning crews, so not only are the hours going up but they are paying the 1.5x rate more often. Sacramento is also relatively expensive and I assume there are a high number of state employees there since it's the capital.